The sound of footsteps could be heard coming from the stairway. Their loud clapping and odd pace telling a tale of a person that was in a hurry. The footsteps belonged to a fellow with unkempt short red hair, who paused only after reaching the third floor.

His blue eyes narrowed in annoyance as he realized there was no one else visible in the hallway. ‘It hasn’t even been a minute since we last seen them, how the fuck did they get up here so fast…’

His annoyance mostly stemmed from a device located in his right hand that he was in a hurry to get rid of. The device was called a scroll, ‘Is one of these rooms theirs?’, a multifunctional device that was used both to communicate with other students through a safe line, ‘Maybe they’re on the other halfway,’ helped keep track of their location during missions, ’should have known I’m not that lucky’ and a 16-megapixel camera.

He had a similar device in the pocket of his blue jeans, ‘Should i just knock at a random door and hope for the best?’ and was trying to find the owner of the extra scroll, ‘Yeah, and get it wrong the first time while people give me weird looks…’ It’s safe to say Berry didn’t like the thought of owning something that wasn’t his, particularly if the owner would likely need it, and was slowly getting agitated the longer he couldn’t find him.

In an attempt to calm himself down, he closed his eyes as a golden light seem to emanate from his body before he took a deep breath through his nose. The breath lasted far longer than normal as the golden energy and worryingly large quantities of air was being inhaled by the Hunter to be. It was a rather mundane thing to do with his aura, and he got chastised repeatedly for using it so callously. Obviously, he didn’t listen, and thankfully so, as Berrie caught the wiff of something in the room next to him. A mix of residual fire dust and a scent he could only describe as edible.

‘Someone's making food,’ smirked the would be canine, as he exhaled through his nose a gust so strong it pushed all the dust in the vicinity across all hallways.

An intermittent mix of humming and whistling could be heard from the room emitting the smells of food, followed shortly by the click off a stove being turned off. A strong cinnamon smell wafted out of the small kitchen as a copper haired girl exited the room, carrying a covered tray. She paused a moment to turn off the light and noticed someone else in the hall. ”Evening” She greeted warmly, ”You don’t look like one of the students for this floor. New kid?” The girl inquired, balancing the tray on one hand a moment as she closed the kitchen door.

“Yeah. Was looking for a guy I think stays on this floor,” now if he could only remember his name, “Argent...uh?...Argentuh?” Berry asked, hoping he got it right.

”Argento?” the girl responded, curious, ”Any reason why?” She contemplated a moment, ”I’m Alivia, by the way.”

“Berry. Found a scroll lying on the floor and i think it’s his,” or at least he hoped it was. Berry raised the hand that held said device as proof.

”One way to check.” Alivia said, as she pulled her own scroll from her pocket. Sliding the device into the phone panel, she tapped Argento’s contact information from her call list; the result came near instantly, as the device in Berry’s hand began to ring softly. ”That’s his alright. Follow me to our dorm, he should be there with the others.” She instructed, immediately turning and making her way down the long hallway, shifting the tray into both hands after stowing her scroll.The younger hunter put the scroll in the pocket of his red hoodie, and silently walked next to the brown headed senior.

”So, how do you like Beacon so far, Berry?” She asked as they walk, her every other step leaving a slight metallic *chunk* sound in its wake.

“It’s...been fine, I guess,” Berry half answered, opting not to comment on the sound.

”Don’t sweat it too much if you had a rough first day.” The girl advised, keeping an even pace, ”Any issues with teammates?”

“Barely met them so not really,” said Berry as his hands found their way into the pockets of his red hoodie.

”That’s good, better not knowing them than having conflict.” The metal legged girl added cheerfully as they rounded the corner, ”I was lucky, already knew my partner, and had met one of the other two while we were in combat school.” She stopped a moment later, next to the room that Berry assumed was hers.

Alivia rebalanced the tray on her right hand to fish out her scroll; waving it in front of the digital lock. With a soft click the door is unlocked. With a smooth motion, she opened the door and restored her scroll to its place, gesturing for Berry to enter the dorm. Within, two ordinary beds can be seen to the left, while at the right is a large padded matt covered in bedding.

”Welcome back” Rumbled a deep voice from the left of the door, where a hulking man with unruly brown hair stood packing metal cans with dust and buckshot.

‘And people call me tall?’, thought Berry, as he became aware that the giant was only a couple of feet away from hitting the twelve foot ceiling, while slouching.

The tall man turned and looked down, ”Smells good, what did you make?” He asked just before he noticed Berry ”Brought a guest along, eh? Make yourself at home.” He invited, a coarse edge to his voice. Gauthak capped the open shell and set it on a shelf, stowing the excess shot and powder in a compartment beneath the loading bench. ”Welcome to the dorm, I’m Gauthak. and you are?” The overgrown young man asked, offering one enormous hand.

‘Unnerved...’ Thought the guest as he shook the tall man’s hand as best he could. “Berry.”

”So, what brings you to our humble apartment?” He joked, stepping away from the bench to allow Alivia to set her tray down.

”He found Argento’s scroll.”

Gauthak nodded. ”Doesn’t seem like him to lose it.” He looked at the shorter red haired student. ”Where did you pick it up?” Gauthak asked, watching from the corner of his eye as Alivia places several squares of fried, battered bread on a plate.

“The ground. Was looking for our room after he talked to my team about...stuff, so we figured it was his.”

The olive toned giant could only roll his eyes. ”Need to have a serious discussion with him about trying to pick up the freshman.” The man guessed, receiving a shrug from Alivia as she hands him the plate.

“I think so?” Berry was beginning to regret not paying attention to what Argento asked them.

”Would you like some, Berry?” she asked politely, watching Gauthak shove a slice of the toast into his mouth and shooting her partner a stern look, ”Plenty to go around.”

Berry mulled over the question for a bit. He didn’t like owing people anything, but she didn’t seem like the type to ask for favours. “Yeah...thanks.” He took one piece with a slightly concerned look on his face

The girl passed him a plate and took a few pieces for herself, setting a fork onto her own plate and covering the tray. ”When you saw him was he with a blue haired girl?” The girl asked, waiting a moment as Gauthak slowly lowered himself to a cross legged position before sitting down on his knee.

“Yeah, was hoping I’d catch up with them since they left like, a minute before we noticed the scroll, but I guess they went to another floor.”

Alivia nodded along as he spoke, ”If Naeva caught him hitting on your new team she probably took him up the opposite stairs. She might have stopped to yell at him about it… Should be here any moment.” The copper haired girl guessed.

They sat in silence for a brief moment as Berry considered just making a beeline for the door and just letting them handle this. His chance however pases when the door clicked open, with Naeva entering first and shortly followed by the silver haired flirt.

”Argento, lose something?” Gauthak asked, gesturing to Berry, who reached into his right pocket to pull out the item that brought him here.

Argento stared, startled and confused a moment before reaching back and checking his pocket. ”When did I-” He wondered aloud, ”Where did you get that?” He asked politely, composing himself. Stepping forward, the silver haired boy extended a hand to take his scroll.

“The ground,” said Berry as he gave it back, “we figured it was yours since everyone else had theirs.”

The teal eyed upperclassmen took the scroll, opening it briefly to check for tampering before storing it once more in his pocket. ”Thank’s for returning it, be screwed without. Got a lot of important stuff in there.”

“Important?” That one word was enough to send shivers down his spine. It was one thing to think an object was important, and another to be told so by the owner. The fact Berry also currently owned one didn’t help. “Like?”

Naeva rolled her eyes as she brushed past them,”Scroll numbers for special friends most likely.” Stopping at the workbench to grab a few slices of french toast before sitting down on one of the two beds, ”I see you’ve been welcomed into the pack.” The tin voiced girl noted, nodding towards the food in his hand before taking a bite of her own, ”Welcome.” She added, still chewing, the pinpoint light in her throat blinking in unison with her words.

‘Was that thing always there?’ Berry chose not to ask.

Argento opened his mouth to contest her claim, but stopped to rethink her words before responding. ”And school papers!” The boy finally protested, stepping into the room while closing the door behind him and flopping face first on his bed, rolling onto his back. ”What she said, though. Welcome”

“You don’t need to be so nice...I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for the scroll,” he mumbled out a response, realizing just how out of place he was in this whole situation. He was one step away from just leaving, but he figured he might have come off as rude if he didn’t finish the food offered. so instead chose to take a bigger bite.

Agento watched the new kid from the corner of his eye, noticing the nerved slipping into his expression. ”You know you can leave any time you like, right? We don’t mind having you around but honestly team mom over there didn’t need to invite you to stay.”

Alivia glared at her teammate. ”Well excuse me for being civil,” She shifted slightly in her spot in her partners knee, ”He is right, though. If you’re uncomfortable feel free to go at any time. You have no obligation to stay, and frankly we do need to clean up a bit before bed.” She looked up and over her shoulder at Gauthak, ”Need to get things tucked away for the night.” The largest student nodded silently in agreement.

“Sorry, not good with…” Hunters? Elders? People? “Stuff...probably need to clean up my room, after i find it,” said Berry as he made his way to the door with his back towards it, “Sorry, again. And, thanks, for the food I mean.”

Gauthak half waved as he stuffed another piece of toast into his mouth, while Argento provided a silent thumbs up and Alivia nodded curtly. ”Come back any time” The blue girl added with a teasing wink, followed by a proper wave goodbye.

“Bye,” replied Berry as he shut the door behind him in a manner that could only be described as a borderline slam. If one payed attention they might have heard a very drawn out sigh. Team VLCN however, did not need to pay a lot of attention to notice one of their carpets moving away from the door a couple inches.

”Guess he was more freaked out than we thought.” Naeva observed, standing and returning her plate to the mostly empty tray. ”Probably give him a few minutes to get clear before we take this stuff to the kitchen, don’t want to overwhelm the poor guy.”

The other three nodded unanimously and Gauthak added,
”Alivia, I love you, but do you really need to invite people to visit this late in the evening?”

She shrugged. ”Just being polite.”

It was perhaps an hour and a half later, after the newly minted teams had eaten their dinner and taken their time to introduce themselves to each other. For most of the students the concept of a 4 man team wasn’t introduced to them up until the ceremony; there were those suspicious of the fact that every sword they could chose had a matching sheath, but in their rush to pass initiation even the most savvy applicants didn’t have the time to fully comprehend the implication.

Team CLRT, however, wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with one another; although circumstances made it so they didn’t interact with each other at their best, it did show them they can work well together. As a result, their focus was more on the food offered, rather than reintroducing themselves.

Now, with their hunger sated, the quartet decided to make their way to their room, and more importantly to a bed. It was that decision that brought them back to the main hall, staring at a map of the campus.

“Beacon possesses a music club?” asked Viola with a raised brow, her hair once again combed and swept to her right side. With a little luck, this would be the last time she had to do that today.

“Apparently, I’m more interested in the sports fields myself.” Argent replied to his partner.

“I’m partial to the games club if they have ch…” the witch murmured before her eyes widened, “I’m just surprised to see Beacon have such a non physical or mentally engaging club, ‘tis all,” she really hoped no one heard that.

“Well, I suppose even Hunters need some way to relax.” Cereza mentioned to the violet girl, pulling out her own scroll.

Not for the first time that day did Tierra growl at her crutches, thinking of how a normally easy trip to the dorms would be so complicated by these darn crutches. But the Faunus just sighed, knowing she was lucky. “Did you see if they have an astronomy club or anything like that?” the cheetah girl asked, looking up at the stars. “They sure are beautiful around here, far enough away from the city to allow a clear view.”

“They have a garden club,” Cereza noted absently as she moved the map around on the small screen of her scroll. She scowled as her fingers blocked her view as they moved the map around for a better look, and started using her semblance instead. The images on the small screen suddenly started flicking around as the blonde cross referenced the text she had received with the map, and soon a path to the dormitories from their position was overlaid on the map itself, all without her moving her fingers. “I have a path.”

‘Oh, so the weapon isn’t the only thing powered by her semblance,’ noted the witch, remembering the words spoken to her during initiation.

She showed the image to her teammates, expanding her scroll so they could get a better look.

The limping faunus looked over the map, sort of snorting that the leader choose the easiest way possible to do things but also sort of impressed that the tall blonde had that sort of technique with digital devices. “Are you also planning on mapping the way to our classes?” Tierra asked in a half bemused, half curious tone.

Cereza blinked at the shortest member of the team. “Did you want me to?”

It was Viola’s turn to blink at her cyberpunk teammate. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt to know the shortest routes, if it’s not to much of a bother.” Still she couldn’t help but wonder, ‘...what else can she do with that semblance?’

“You mean you hadn’t already thought of that?” asked the noirette of her taller partner. “How extraordinary. I thought all technophiles would figure out with their high tech devices how to do things the easiest way possible while picking up a coffee.”

Cereza frowned slightly, lowering her scroll as she looked at her partner. She knew that she wasn’t the best at social interaction, a by product of growing up with the only constant person in her life being her older brother, but even she recognised what seemed like mockery. “And when, pray tell, was I supposed to think of this? I was a bit busy today being thrown into the air and then fighting for my life in a forest. Not to mention, we literally only just got our schedules and maps.”

“Let’s just get to the dorms, I for one could use a good night’s rest.” Argent suggested, to head off any potential argument between his two teammates, though also because it was true, getting knocked unconscious after fighting for his life would do that.

“Splendid idea Sir Roan,” Viola clapped her hands once in order to get their attention, or at least the attention of her leader, “We still have a few things to take care of till the day ends, do we not?” She directed her gaze at Cereza as she moved to Cerezas right side, the side Tierra did not occupy.

Tierra’s green eyes glared for a while yet at her partner’s face, rearing now for a fight. But then she sighed, knowing that now was really not the time, before replying, ”Yes, you are right, Viola. There are still things left to do.” Then the faunus turned her eyes turned a clump of bushes they were passing by before saying, “Sorry for losing my temper, Cereza. It just has been a long day.”

Uncertainty crossed Cereza’s face as she tried to think why Tierra would have lost her temper, but the blonde really didn’t understand. They had been talking, and then it seemed like the girl had mocked her and Cereza had pointed out that she had not had a chance to do anything at all, all perfectly logical. ’People are so illogical.’ She mused to herself, and looked down at the map she had modified. Deciding to ignore the situation for now, she gestured, “The elevator is this way.”

The hacker stepped away from the girls framing either side of her, leading the group in the direction of the dorm building.

“Thank you,” mouthed the witch to her partner once she was sure the other two wouldn’t notice, before a thought struck her. Quickening her pace to catch up to her leader, simple task given Tierra’s limp, she held her left hand in her right as she opened her mouth. “Do we know the layout of our residence?”

Argent pulled out his scroll and pulled up the map of the dorm on the holographic screen, then he held the device up for his teammates to see. “It’s on our scrolls, check it out.”

“The text said we were on the second floor, room two-oh-seven. It should be one of the rooms in the middle, though which exact room I am not sure.” Cereza explained, not stopping her slow walk or looking up at Argent’s screen as she flicked through her own scroll.

“There...doesn’t appear to be any sort of partitions between the beds.” noted Viola, a practiced smile appearing on her face in order to mask a small sense of dread building in her stomach.

Tierra’s eyes snapped back to Viola, “No partitions?” The faunus then looked closely at the knight’s dorm map. “Oh boy. This is going to be awkward.”

“Partition? Why would we-” Cereza stopped and turned back to the trio behind her, her eyes alighting on Argent. Her mind was quick to finish the coding - one bedroom, one male and three females. She fiddled with her scroll awkwardly. “Oh.”

“There’s nothing in the rules that I’ve seen that says we have to leave the beds where they were, it should be pretty simple to rearrange the beds as we see fit.” Argent pointed out to the girls on his team, he wasn’t any more comfortable with the prospect of sharing a room with three girls than they were with sharing a room with him.

The noirette then took an even closer look, trying her best to estimate sizes and such. “No good way to arrange the beds and add a some sort of barrier. The girls’ side would have be pretty squished in order to give you any decent sort of room even if we just did a Wall of Vacuo with a big enough cloth and string.” She hummed a bit and tried to think of something.

“Let’s...not overdramatize the situation,” Viola said with a voice that was at odds with her smile, “People our age are probably used to sleeping with...in this arrangement, and I assure you both Sir Roan is nothing short of a gentleman...I’ll simply have to find a work around sharing a changing room with a...sword bearer.”

Argent had a suggestion for a solution. “Well, if space is the big issue about putting up a curtain then there’s a fairly simple solution: bunk beds, if we have at least one then the other two don’t have to jam together to make room and whoever gets the second bunk will have the top bunk as a sight shield, regardless of which bunk they choose, how about that idea?”

Cereza made a face. “Can I not have a bunk bed? It’ll be hard enough sleeping in the same room as other people, let alone sleeping so close to someone.”

Argent shrugged. “We only need one bunk bed for this to work, so that should be fine. Anyone else object?”

That didn’t exactly help with her current predicament, nonetheless,“I see nothing wrong with using one bunk bed, although i would to prefer not sleep in it unless i can get the bottom bunk.”

“Let’s figure it out when we get there; we’ll have a better look at the size of the furniture and room then.” The hacker suggested.

"That would probably be for the best," Tierra agreed with her partner. "Besides, we may not be able to make bunkbeds. It might be too damaging to the furniture or something. I could sleep under one of the beds if worse comes to worse."

“No one is going to be sleeping under a bed; that’s ridiculous.” Cereza frowned. “What would that accomplish? Besides, even if someone were to sleep under a bed, it would have to be Argent since he is the only male in the team.”

As she spoke, she led the rest of team CLRT towards the elevator again. Waving her scroll in front of the access panel, the blonde frowned at the red light that came on. “Declined? What?”

She was just about to dive into the computer system to find out what was going on when two pairs of footsteps behind the group caught her attention. The hacker half-turned towards the approaching people, a question on her tongue before she realised they were not students.

A pair of adults approached, one female and one male. The woman was a platinum blonde, her hair long and loose, flowing over her shoulders and contrasting against the dark brown corset with golden embroidery and matching sleeveless cropped jacket she wore, along with a pair of bracers that held some sort of mechanism that obviously folded out into a pair of weapons. Black stretch vinyl pants tucked into knee high boots completed her look, and she watched the quartet with guarded pink eyes flecked with gold.

Her companion was taller, and there was a certain amount of familial resemblance between their features. He also had platinum blonde hair, kept short and neat to go along with the white formal shirt he wore with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top couple of buttons undone. A buttoned up stormy grey vest and rumpled black slacks over combat boots completed his casual-formal ensemble, and where the woman’s eyes were guarded his black ones were steely. A complicated frame was visible attached to one shoulder, and what looked like a belt of shotgun shells dangled from the obvious weapon.

”Miss Blerta?” The large man asked firmly, watching her carefully.

”Your presence has been requested in the headmaster's office.” Continued the woman, presenting a notice bearing Ozpin’s signature and seal.

“Oh...can I ask what it’s about?” Tierra asked, nervously eyeing the two humans. The notice looked official, but why wouldn’t they have pulled aside before the ceremony, or at dinner? Why wait until now? ’I wonder what it’s about? I haven’t done anything to get myself in trouble...have I?’

”Not our place to say, i’m afraid, although it is to do with your enrollment around here.”

Cereza watched the scene in curiosity, her mind already thinking of doing a little bit of hacking to find out what was going on. Her mind brought up the memory of her brother talking about his new gang he was creating, and the hacker thought to herself; ‘Wasn’t Midas making an information broker’s guild? I wonder if I can get any information on this from him.’

“...May we come as well?” asked the violet haired witch, a practiced smile on her face set in order to mask her worry. “If it’s something that involves her enrollment than it is of concern to us as well.”

“Sorry, Miss. Involved parties only.” The man gave her what looked like an attempt at a reassuring smile, and held a hand out for Tierra. “This way, Miss Blerta.”

“...Understandable,” she said with a curt nod.

As Tierra and the two adults walked off Argent spoke up. “What... what was that?”

Tierra hobbled in the direction the man indicated, framed on either side by the two adults as the remaining members of CLRT watched with mixed emotions. As they turned the corner, the man pulled out his scroll and sent a message to someone, and moments later the trio’s scrolls *pinged* as a text came in. Upon inspection, it was a new set of access codes to the elevator and dorm rooms.

“I’m...not sure. But I might be able to find out.” Cereza frowned slightly. Contemplating sending a text to her brother with her semblance, she turned back to the elevator and finally accessed it. Stepping inside, the hacker turned back to her remaining team mates. “We won’t be able to do anything standing around here; let’s go.”

“Of course.” Argent agreed, though he was still thinking about what had just happened.

Cereza held the doors of the elevator open a second as she noticed her violet-haired teammate wasn’t following. “Viola?”

“...Hmm?” was her short reply, as she turned her head to glance in her teammates direction.

“Are you coming?” The hacker beckoned the young woman towards the elevator. “We can discuss the entirety of the program in our dorm, and maybe find out what’s going on.”

Viola silently made her way to the elevator. “Right.”

The ride up to the second floor was silent, none of the trio really feeling like talking. Cereza checked her scroll for the number of their dorm while she waited, reaffirming what dorm they were in.

With a sigh, it was Viola that decided to break the silence. “What number was the room assigned to us again?”

“207.” Cereza replied shortly, watching the floor indicator.

The hallway was empty, thankfully, as the remains of CLRT made their way to their dorm. The doors were blank, but the electronic latches beside each door had the room number etched into the panel in small writing. Either the other teams were all fast asleep, due to the later hour as CLRT had been a bit slower in their travels because of Tierra’s broken ankle, or the rooms were soundproofed, as the halls were eerily silent.

Cereza carefully checked the latch of the door nearest her and the doorway opposite, and counted the doorways down the hall. “We should be somewhere near the middle, unless we’re in the side building. I doubt that though.”

“How so?” inquired the witch.

The hacker gestured to the T intersection in front of the elevator they had arrived on, which had a sign pointing to the side building and proclaimed: ‘Dorms 215-218’. “The evidence suggests otherwise.”

“Oh, apologies. Guess I was a bit distracted,” her tone of voice mirrored her statement.

“I can understand that, but right now we need to find our dorm. We can worry about this thing with Tierra in the morning, once we’ve gotten some rest and hopefully more information.”

Cereza led the way, striding down the hall. As they drew closer to another T intersection, she checked the room to her left, reading the number. “208. That means this one should be our dorm,” She motioned to the door on the right of the group, opposite the dorm she had just checked.

With a wave of the hackers scroll, the remaining members of team CLRT were finally allowed into their dorm room. The room was pretty bare bones, with four large beds, four tables, a low bookshelf underneath the window opposite the door and a small door either side of the surprisingly spacious room.

On one of the tables just beside the door was a bag of pegs and an instruction booklet, detailing how to put together the bunk beds.

“I guess bunk beds are allowed.” Cereza muttered.

‘Bunk beds,’ that thought was enough to wake Viola out of her stupor, a sense of dread forming in the pit of her stomach before she remembered Cereza and her both made their distaste for the beds known. Now a little more awake, she looked around the room. “We each get our own desk it seems,” said Viola, eying the desks, or rather the three shelves on the wall the desks were placed.

The tallest member glanced around the room, noting the stuff stacked on three of the beds. “Tierra’s things aren’t here.”

And once again Viola was beginning to feel distracted, “I...haven’t noticed...” was her reply as some strands of hair began to fall in front of her face, despite the fact she still kept her head high and her smile in place.

Argent could see the mood of the room dropping fast, this line of conversation needed to be derailed immediately. “Come on girls, we still need to set up. We can worry about Tierra when we have more information, we just need to focus on the problems we can solve before worrying about the ones we don’t know anything about, alright?”

Cereza pursed her lips and nodded, “You are correct, Argent. I’m sure we can find out more in the morning; for now let’s set this up so Tierra can come back to a perfect room. You suggested a single set of bunk beds, Argent. Do you mind sharing with Tierra? I don’t think Viola or I particularly want bunks.” ’I can send a message to Midas in the morning if the professors don’t tell us anything.’

“That should be fine, I’d prefer the bottom bunk, but until Tierra’s leg heals I’ll take the top.”

“Which beds should we use as the bunk beds?” inquired Viola, moving the loose strand into it’s proper place.

“Well,” Cereza surveyed the room, “If we leave the two outer ones in their corners, we can use the middle beds for the bunk. Less furniture for us to move about in the long run.”

“We may have to move a table or two if we wish to place the bed next to a wall,” was Violas reply.

“That’s easily done,” The blonde shrugged one shoulder, “And we’ll be opening a big space in the centre of the room, so it’s not like we won’t have anywhere to put them. If you’ll get the tables, Viola, Argent and I can grab the shelves and move the beds.”

With a vague plan sorted, the trio placed all their gear in a pile just in front of the bookcase before starting. Viola pulled two of the tables out of the way while Cereza and Argent took down all of the wall shelves and piled them onto one of the beds that wasn’t going to be moved.. The taller duo then moved one of the beds, tucking it into the corner between the entrance door and one of the closets. Viola was quick to drop each pin for the bunk beds into the posts, and Cereza and Argent lifted another bed on top of the first one they had moved. It was done quickly, the instructions for creating bunk beds being pretty clear and simple, and the trio looked around the room.

“We can probably leave the bookshelf where it is, and There should be enough room to tuck a desk between it and a bed. I’ll have that one, so I can set my laptop up.” Cereza pointed out, and pushed one of the tables Viola had moved into the allocated space.

Viola took the chance to explore the closet she would have to share with Argent. Room there was, enough even for four people if they tried. Nonetheless, Viola was self aware she...liked to take her time doing things most kids her age would call menial...if they even knew what the word was. Things that, would require Sir Roan to wait a couple…hours? For her to relax proper…’Houh?’ thought Viola as she opened a drawer, revealing some spare sheets and something couldn’t place. “What do you suppose this is Sir Roan?” she asked while feeling the material with her hands.

“Looks like spare curtains to me.” The silver knight replied to his partner’s inquiry.

“A spare...” a thought struck Viola as she exited the closet and took a look at the shelves. “Sir Roan, have you...given any thought to the possibility of either of us having to change at the same time in case of an emergency?”

“I’m going to go ahead and assume that’s what the spare curtains are supposed to be for. We’ll just need to set up a screen for changing in emergencies.” Argent wasn’t any more comfortable with the prospect of changing in the same room as a girl as any of his teammates were at the prospect of changing in the same room as him. Viola was right, it would be best if they had a method in place for handling such a situation ahead of time.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to modifying my desk as a spare changing place. I...lose track of time when I spruce up and would abhore to have to make you wait on me.” She also would hate to be interrupted from her grooming but, ‘that information is not important for him to know.’

Argent shrugged. “Whatever you need to do.”

Taking a closer look at the shelves, Viola noticed they were made of one, as opposed to two, pieces. “Hmm, miss Cereza, a moment of your time please?”

“Yes, Viola?”

“Would you be opposed to sawing the shelves on the wall in half?”

“How many are we talking? Because I wouldn’t mind a shelf for myself.” The hacker replied.

“...All of them? there are 6 shelves as of now so if we split them in half we each should get 3 to use for anything we need,” the Witch supplied.

“What? Why would we need twelve short shelves?” Cereza asked incredulously. “Look, we can put one full shelf above my bed, one above yours, and one for each of the bunks, which will give us plenty of space for personal items. The beds are big enough that a shelf just above the mattress isn’t going to interfere with any sleeping positions. That’s four of them. Then we can split to remaining two in half and put them above the desks, so we each get a shelf for textbooks. We all get a full shelf and a half shelf, and we don’t need to go sawing every shelf in the room in half.”

“Perhaps not, but i do need a way to make that curtain cover this whole corner without any gaps. Sawing all of them just seemed like the simplest solution,” was violas explanation.

“Well, half a shelf above your table, which will only be a few feet, should be easy enough to cover. Then we can have another half above the table next to the door,” Cereza gestured to the table she meant as she spoke, “and another half above Argent’s table, wherever he decides to put it. Then I can have the final shelf above my table, beside my bed. That’s only two shelves sawed, and we each still get a full shelf.”

“That does sounds like less of a bother...fair enough miss Cereza, I’ll admit defeat,“ with that minor setback out of the way, Viola moved on with her request, ”Did you perhaps also think of a way to cut the shelves?”

Cereza glanced around the room, looking for anything that could be vaguely used as an axe. The only thing she could think of would be one of their weapons, as there wasn’t exactly a saw stored away in one of the closets. However, Argent’s sword and Viola’s rapier weren’t exactly designed for any sort of sawing motions. Her eyes lingered on Llaw Du, or more precisely, the fact that it had a handle that could be used as a leverage point for the back and forth motion a saw needed.

“Well,” She sighed, “I guess we could use my weapon. I can unfold one of the blades, which should suffice for what we want to do, and you and Argent can hold either end of the shelves steady between two tables, which can act as work horses.”

Sensing a bit of reservation, Viola vaguely considered using ice dust to cover her sword into a makeshift saw...and promptly dismissed that idea, “I’m sure we can use Sir Roan’s sword just fine, it might take a bit longer but the result will be the same.”

Cereza shook her head, hefting her weapon into a ready position. “It doesn’t have the handle necessary for the proper leverage and would probably end up taking us all night,” She explained, showing how she could grasp the side handle in one hand and the main part of the folded up shaft with the other for a proper sawing motion. She pursed her lips and waved the violette’s concerns away, “It’s fine; I’ll just have to sharpen the blade is all.”

The job was done quickly, and the shelves were quickly moved around the room. One whole shelf went above Cereza’s bed, another above Viola’s bed, and the remaining two were mounted against the long side wall of each bunk, giving Argent and Tierra - when she came back - a shelf each. The two shelves which had been split where each mounted above one of the tables, though in the case of Viola’s curtained corner she mounted it below the table as a beauty shelf.

With a pause, Viola turned to her teammates.“I was planning on looking for a faculty member like Miss Goodwitch and requesting a mirror,” and perhaps ask her some questions regarding initiation, “Do any of you have a request I can make on your behalf?”

Cereza shrugged from across the room, where she was fiddling with a wall mounting for her shelf. “I don’t really need anything. Argent?”

During this, Argent picked up an unclaimed table and carried it over to the foot of the bunk beds before taking an alarm clock out of his bags and setting it up, then he turned to his teammates. “Nope, I’m good.”

It was late when they finally finished setting up team CLRT’s dorm room, and Cereza stretched as she toed off her boots.

“I think it’s time for bed,” She said as she instantly lost six inches, making her the same height as the silver haired knight. She glanced at her scroll, which said it was just after eleven, and shifted her swag to beside her bed, placing her briefcase on her table. “I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m going to sleep. I’ll see you all in the morning, I guess.”

“Mind if I join you?” said Viola, as she lost 2 inches of height, picking up a bag no doubt filled with bath utilities.

Cereza shrugged, though inwardly she felt a little uncomfortable at the idea of there perhaps being public showers. A lifetime of two people did not make her ready for shared shower stalls, and she prayed that they had private stalls in the bathrooms. “I can’t stop you. We’ll be back shortly, Argent. Unless you wanted to shower as well?”

“I’ll shower in the morning, I’m just gonna get changed and go to sleep. Good night.”

“We’ll try and be silent when we come back,” said Viola, ”sleep well.”

“Thanks.” Finally allowing the full extent of the day’s exertions to catch up to him, Argent gave his partner a sleepy smile.

Once the girls were out of the room Argent changed out of his combat clothes and into a black tank top and grey sweatpants before climbing the ladder to the top bunk and getting under the covers. His exhausted mind shut down immediately, sending the silver knight deep into dreams.

Russ woke up the following morning feeling more rested than she’d ever felt before. There was no ache in her bones, no soreness in her muscles, and no crick in her neck from a rock-pillow or earthy mattress. It would have been without a doubt the best morning she’d ever had, had the thing that awoke her not been the message-beeping of her scroll.

To be fair, that in and of itself wasn’t bad. Reading the damn thing took her awhile, but that too wasn’t the issue, it was what she read that unnerved her. Some of the words she flat-out didn’t recognize, but she gathered that there was someone presently waiting to meet with her, and that was enough to turn the good feelings she had sour.

Whoever this was, whoever was claiming that they knew her, they were lying, simple as that.

She hopped down from the bunk of her bed, light and quiet, given the early status of the morning. That said, as she snatched her blades up and made her way out, she didn’t check to see if her departure had awoken anyone else. Wasn’t that she didn’t care, but whoever this mystery motherfucker was, Russ wasn’t too keen on being the butt of their story.

As Russ left the room, a lemur tailed faunus emerged from one of the closets, label gun in hand “I wonder where she’s headed.” she pondered a moment before setting the labeller on a table, picking up her folded weapon from a shelf and following behind

It was a notable journey finding her way out and back to the school’s entrance, but at length she arrived, and to no grand reveal. There were two people present, one a familiar looking teacher and the other, sure enough, she didn’t recognize in the slightest. However, he glared at her like she was some age-old enemy of his, his scarred face turned cold and ugly in disgust.

There was a sharp comment on her tongue, but before she could even begin to tilt the conversation, he stormed forward.

”You, you’re the little thief,” he growled, and only when he was standing before her did she realize how mountainous he was, and how...not, she was.

”Hey now, I--”

She didn’t get to finish whatever excuse she had lined up, something reflexive, almost involuntary in response to an accusation like that. The man grabbed her by the collar and hauled her close.

Nearby, hidden behind a statue, a red haired girl’s hand instinctively went for her weapon, holding back a moment to observe the situation

”Do you have any idea what you’ve caused? Do you? Justice would be done to see you hanged, do you understand me?”

A loud cough from the teacher standing by drew his attention from her for a moment “I would appreciate you not manhandling the students of this Academy, sir.” the effeminate huntsman requested politely, taking a step forward.

The man let her go, albeit roughly, and Russ stumbled back. Every instinct screamed at her to make a break for it, but something told her more definitively that she wasn’t going to escape.

”Student? Her?” he hissed, and turned again to Russ. ”Little liar, too, are you?”

Russ looked to the teacher, whoever they were, in the hopes that they might be able to do something.

“Regardless of her past transgressions Miss Russet completed initiation, as such she is fully qualified as a student of this Academy.” the green eyed teacher stared down the man, resting a hand on his belt “If you take issue with that you may discuss it with the headmaster, however I doubt your having assaulted of one of his students will reflect well in whatever complaint is lodged.” Umuthi stepped forward further “Now, please let us settle the matter you came here to discuss.”

”Reflect well?” the man said, and met Umuthi’s gaze with his own. ”How about the death of twelve people? Would that reflect well on your school? Twelve, elderly, men, women and children.” he again looked to Russ, a finger jabbed at her chest. ”Did you ever think of that? Did you ever even consider the consequences of what you did?”

”I don’t fucking know who you are, guy!” Russ shouted, a bit surprised at herself for getting worked up so easily. But what choice did she have? The guy was blaming her for what? Murder? Ridiculous, she’d never so much as sucker-punched someone.

But the man didn’t seem to care, in fact, her ignorance only seemed to fuel his anger. He took hold of The Daughter’s handle before she could react and flung it from its sheathe, onto the ground. The inscription was far easier to make out in the open daylight. Russ felt her throat close up.

”I was their protector.”

Whatever Russ tried to say came out as mumbles, and she didn’t stop him from yanking what was left of The Son from her as well. He stared at the blades, dented and misshapen from their time beneath the rubble, and for a moment his anger flickered to reveal a crippling sorrow. And then, just as quickly, he was stone again.

”I will not forget what you’ve done, and what you” he snapped at the teacher. ”Have chosen to harbor in your walls. There’s no blood on her hands, but make no mistake, you house a murderer.”

“Any true huntsman will give their life if it means saving just one innocent,” the druid reminded him “That twelve died and yet you live is blood on your hands.” Umuthi glanced over to Russ, “Miss Russet, please return the swords you stole from this man.” the faunus instructed.

The man looked on the verge of lashing out, and he might have, even if the action would have been useless, even suicidal. But Russ intervened in a quiet way, offering the Daughter out as a barring between Umuthi and himself.

He took a deep breath, and in it she saw the scars were further than just his face, trailing down to his neck where they became gashes and horrible lacerations. She pried her eyes down, and pulled her hand away after he’d snatched the blade from it.

”This school will not protect you forever,” he said at last, but his angered had waned. He sounded resigned, the sorrow had crept back. ”You’d never answer for this on your own, but mark my words, justice will be done.”

And with that, the man seemed finished. He gave Umuthi an expectant look, and headed for the airship bay to be taken away.

When he was gone, Russ’s eyes remained affixed to the ground. Sure, some part of her was scared for the man’s threat, but she felt her hands shaking and knew it was for another reason entirely.

”C-can I go…?” she mumbled at last to Umuthi.

“You will be needing a new weapon, Rori. I’ll have you placed in one of Professor Waldgrun’s remedial courses, he’ll ensure you have the tools you require.” the teacher turned to face her “While he acted out of line, he’s not wrong, actions have consequences, regardless of the intention behind them. You are dismissed.”

Any other time it might have unnerved her for a stranger to have used her first name, but Russ merely gave a respectful nod and slunk off. Once she was back inside, out of sight, her slow pace turned to a jog, and she sped away, back towards the dorm.

“Are you okay, Russ?” Lan asked, appearing alongside Russ as she passed the statue the faunus girl had chosen to use for cover.

Russ very nearly had a heart attack, shouting only long enough to echo before slapping her hands over her mouth. Lan? Wasn’t she in the dorm? Or...was she? Dammit, she hadn’t gotten a good enough look before she left, perhaps she was thinking of Tsuki, or...whatshisnuts, the newbie. Er, newer newbie.

”Holy shit, Lan, give a girl a warning next time,” she snapped, only slightly embarrassed that she’d been caught off guard in the first place.

“I was counting shelves in the closets and saw you leave the room, looked a bit freaked out so I followed,” the redhead replied, wearing a look of concern, “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

”Counting shelves, wh--” Russ pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a calmer breath. Ugh, she couldn’t get angry at the girl, especially not with the look on her face. Teammates, Russ, this is what teammates are like, people who are supposed to care. ”Scare me?” she said at last, a little smile taking over. ”Please, I wasn’t scared.”

“Are you sure? because I would definitely call that scared. Or maybe it was just extremely startled?” Lan joked, allowing the concern to melt off of her face “I’m hungry, are you hungry?” the girl trailed off, stomach rumbling.

Russ was glad to see Lan’s mood lighten, and even more glad to have the subject changed. She glanced down to the other girl’s stomach at its growling, and restrained a laugh, nodding to her.

”I’m always hungry. Mind leading the way? Still not sure I know exactly where the cafeteria is.”

Lan thought a moment, trying to remember the path they took the previous night to reach the dorm “I think it’s…” she said, cupping her chin in one hand “this way, ish.” the red haired faunus finished, starting back in the general direction of the dorm.

As Lan headed off, Russ watched after her for a moment, letting her tension ebb away, at least for a bit. She smiled, then a moment later heard her own stomach growl.

”’-ish’ sounds good enough to me,” she said, and followed along.

A short time later, after a bit of wandering, the black haired Human and red haired Faunus arrived at the cafeteria, it was early in the morning and few other students were around, along one wall were several counters between the cafeteria and kitchen, offering a selection of breakfast foods.
Lan made her way for the first window, scouting for fresh produce and picking up a tray at the start of the line.

Russ stepped in behind Lan in line, tray in hand as well. So, you always up this early?” she asked, taking an apple for herself.

“Depends what you mean by up. I wasn’t kidding when I said I can’t sleep.” the lemur answered, piling several peaches onto her tray,

”I mean, everyone has trouble sleeping now and then. What’ve you got, like, insom...the uhh, the sleep thing?”

“That’s what I call it at the very least, seemed fitting. Insomnia, the inability to sleep. Worst. Semblance. Ever.” she complained, grabbing a few slices of toast as she passed by

Russ blinked, snatching up a cup of cereal. ”Wait like, you don’t mean all the time, do you? You get some sleep.”

“If my aura bottoms I tend to pass out, but it doesn’t really count as sleep since I wake up the minute it recharges.” she informed, grabbing a carton of milk and turning to scan for a free table

”That’s...fucking awful. Russ cleared her throat and followed along once again. ”N-not to like, shit on your semblance or anything. Just, damn that sounds rough.”
“No it sucks, hard. Has advantage though.” she slides in at the far end of an empty table “May not have noticed but I reorganized the room last night, got my garden set up,” she starts counting off tasks on her fingers “Was counting out the closets and marking how much space each person gets when you left.”

Russ plopped down next to her, still trying to process the fact that Lan was basically awake twenty-four-seven. Loaned a bit more to her “robot” thoughts on the girl earlier, only now she felt a bit bad about them. Part of her wanted to ask if she knew what dreams were, or if she’d ever had them, but that felt rude, or at least a little ruder than she wanted to be.

”Well, I guess it’s good to have at least one productive person on the team,” she said.

”I used to go out and explore at night but I almost got mugged once, decided to play it safe.” Lan mentioned “Then cabin fever sets in and i need to do something, so I clean, I organize, I read…” she trailed off once more

”Damn, I bet you know a shit ton of stories,” Russ said, digging unceremoniously into the food she’d gathered. ”Never could get into the classics myself.”

She felt it an overstep to clarify, given that she knew none of the classics, or if there even were “classic” stories.

“I tend to read more recent books myself,” the lemur tailed faunus admitted “Actually not as many stories as you might think, tend to read about plants or whatever random thing I’m doing to pass the time.” she added, biting into a peach

Russ pulled a face, was that a joke? She’d never heard of anyone reading informational shit for fun. Then again, she’d never heard of anyone who wasn’t able to sleep, either, so maybe that was it.

”So, like, do you get tired ever? How do you recoup and stuff?”

“Physically exhausted, yeah. I pretty much lie down for an hour or so every night and read, let my body rest,” Lan replied “I also tend to get a little bit foggy early in the morning for whatever reason, you may have noticed I got a little weird when my aura was getting low during initiation? Side effects of the drain I guess.” she finished off the peach and dropped the pit on her tray, replacing it in her hand with some toast

”Shit, I just kinda thought that was the jitters. I wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of attentiveness either,” she said with a shrug. Good Russ, work in some bigger words, try not to come off as a total bum.

“Nah, we had some live exercises at Signal, learning weak points for some of the smaller species. Beowulves and such. Knew more or less what to expect.” she boasted “So, how about you? Based on the fact you lost your cool during the landing you don’t have much field experience.”

”Okay well, I wouldn’t exactly call ‘getting launched into the air by a giant springboard’ field experience,” she said, dry but not biting. ”And hey I wasn’t the only one kinda stressing about that whole thing, shit, some people weren’t lucky enough to smack into a living buoy. Thanks by the way.”

“No problem, just luck I guess. Still, surprising what kind of stuff you can prepare for in combat school, or when you have too much free time like me.”

Russ scoffed and took up her drink. ”Spend a lot of time flying?”

“I threw myself of an apartment building once to practice.” the girl joked, opening her own carton of milk

And then she was choking on it. Russ patted her own chest to clear up her lungs, wide eyes on Lan. ”Why do I actually believe you did that?”

“Because I have too much free time and have a history of unpredictable behaviour?” the redhead guessed innocently, setting her milk down and having another slice of toast

”Just don’t go getting yourself killed, Grimm would be real disappointed I’m sure,” she said, regaining her composure.

“For the record, I was joking. We did drills on it back at Signal, pretty standard procedure.” she informed, tail swishing behind her as she bit into another peach

Russ let out a sigh and slumped in her chair. ”You know, the more you tell me about that place, the less I regret not going.”

“Not everyone does go, some people are from outside the kingdom and learn trial by fire style.” Lan pointed out “I’m guessing you were not so fortunate, based on what happened this morning.”

She blinked, for a moment the levity in her eyes faded and Russ became immediately aware that she may not have been as sneaky as she thought. She gave Lan a solemn look. ”What happened this morning?”

“You left the room looking freaked out and were already on edge when you ran into me.” Lan lied, “Not meaning to pry, just worried. Although I already admitted I was following you because you looked freaked out.”

”No no, I get that,” Russ said, and relaxed. ”I uhh, guess I spaced there. My morning memory isn’t so great. Yeah Just got a letter from home. There was a fire, everything’s fine.”

”hmm” Lan thought “I’m not expecting a whole lot of news from home myself, parents not thrilled with my choice of career. Mom more-so than Dad.” she shifted the topic away, noting Russ’ discomfort.

”Yikes, that can’t be easy. Is it just the danger, or…?”

“Among other things. Danger is the biggest issue though.” she responded, taking a sip of milk

She tried her best to give her voice an understanding tone. Whatever Lan’s relationship with her parents was, having someone so close lack faith must have been hard. ”Well, guess you’re just gonna have to show’em you’ve got what it takes. No danger when you’re a pro right?”

“I think it’s more that they’re scared of losing me, neither of them is a huntsman and we don’t have any in the family so it’s not a risk they’re used to.” she said, uncertainty in her voice “What sort of situation are you coming from?” she inquired. ”Gotta get to know the team. she reminded herself ”Especially the cute one.” she added mentally, blushing for a moment, suddenly glad they weren’t face to face
Perhaps it was a combination of their positioning with Russ’s failure to pick up on Lan’s distressed tone, but she couldn’t quite let it go at that. ”Hold on, wait,” she said, turning to the other girl. ”Look, it’s a scary-ass world out there, there are fucking monsters and all sorts of other shit, I get it. But hey, that’s why we’re here, absolutely no one else in the world is better suited to make it out there than us, so listen, they’re not gonna...lose...uh, hey, you alright?”

She got a glimpse of the red in Lan’s cheeks and felt a twinge of guilt. ”I mean, y’know, just optimistically and all. Not that your folks don’t have a right to be worried or anything. They care about you, that’s like…really fucking important.”

“It’s a constant risk but I don’t think it’s too severe, no worse than public transportation.” she jested “I’m fine, why do you ask?” the girl feigned ignorance

”No--yeah I just, nevermind,” she said, remembering Lan had asked a question before she’d gone off on her mini-tirade. Russ’s hand found its way to the back of her neck, where it usually went when she had trouble thinking up answers. ”And uh, nothing flashy, just kinda felt that obligation to help people, y’know?” she asked. There, not entirely a lie.

“As solid a reason as any.” the lemur admitted “I’m in it for the self control or something. At least that’s why I started, now? I dunno, seems interesting. I like exploring, gives me an excuse to carry a deadly weapon.” she listed off “Out of curiosity, what exactly is your semblance?”

Russ couldn’t help but smile. The girl was motivated, she’d give her that, and besides most of those reasons didn’t sound half-bad to herself.

”My semblance? Ehh...sorry I’m really not great at explaining it. I guess the best way would be to say it’s like...I don’t fall down a lot? No no uh, I can move pretty easily? I’ve got good balance?” Russ continued to fumble for a bit, each explanation more desperate than the last. She’d never had to really describe what she did, even to herself it felt more like second nature than something attached.

“Not all of them are as simple as mine I guess. A lot of them are more interesting or useful, though.” Lan said, “Hey, where are your swords? back at the dorm?” she asked, reaching down to confirm the placement of her own spade before taking a drink of milk

Russ was at least a bit ready for that question, she’d have to have expected it at some point. Offering a shrug, but trying to sound as earnest as possible, she went with the first thing that came to mind. ”Did you see’em after that fight? Dinged up, bent, dented. Dust compartments were shot, one couldn’t hold a flame, the other would’ve blown apart if I tried to use it. Suffice it say, they’re gone. It’s my fault, I’ve gotta take a...uhm...radial course to make a new one, but yeah.”

“Remedial?” the redhead let slip

Russ cleared her throat, pale face doing little to hide the embarrassment. ”Y-yeah, s’what I said, right?”

“You said radial.” Lan pointed out, finishing another peach “That reminds me, I wanted to see about upgrading Shu Dao. Wonder if I can get into one of those classes...” she trailed off once more

”Dunno, worth asking though. Can’t imagine they don’t want us upgrading our weapons,” she said. ”Shu Dao, huh. Nice name.”

”Seemed fitting, if a bit misleading.” the girl said ”So, any idea what you’re going to do for a replacement? Or just going to use the same thing as before?”

Russ didn’t even have to think to know that if she never saw a pair of swords like the Son and Daughter again, it would be too soon. She just shook her head. ”Not too sure, I’ll think of something though. Figure I’ve got a bit of experience taking care of weapons, shouldn’t take me too long.”

“The old ones seemed pretty simple come to think of it.” Lan observed “You could probably recreate them if you wanted.”

”Now where’s the fun in that?” she asked.

”Familiarity with a weapon doesn’t hurt, but I suppose learning a new one wouldn’t hurt.” the redhead noted to her partner “Lot of options, it took me forever to settle on what I was going to use.”

”Well for what it’s worth you definitely know how to use it,” Russ said with a smile.

“I went with something simple on purpose, so even if my aura drops and I get loopy it won’t take too much thought to use right.” the faunus boasted ”Probably one of my better choices come to think of it, amazing how versatile razor wire is.”

”Yeah, always thought simple was better. Don’t get me wrong, the complex weapons are cool and all just, damn I don’t have the head for’em, I guess. How long have you been training with it?”

”We made our prototypes about 6 months into the first year at Signal, so i guess around four years.” Lan recalled

Russ let out a low whistle. ”No wonder then, thing must be like a third arm by now.”

”Something like that,” the lemur tailed girl agreed before biting into her last peach ”Hey, what’s your first class today?” she asked, drawing out her own scroll to check the schedule

Russ plucked up her scroll as well, sifting slowly through to find her own schedule. Her smile flickered for a moment when she saw that one of the first classes was an analytical course. Not because she didn’t like analytics, but because she had little idea what the word meant. However, it seemed that first things first was the newly added “remedial course”, as Lan had put it.

”Looks like I’ll have to think of something sooner than I thought,” she said. ”How about yours?”

”Looks like… Grimm studies, then medicinal botany for me. Then boring stuff like math. Ooh, sparring class.” Lan skimmed through the schedule, noting the first few “That medical botany sounds fun, already know a bit about healing herbs.”

”There’s a sparring class?” Russ asked, scrolling through again to, sure enough, find it on her schedule as well. ”That’s...kinda weird, actually. Aren’t we fighting Grimm?”

Lan chuckled, ”Not just grimm, anything that threatens the safety of the four kingdoms, human or grimm. Not to mention the Vytal festival for those lucky enough to qualify, and other tournaments.”

”Oh,” Russ tried to hide her grave surprise, and cleared her throat. ”Do we usually, like, kill these people?”

Not that I know of, I can only name one instance in recent times that a huntman had to kill a criminal, and that was apparently a special circumstance.” the girl informed

Russ sighed, relieved. ”Well that’s good to hear. Joined up to kill grimm, not people.”

Lan shrugged and finished her last piece of toast, quickly downing the milk ”Sometimes we might have to make hard decisions, grimm aren’t the only monsters. People can be pretty shitty too. I mentioned someone tried to mug me? Pretty sure he’s in physical therapy right now, slashed his achilles tendon on the right leg.” she informed solemnly

That surprised Russ, if she was being honest. Looking at Lan, she wouldn’t have guessed the girl had it in her, but then, she also hadn’t guessed she was as good a thief as she was either, and Russ had plenty of experience with the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover”. Still, she didn’t feel put-off by it, if someone tried to mug her she would have put up a fight for sure.

”Yeah, well, you’re different. Anyone dumb enough to try and mug a huntress-- huntress in training-- deserves a bit of justice.”

“It feels different though, not like grimm, you can feel the blade going in, it’s pretty gross, leaves a nasty feeling in the pit of your stomach. And that’s just hurting someone, honestly not sure I could do it again even if I had to,” she sulked a bit before noticing the clock on her scroll ”Others should be waking up soon if they’re not already, we should probably get to the dorm and switch into our uniforms before classes start.” perking back up a bit

Russ wanted to say something, but she couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t sound too cliched or rambling. She could understand Lan’s hesitation, and it was a kick to the gut to see someone beating themselves up over mercy. But she was right, class was starting, and Russ’s dry tongue offered nothing but an affirmative noise. She grabbed her tray and got up, offering another smile to Lan.

”Sounds good, I think I even remember the way back. Maybe.”

”Oh, I can show you my garden when we get back!” Lan remembered excitedly

”Sure thing, glad to see someone is working on making our room look nice,” Russ said, and despite her previous comment, waited again for Lan to lead the way.

With that, the faunus picked up her tray and headed for the door, dumping the empty carton and peach pits in a garbage can on the way out, leaving the dish on a small shelf before stepping out of the long hall

There are a lot of ways one could describe a snake coiling around another body. Unnerving, unsettling, predatory, perhaps even grim. One word most people wouldn’t use however is soothing. Despite this, there were no better way to describe the movement of the watery snake known as Lis, as it aimlessly danced around the limbs of her concerned owner.

It was an odd habit Viola picked up when she got bored; aimlessly urging Lis around her body, feeling the cool touch of water on her skin and pretending it was moving on it’s own. This time, however, boredom was not the cause of this ritual. She couldn’t quite find a word to describe how she was feeling after being briefed on the accusations that were being levelled against Tierra, but she wasn’t in any rush to figure it out. Right now, all she wanted was a distraction, and a soothing one at that. As it turns out, playing with Lis always managed to do just that.

Argent leaned against the doorframe to CLRT’s dorm watching his partner play with her water snake, Lis, he thought she called it. There was a somewhat lost expression on the currently white haired girl’s face, not that he didn’t understand the feeling, he himself was still reeling from what they’d been told, Tierra was being accused of murder and her enrollment at beacon had been revoked as a result. Cereza was off somewhere, and Viola was just lying on her bed, making her water snake construct slither around her arms, the silver knight couldn’t do anything for Tierra, or their leader, but he would be damned if he let his partner continue this minor breakdown. “Hey, Viola.” Argent kept his voice low, in order to keep from startling the water witch.

’Mom? Wait, that voice wasn’t female,’ was the first thought that crossed Violas mind. She looked with confusion towards the source of the noise, only to be met with a pair of blue eyes, a shade lighter than she’s used to seeing. Realizing that Argent must have seen her spacing out, Viola tried to suppress an embarrassed blush as she assumed a sitting position while Lis was coiling around her thighs till it resembled a seashell more than a serpent. “Yes, Sir Roan?” she said after she was sure her voice didn’t betray her current state.

Argent suppressed mild annoyance at Viola’s overdone courtesy as he straightened and raised his hands with a small smile. “Please, just Argent, I’m your partner, if there’s anyone whom you can address without the constant formality it’s me. Anyway, I was wondering if you’re still interested in learning how to fight with two weapons, since we seem to have some free time I thought we could make good use of it.”

‘Fight with...’ Viola's gaze moved to the room's window, or more specifically the bookshelf under it. There, laying on top of it, rested the Gladius that they had picked up during initiation. With all the events that transpired since then, she had actually forgotten why she picked up the gladius in the first place.“How do you propose we do that, Sir R… Sir Argent,” she inquired, curiosity evident in her eyes.

“Well, first we’d need to work on strengthening your left arm, and run through some basic moves, then we’ll get you used to fighting with both hands at once, followed by sparring, we can adjust the schedule as necessary.” Argent replied, his mind began to wander through the potential steps of training the duelist in the use of two weapons.

A couple more steps than she would have thought, but she was smart enough to see the truth behind his words.“So...what would you say is the first step?”

Thoughts still racing Argent tapped his index finger on his upper lip, a habit of his. “Well, I suppose we should set you up with some exercises to strengthen your left side.”

Seeing the logic behind his words, Viola pressed on. “What kind of exercises?”

“Weights mostly, I guess, I’ve never trained anyone before.”

“And I’m not used to listening to someone my own age,” said the witch, her smile becoming a tad more genuine, “But if you’re willing to try than so will I”

Argent found himself returning his partner’s smile. “Then I guess we’ll just have to work together to figure this out.”

“You mentioned we should start with weights. Did you by chance bring them with you?”

“I...” ‘wait, did I?’ Argent mentally ran through the contents of his luggage. ’Clothes, spare ammo, sleeping bag, maintenance kit, no weights of the appropriate sizes though, damn.’ “No, I didn’t, at least not the right size.”

‘Hmm...that could be a problem.’ thought Viola. Looking down at Lis in hopes of finding an answer, she saw her violet hair, now as stationary as Lis was, reflected in the water. “Well, I was going to ask a faculty member for a mirror; I could always ask for a set of appropriately sized weights as well.”

“That would be great, thanks.”

“How will I recognize if the weights are the appropriate ones?”

“I’ll come with you.”

‘Oh.’ Viola’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second. She was careful not to let her smile slip though. “I..was also hoping to talk to the teacher about...how we did during initiation.”

Argent let out a small, self deprecating laugh. “I’ll bet you have far less to worry about on that front than I do, considering I got myself knocked out by being an idiot, though I suppose the adrenaline rush may have been affecting my common sense. In any case, from what I saw you have nothing to worry about.”

‘Well it’s not just me I may end up asking about,’ mused the witch, “‘I simply think the teacher might not speak their mind in front of an audience. Even if they say they don’t care, they will word it differently when the conversation isn’t private. Is it ok if I talk alone while you look for the weights?”

Argent shrugged. “I’ve got no problem with that.”

‘Oh thank dust...’thought Viola, “one moment please.” With that little problem settled, she picked up Lis, who refused to obey gravity and slip through her fingers, and placed it in it’s home, located on the shelf next to her bed. It was an aquarium, one usually reserved for turtles, decorated with shells and sea stones, all got from her father. ‘Go,’ thought Viola as her hair flashed white for an instant, letting Lis fill her home.

“I’m ready to go when you are Sir Argent,” said Viola as she made to stand up.

The silver haired knight stepped aside to let Viola through the doorway, then fell into step beside his partner as the pair made their way down the hall.

The duo made their way across campus, making small talk along the way. It took them longer than they expected to reach their destination, not necessarily because they couldn’t find a teacher or student that knew where the extra supplies were kept. No, what prolonged their quest was the fact that only one of the teachers was known to have access to the storage space. So the adventuring knight and the would-be princess found themselves on a side quest to find the, sometimes dreaded, white witch of beacon known as Glynda.

*knock-knock*

“You may enter,” said a stern voice, one that had not yet lost its edge since Viola last heard it, just a few days prior.

Argent opened the door and let Viola through first, then he stepped into Professor Goodwitch’s office. “Good afternoon Professor, sorry to disturb you like this but Viola would like to ask you a few questions, and I was wondering if I could borrow some of the school’s equipment.” Argent addressed the stern looking teacher in a respectful tone.

A suspicious look was her initial response. “I’m going to need a couple of more details before i can answer that question. What kind of equipment.”

“A spare mirror and one or two weights. We’re looking for the former due to me and Sir Argent sharing a changing room, so the extra mirror would help on the off chance we’ll have to change at the same time.” explained the violet witch.

“And the weights?” the white witch pressed on.

Argent answered her. “Since Team CLRT has been removed from the regular schedule until Tierra’s acquitting, or replacement, and since Viola has expressed interest in learning how to fight with two weapons I offered to help her, and I thought it would be best if we strengthen her left side before we start, hence the weights.”

“Mister Roan,” Glynda leads, staring deadpan, “I assume you are not aware the dorms have their own fitness center?”

Argent and Viola blinked in unison. They indeed had not been aware of that fact.

Feeling his cheeks burn with chagrin, Argent was quick to reply. “Umm, no, I was way too tired last night to be paying attention to the dorm facilities, sorry for wasting your time like that, I’ll just wait outside so Viola can ask her questions.”

“Not so fast mister Roan,” Glynda interrupted his tirade in an exasperated tone. “I suppose i should be grateful for your lack of awareness,” she said while eying the two occupants of the room, “most students would have just taken them from the center and not consider the possibility that others might also be interested in using them.”

“I assure you Professor Goodwitch, neither me nor Sir Argent would do such a thing,” Viola was quick to reply.

“Indeed,” replied Glynda, unconvinced. “Regardless, we should have the items you are searching for in one of the storage rooms. If you two can write requisition forms for the items and submit them to me, the items will be sent to your dorms shortly. Please keep in mind though, that officially these items can only be lent to you for at most a year. If you wish to still use them after that, another form needs to be submitted.”

“Would it be too much to ask you to let us write one now? No one we asked mentioned we should bring forms with us,” inquired Viola.

A sigh was Glynda’s initial response. “No, it would not. Mister Roan, I trust you will be able to fill these forms outside my office while i chat with Miss Marsilea?”

“Of course Professor,” ‘Well this is embarrassing’ the silver knight thought as he scratched the back of his neck with an awkward half smile on his face before accepting the forms from Professor Goodwitch and stepping out into the hallway.

“So what is it you wished to speak with me about, Miss Marsilea?” Glynda asked once Argent exited the room.

‘Ok…’ thought Viola, ‘you can do this...you practiced all the ways you can word this without making Miss Cereza look bad and found the best one. Just take a deep breath and...’

“I was hoping to find out what were my shortcomings during initiation, and which of them negatively impacted my score when you were assigning leaders.”

“Are you that dissatisfied with Miss Floriciente’s performance?”

‘Oh come ON!’ thought Viola, wisely choosing not to vocalize, “nonono, certainly not. Miss Cereza has been nothing short of a great leader…granted she’s only been a leader for about a day...BUT it was an expertly handled day nonetheless.”

“Then why do you want to know whether you were considered for leader?” inquired Glynda with a raised eyebrow.

‘Why?’ an interesting question, one Viola hasn’t given much thought into up until now. A small pause set between the two as Viola tried to think of an answer.

“We’ve...discussed...about her promotion,” Viola begane, “and she has made one or two remarks about her surprize when she made leader over I and...I simply figured she scored better than me.”

Viola waited a moment to see if Goodwitch wanted to correct her, but received only silence.

“I’m generally used to being told on the spot the things I did and didn’t do right...a luxury I suppose people that could actually afford to go to a junior academy don’t normally have but...I kept wondering what I did wrong and...”

“That’s enough, Miss Marsilea.”

It was now Violas turn to wait for a reply as a thoughtful look crossed Goddwitch’s face.

“Here at Beacon,” Glynda finally broke the silence, “the Headmaster is the one that get’s the final say on who is given that role or not. Atlas is the only place that gives that role to those with the highest score, and I’d prefer you avoid associating us with them in the future.”

“Apologies, Professor G...”

“Before assigning said roles, however, the Headmaster gives the rest of the staff members a chance to sway his decision. If you wish to know their thoughts on the matter you’ll have to ask them yourself.”

“Understandable,” Viola chirped.

“As for me,” said Glynda as she rubbed her eyes as she recalled the events that transpired during the meeting, “I was one of the people in favor of giving that role to Miss Floriciente, mostly because you being leader would have hindered your overall performance at this Academy in the long run.”

“...Could you elaborate please?” was Violas reply, confusion and curiosity crossing her features.

“Your semblance requires a large amount of focus in order to be used properly. But being a leader also require a large amount of focus be directed towards the people under you. Asking you to lead would have either resulted in your skills dulling or your team score suffering in the long run.”

“Oh...”

Silence reigned once more, Viola mulling over her words. What she said made sense, but how was she suppose to learn to lead and fight efficiently if she wasn’t in a position that asked for it?

It was surprisingly Goodwitch that broke the silence with a long sigh. “Doing both at the same time can be a difficult task even for myself sometimes, Miss Marsilea. If you truly did come here seeking answers on what to improve, know that during the second year onward we offer specialized courses intent on teaching students with mentally taxing abilities, such as yourself, how to not lose sight of their surroundings while still being able to use their abilities to their fullest potential.”

“You think I should apply to them?”

“I would certainly hope so. A day may come when Miss Floriciente will be unable to properly lead, and your teammates may look at you to do so. I’d suggest you make sure you are prepared when such a day would come.”

“I’ll...keep that in mind, definitely. Thank you for telling me this Miss Goodwitch.”

“Yes, well, if that is all, you can go and see if Mister Roan is done with the forms.”

“Certainly,” was Violas reply before taking a quick bow and leaving the room. “Sir Argent?” she asked while poking her head outside the room.

Argent looked up from the finished paperwork. “Yes Viola?” Argent responded as his partner’s head poked out of Professor Goodwitch’s doorway.

“My chat with Miss Goddwitch has reached it’s conclusion.”

Argent nodded. “In that case I’ll just hand over these papers and we should be able to be on our way, I hope you learned what you wanted to know.” The silver knight waited politely for Viola to step out of the doorway, at which point he went inside and placed the paperwork on the professor’s desk. “Here you go Professor.”

Goodwitch took a moment to skim through the pages before replying. “The items should be sent to your room by the time you start classes again. If not, somebody will have some explaining to do.”

Argent once again got the distinct impression that Glynda Goodwitch was not somebody to mess with. “Of course Professor, thank you.” Argent and Viola stepped back out into the hallway, the latter taking a moment to give the other witch a final bow before closing the door behind them.

Turning to face Viola, a grin appeared on Argent’s face. “Alrighty then Partner, now that that’s taken care of why don’t we go find the dorm fitness center, and we can start working.”

“You mind if we take the slightly longer route so we can pass the fountain?” Viola asked with the same smile she bid Goodwitch farewell.

“Fine by me, though if you mind me asking why...?”

“Does one need a reason to admire the scenery?”

“True, like I said, I’m not objecting, just curious.”

And so the duo made their way across campus, making small talk along the way. It would take them a while to find the center, given the detour they were taking along the way, but neither of them seem to mind.Their spirits were high, and in the end, that was what they really needed.

It has been a couple of days since School officially began, which came a couple of days before an Ursa’s face was acquainted with a really sharp rock via a powerbomb maneuver, which came a couple of hours before initiation, which came a couple of days before Berry was sent on a flight to Beacon. Yet there was only one thing on the mind of a student name Berry.

‘Shouldn’t shit stop feeling so weird by now?’

Berry was well aware why his relatives sent him to Beacon. He was apathetic to their training, barely did anything more than the minimum necessary for them to stop nagging, and was rather crass when addressing superiors.

‘So how the fuck is sending me here supposed to fix that?’

There were hundreds of students under the care of a handful of teachers. They simply didn’t have the time to properly nag Berry about doing his studies. Sure they always pointed out what he did wrong when it happened, after which they would move on to the next person that made a mistake. Compared to back home where he would be nagged, incessantly even, by whomever was nearby, having all these long periods of time where no one would breathe down his neck felt, well, weird. A good kind of weird, but one he was worried would be taken away from him if he enjoyed it too much.

Another thing he found weird were his teammates. His leader alone surprised him as early as the second day. Turns out when Lan said she’d be up all night decorating the room, she actually meant the whole night, because she didn’t, or rather couldn’t, sleep. This unfortunately resulted in her trying to stealthy decorate the walls next to Berry until she found a sword pointed at her neck from a very disgruntled teen.

“Personal. Space.” was what he told her at the time.

Not that the teachers were any improvement. Professor Oobleck couldn’t keep neither his feet nor his mouth still, and moved the same way a gazelle would run away from a predator, Goodwitch resorted to using that crop of hers so many times one had to wonder how much she was getting a kick out of it, and professor Port…

“…the scorching SUN was beating down on me, in preparation for the coming battle between MAN and BEAST, that it could not turn away from…”

Talked as much as Oobleck without having the decency of doing it fast.

“…and I locked eyes with the monster sometimes known as a Boomer, looking at me with the intent of MURDER. He couldn’t feel empathy for its fallen comrades, nor relief I was separated from my gun. No, it could only look at me with the intent of MURDER…”

‘…you said that already you fuck…’ groaned Berry as his face was introduced with a table via head banging. Sadly it looked like repetition was something he wouldn’t be able to escape from here.

“…but little did it, for it was a Grimm with no discernable gender as you know, that I still had not only one, but two, TWO weapons of mass destruction on me, ready to strike at a moment’s notice with the fury of the scorching SUN that was beating on me, in preparation for the coming battle between MAN and BEAST, that it could not turn away from. My lesser famous lashing left backhand, and my deceitfully deadly right hook…”

‘Can I introduce you to mine?’ thought Berry as he began looking around the room, trying to find something to keep his mind occupied on something other than decking a teacher.

“…my patience having run out, I CHARGED the short distance to the monster sometimes known as a Boomer, with my hands in front of the well-oiled machine that was my body, knowing that it had no room to back down and turn, even if it realized its days were numbered…”

‘…asleep, entranced, asleep, drawing, asleep, chatting, chatting, asleep, taking notes, asleep, entranced, as…wait,WHAT!?‘

“…and so my fists and its claws clashed as we were hunting for the blow that would knock out the other, I stood my ground, refusing to move my body so as to not give it room to run …”

No, there was no joke, a couple of students were actually taking notes and it wasn’t looking like anyone forced them to do it. One of the m was a blond with most of her hair combed to one side; she looked a bit familiar.

‘…but knowing that it had no room to back down and turn, even if it realized its days were numbered, it instead chose to back UP…’

‘Oh right the other team they hanged out with in initiation…haven’t seen them since then...apparently Terra?...was accused of doing some crazy shit?’

‘’…standing on its tail, I found myself double-teamed by the monster sometimes known as a Boomer, as I was suddenly forced to weave my way through not only one, but two sets of claws…”

‘Not that that explains how Tereza can force herself to write all this.’

“…realizing my time was running short I used my lesser famous lashing left hand to parry two swipes at once and took a BOLD step forward, knowing it could not take a step back…”

‘Doesn’t look like the other two are here’

“…and used my deceitfully deadly right hook to punch my fist in its jaw and crush its skull…”

‘Well at least one of us got to do it.’

“Ah, my timing couldn’t have been better, it seems classes are nearly done. Now can someone tell me what is a boomers main weakness?”

‘Gee, maybe the fact it apparently can’t move backward?’ thought Berry.

“PRECISELY mister Balaur.”

“Huh?” or rather he thought he thought that.

“Never be afraid to take a bold step towards them, because they can push themselves in any direction EXCEPT backwards, meaning they cant turn on the spot if stationary“

“...oh.”

“Everyone make sure to pick a sheet of its anatomy from the table and memorize the plateless spots . It can save your life. Class dismissed”

“…what just happened?” he asked no one in particular.

But no one would reply, not Cereza that was taking her time packing, and not the other students who ran out the class the first chance they got.

Tsuki sat in the stands, carefully observing the battle before her. It didn't matter who faced each other, all she was focused on was the fighting style of both combatants. One was quick, but conservative in their attacks, while the other was purposeful, but lacked the brute force needed to knock their opponent out. The battle had been going on for awhile, at this point it was a battle of stamina. For every attack Tsuki took into account the body's position and velocity in order to figure out possible way to block. If possible, she'd look for openings for a counter attack in her mental fighting simulation. The reaction of the two in front of her ranged from clumsy and poorly executed, to something brilliant that the carnivorous faunus had never thought of. She also made note of all the “telegrams”, or small movements that gave away what the person was going to do next, that each person had. There were some very common ones among certain types of people.

Analyzing fights was something that Tsuki enjoyed. She was half of her father and, much to her disgruntlement, half of her mother. It helped her develop her own fighting style, as she is constantly improving and adding to her cache of abilities. That was one of the reasons she wanted to enroll into Beacon Academy. Watching a variety of people fighting would increase the pale girl’s understanding of a wide range of fighting styles and techniques. Maybe, if someone struck her as unique or extremely talented, she’d have to fight them herself or keep an eye on them to adopt their method of attack or defense. Asking them to teach her was a possibility, but the tigress thought that the act was fairly awkward, and that many people would turn her down for the obvious reasons of wanting to spend their free time on improving themselves, or simply finding the newbie weird for asking. Of course the option was always open to someone who seems more accepting and generous.

Seemingly, stuck in her own world, Tsuki was startled back into reality with the sound of an obnoxious, noise that had a high and low pitch. Ripping her gaze from the two grossly panting and sweating males, the dazed female noticed the large electronic board which displayed the aura levels of both competitors. One had passed the line of acceptance. After congratulating the winning, and giving the loser a small bit of helpful information that was quickly stored away in Tsuki’s mind, the instructor dismissed class. The newly freed girl gathered what little materials she had brought with her and headed back to her dorm. After dropping off the notebook containing some notes of the recent battle, she didn’t know what she’d do. Perhaps she’d practice with the newly acquired information? But then she didn’t need to drop off her things. Maybe she’d find someone to spar along the way. “Nonetheless, I’ll stop by my room to at least grab my water bottle.” Tsuki muttered under a sigh. She didn’t really care what others thought of her talking to herself. She just felt like she needed some human interaction even if it’s with herself.

“The trial did not go well.”

The statement gave Glynda pause, and she looked up from her work to stare at the Headmaster over the rim of her glasses. She clarified, “Miss Blerta’s?”

“Indeed.” The aging man steepled his fingers and gazed at the scroll lying on the table in front of him. “The jury worked fast; all evidence pointed to her and so they have convicted Tierra Blerta with Manslaughter.”

“Pity.” Glynda glanced away, taking a moment to clear away the disappointment she felt at another potential student wasting away in prison. She’d probably never be trusted as a Huntress, even if the teen reapplied to an academy after she was released. “I suppose we’re bringing in a student from somewhere else then?”

“I have the list in front of me.” Ozpin confirmed, and with a flick of his fingers it was mirrored on Glynda’s scroll. “Are there any students with names that start with T? I’d prefer not to have to change CLRT’s team name if it can be avoided.”

“Not that I can…” Glynda trailed off, glancing over one of the profiles. “There is a boy from Atlas whose middle name starts with T. His scoring in Initiation was well enough that he may fit on the team nicely.”

“Another student with a middle name?” Ozpin murmured, “At this rate the entire acronym will be made from them.”

He was of course referring to Viola Marsilea, whose middle name Lis had been used for the L in CLRT.

“We could see if there are other students with a name that fits? Perhaps from Vacuo?” Glynda suggested.

“We’ll see what his file says first, before we pass over him.” the Headmaster stated, “What was his last name?”

“Plagas.” the blonde witch told him, already halfway through reading the profile. “Basil Trista Plagas. Crow Faunus, his trait is his eyes, average height and seems fairly average in his physical skills, though his aural skills have high marks. He also has training in medicine.”

“That would give their team a medic to go along with the frontline fighter, Dust user and midline fighter CLRT currently has.” Ozpin mused, “Which is a good balance. Shall we contact James and ask for his input?”

Glynda tried to hide her scowl from her employer, but doubted she had succeeded. “If we must.”

”Now, Glynda, we mustn’t let our personal feelings get in the way of ensuring our students receive quality education.” the Headmaster chided, and she knew he had seen her scowl. He didn’t wait for a reply however, pressing a few buttons on his desk and opening a holographic interface in front of him. The communication program rung for a few moments, until the call was accepted on the other end. “Greetings, James.”

The Atlesian Headmaster noted the caller with surprise, and raised an eyebrow at his contemporary, ”Ozpin, this is a surprise. Might I ask what you are calling for?”

The aged Headmaster of Beacon sighed, “We are short a student, I’m afraid. One of our new students had had some legal troubles catch up with her just after Initiation, and we were forced to expel her. We have looked through the profiles from other schools, and believe one of yours is a good fit.”

“This is why in depth background searches are conducted at Atlas,” Ironwood remarked, glancing off to one side for a moment to look at something on his end of the channel. He turned back to Ozpin after nodding to someone, who’s voice was nothing more than a low murmur to Ozpin and Glynda. “Pity though; Beacon was lucky to have a multiple of four this year. Which student are you referring to?”

“One Basil Plagas,” Was the reply, “After going over strays from the other academies, I have determined he will be most beneficial to this particular team.”

“I think that can be arranged.” The military man nodded, looking at something on another screen. “When do you need him?”

“As soon as you are able to send him. The other members are currently in limbo, as they can’t exactly participate in team exercises while down a member, and I would like to get them back to capacity within the week, should it be possible.” Ozpin explained. The Atlas Headmaster nodded in acceptance.

“Very well then. I’ll arrange a transport and an escort immediately, and he should arrive within a fortnight. Will that be all, Ozpin?”

“Yes, James. Thank you.” James nodded in response to Ozpin and didn’t bother with saying goodbyes, instead cutting the communications immediately. Ozpin leant back in his chair, regarding his younger colleague. “There we are, all sorted.”

Basil sighed as he packed away the last of his belongings, ‘Why did I have to be the odd one out? Typical, get through a life threatening initiation then get moved across the ocean.’ As the pale boy finished grumbling his crow, Dolor, landed next to him and looked at him. ”Come on you, in the cage,” Basil said and pointed at a nearby bird cage. The bird looked distastefully at the cage and then back to it’s master. ” Ugh, fine, go out for another twenty minutes or so, but don’t leave the academy’s grounds in case we leave early.” The bird gave a joyful caw and quickly flew away.

A few moments later heavy steps ould could be heard, followed by a sharp knock on the door. ”Cadet Plagas, I need to have a word with you.” Came a firm voice. ”I have news regarding your team assignment.”

As the teacher spoke Basil turned from his belongings, stepping towards door and opening it to allow the older huntsman standing into the room, ” Has it been decided where I’m going? Vacuo? Mistral? Vale?”

”That’s General Smith, Cadet Plagas. Manners,” he said, stepping into the dorm room. ”Good news is we have located a suitable team.” He looked at the freshly packed bags and empty cage, ”Sadly, a newly initiated student at one of the other academies has been charged with murder, she is awaiting sentence, however the simple fact of the matter is she is no longer eligible as a student of Beacon Academy.”

“Apologies, General Smith, this whole situation has me very….irritated.” Basil closed the open birdcage as he spoke, ” So, General, is there anything I need to know about this new team of mine? He asked the blue eyed officer.

The instructor nodded, ”Understandable, cadet, these transfers tend to be quite stressful.” Eisen took a large scroll from a pocket within his uniform jacket, opening the device to profiles for Basil’s future teammates, ”Cereza Floriciente, human female, 17 years old, team leader. Viola Marsilea, human female, 17 years old. Argent Roan, human male, 17 years old, Viola’s partner. Cadet Floriciente will be your partner on this team..”

With a flick across the screen, General Smith transferred the basic profiles to Basil’s scroll, ”Everything you need to know about your team. Names, weapons, and faces. Personal details are at their discretion to provide. Any questions?”

The crow eyed youth retrieved his own scroll from the small black satchel hanging from his side, opening the device to examine his future team. The faunus looked upon them with distaste, after a few moments his distaste changed to satisfaction as he shrugged and returned his scroll to the pouch Basil pulled it from. “I have no questions, General,” The dark haired student replied.

”Very good. You’ll be departing for Vale first thing tomorrow morning, make sure you have all of your belongings and said goodbyes if you have them.” General Smith instructed, turning to take his leave, [b]”I think you’ll like Vale, I have a cousin who works at Signal.”[b] With that, he took his leave, closing the door firmly in his wake.

Basil sighed after the older man left the room and returned to looking out the window.The faunus had no goodbyes to make and everything was packed, he just stared out the window and began to think about his future in Vale.

Cereza lay back on her bed, absently running through some specs on her laptop as she stared at the ceiling. It had been a fairly uneventful week, to be honest. She’d sort of settled into ordinary school life; having to deal with an entire class full of students who weren’t entirely focused on the lesson was an experience after years of it just being herself and her brother getting personal tutoring from a teacher, and having to share a room with three other people - well, two actually, since Tierra had been pulled out of Beacon - meant that the blonde had endured a few sleepless nights before she finally grew used to listening to the snores and breathing of her teammates.

Thinking of Tierra made the hacker frown slightly, her mind still lost in the world of electronics that was her laptop. She’d messaged her brother just as the technophile had said she would. ’Stay out of it. You can’t do anything.’ had been his reply, which made it obvious that something had happened that involved his fledgling gang. Cereza hadn’t pushed; she trusted her brother and loved him too much to say or do anything to compromise him, and there had to be a reason for him to say that. Who knows? ’Perhaps Tierra had been approached by Midas for recruitment before she started here?’

She’d kept track of the news surrounding Tierra’s case, and all evidence pointed to the Faunus girl. And hadn’t that been a surprise to find out from the news; the tiny girl hadn’t even had any obvious Faunus traits. And just as Midas had told her, there really wasn’t much Cereza could do without making it obvious someone had meddled. The evidence was solid; Tierra was a shoe-in for a Manslaughter charge.

The sound of her program letting out a beep pulled the lithe girl from her thoughts as it finishing calibrating,and she uploaded the new program to the CPU in Droed Gwyn, updating the firing programming. It would take a while to finish the upload thoguh, and Cereza glanced around her empty dorm. Viola and Argent had been spending time together as the silver-haired knight was teaching the violet witch how to use the gladius the duo had picked during Initiation, and Cereza had joined them occasionally for sparring practise or homework. The team was...not close, as of yet, but they were at least acquaintances by Cereza’s books.

Since she didn’t particularly feel like searching out the fairytale duo at the moment, Cereza indulged a little in a hobby she’d picked up in the last year of living with her brother; surfing electronics. She cast her semblance out as far as it could reach, pushing her own boundaries as part of her exercise in control and strength, and dipped into the various scrolls of the people around her dorm room.

Mostly the blonde just gleaned a few boring tidbits; one girl was dating two boys at once, and it seemed neither boy knew it, another young man was chatting with his sister via text messages. There was one groups of students clustered close together, one of their scrolls recording whatever it was they were doing.

She sent her semblance upwards instead, curious about what sort of things the upper years got up to on their scrolls. One scroll was absolutely teeming with girl’s numbers, and another was used almost exclusively to write assignments on. Cereza continued stretching her semblance, feeling it grow thin and a headache start as she finally reached the top floor of the building. It wasn’t too bad, just a slight pain starting in her temple, so she pushed it just a little bit further.

A program was running just on the edge of her reach, the coding twisting and turning in such ways that Cereza’s interest was piqued. She slipped into the CPU with ease, but the sheer complexity left her reeling as the language was something completely different to anything she had ever read before. As a hacker she prided herself on knowing how to break into and manipulate any system she came across, something that was made easier by her semblance, but this programming left her with nowhere to even start. It was like an audio player trying to read a text file; the programs were simply too different.

Snapping her semblance back to herself and rubbing her eyes at the slight headache that accompanied the feeling that accompanied her return of spatial awareness, Cereza sat up and swung her legs out of her bed. Leaving her weapons sitting on the desk beside her bed, she didn’t even bother pulling on her boots as she padded her way out of the dorm room. There was no way the technophile was going to leave such an interesting bit of coding unlearnt; and meeting the person who had created such a masterpiece of programming that could confuse and experienced hacker such as herself could never be a bad thing.

The young woman, much shorter than usual due to her lack of heeled boots, knew that she had to go upstairs to find the source of her curiosity, and she rode the elevator in impatient silence. As she reached the top floor she cast out her semblance once more, making sure not to slip too far into the programming and lose track of her surroundings. The interesting CPU system seemed to be somewhere around the middle of the building, and she followed the feeling to a dorm room beside the fifth-story kitchens.

The program was no easier to understand standing right outside the room than it had been lying on her bed, and she knocked sharply on the dorm room door.

Heavy steps could be heard on the other side of the door, accompanied by a gruff voice. “Gimme a sec,” someone said, and a cabinet clicked loudly. Moments later, the door opened to reveal a rough skinned young man, “Can I help you?” he asked politely, observing his visitor.

“Are you the owner of the program currently running in this dorm room?” The blonde asked, craning her neck slightly to look up at him.

“Probably.” he replied “Trying to fix a timing error in a project.” he observed “Why? And how did you know?”

“My semblance allows me to manipulate computer programs,” She responded quickly, trying to see past the man into the room. “I’m a programmer by nature, holding a Cert 3 in IT. I‘m interested in your programming, as it’s unlike anything I’ve found before. Would you like some help with the timing error?”

“Be nice, but anything I wrote’d probably make yer eyes bleed.” He opened the door and gestured for her to enter the dorm; scattered bins of machinery littered most of the space while a bed sat in one corner alongside a beanbag and hammock “Not much of a programmer, pretty much all brute force.”

“You haven’t been traditionally trained? That explains a lot,” She commented, ignoring the piles of parts and making a beeline for the computer she could both see and feel. “Where’s your base program? If I can find that, I’m sure I can figure out the rest. Do you mind if I dive right in?”

“Help yerself kid, should be open.” the faunus offered. “Watch your step though, some sharp bits lying around and I MIGHT have dropped an unstable dust crystal earlier.”

Cereza only peripherally heard his warning, slipping into the chair at his bench as her fingers steepled and her neon eyes flared brighter in response to her semblance becoming more active. She dove in much deeper than her cursory surfing had allowed her to before when coupled with the distance, and followed the pathways laid out before her mind. She murmured to herself as she rode the data waves, “Oh, now that is an ingenious way of doing things. And, huh. If I do this that part will run smoother.”

The dorm was silent for a few minutes as Cereza lost herself in the world of Baruq’s computer and Baruq fiddled with another of his many projects he had running at the moment. The silence was broken after rustling emerged near the dorm window and it clicked open, allowing a dark haired girl to climb in, hopping over the bench. She looked over towards her teammates work station for a moment, watching the strange girl stare as Baruq observed the screen. “Hey, bro, who’s the girl?” she inquired, attempting to break their concentration.

“One of the newbies I think, came asking about the program I was working on.” the tusked youth responded absently.

The koala eared girl tilted her head, confused, ““...Okay then. I guess I’ll leave you to it.” she shrugged, crossing the room and exiting through the door.

“What is your name, anyways?” the faunus asked, sitting down atop a heavy cylindrical item.

Cereza blinked, glancing away from the lines of coding that were speeding passed the computer screen as she finally registered that someone was talking to her. “Hmm? Oh, Cereza. I’ve gotten rid of some of the redundant pathways you’d set up and streamlined some of the coding, which should let the program work faster and smoother.”

“Baruq.” he returned, “As long as it doesn’t fire between barrels and tear itself apart,” he joked, “I’ve got more a hand for machines than computers.” he noted, looking over the now functional bit of code, “Thanks for the help Cereza.”

“Thanks for letting me look at your program. It’s very interesting.” She replied, standing up from the workbench. “I’ll have to bring Droed Gwyn and Llaw Du up here one day and show you the programming on them; they’re fully computerised without a single trigger or switch - other than the manual power switch that is - on them.”

“Fully computerized could come in handy for my current pet project, but in general i try to keep things as mechanized as possible.” he patted the drum he was using as a seat and a glow spread across its surface. As he drew away his hand a translucent form appeared in front of him. “Then again I grew up on simple technology so I may be biased.” the mechanic informed, rotating the aural hologram in his hands.

The blonde shrugged. “It means no one can steal my weapon and use it against me, as they can’t exactly control the blade positioning or fire my pistols without triggers or switches.”

“Not a bad idea, gives a distinct advantage. Although I find pure weight an equally effective deterrent. Two hundred pounds of cobalt steel and tungsten carbide.”

“Two hundred pounds...that’s almost half again my weight.” She eyed his muscular arms and shook her head. “I suppose, not everyone is as muscular as you are.”

”Last estimate I could lift almost half a ton,” he joked, waving a hand to dispel the simple projection he had been messing with

“Half a ton?” Cereza said, taken aback. “And I thought Cordovan was strong.”

Shaking her head to clear the thoughts of her brother’s associates from her mind, she offered her fellow technician a smile. “It was interesting to meet you, Baruq. I’ll bring my weapons up one day and we can compare programs.”

“Sounds good. Have a nice evening, Cereza.”

“You as well.” The blonde gave a slight wave as she picked her way out of the room and made the way back to her own dorm. ‘I wonder if I can incorporate some of his programming methods into my firewalls…’

Basil stretched in his chair as he awoke from his rest, he hadn't intended to fall asleep but he had drifted off about halfway through the journey. He quickly stood, causing a book in his lap to fall onto the floor.The faunus kneeled over to retrieve it, putting it into one of the smaller bags the trainee huntsman had brought with him.

After the pale boy finished stashing the old leather-bound book he approached the window of the ship, wondering if they were near arriving. When he looked out of the window, the crow faunus was expecting to see the deep blue ocean beneath him. However he instead saw the bustling streets and magnificent buildings contained within Vale. He then looked further into the distance to see the massive Beacon academy.

Across the aisle sat a large man in a military uniform sat silently, watching out the windows as they approached the Academy

“Not bad” The faunus muttered as he began to collect his belongings and head towards the ship's exit.

“A fine school, a bit too loose with the rules for my taste but they do produce quality Huntsman.” the lesser general agreed as he rose from his seat.

As Basil exited the ship he saw a man with grey hair looking at him as he drunk from a mug in his hands, he seemed to be expecting him.

“Basil Trista Plagas,” said the greyhead in a pleasant voice, “I trust your journey here was uneventful?”

The faunus nodded ”About as eventful as it should have been really”

“Well, one may never really be certain of everything that goes on, especially in such turbulent times,” the greyhead took a moment to sip from his cup, “do you know who I am?”

The boy looked at the grey haired man for a moment before shaking his head “I’m afraid I don’t.”

“I go by Ozpin. I’m the current headmaster of this school. I figured I could spare you the trouble of having to make you walk all around my school by meeting you here.”

Basil looked at his baggage for a moment before returning his gaze to Ozpin “Thank for your consideration,professor Ozpin”

“Eissen Smith reporting, Sir. I was assigned to escort Cadet Plagas from Atlas.” the soldier greeted stepping from the airship to give the headmaster a quick salute.

The headmaster allowed himself a small smile while giving an equally small nod.“Always a pleasure to see you, Smith. I trust you won’t need the boy in order to finalize his transfer here, correct?”

“Affirmative, Headmaster.” Eissen nodded, “I believe we can release the cadet to his new team?” the red haired soldier suggested.

“Splendid. Let’s lead him to the dorm room and we can be on our way.”

Formalities out of the way, the trio made their way from the airship port onto Academy grounds. following the stone pathway east towards the dorm.

“Your new room is number 207. If there is anything amiss, my office is right there,” Ozpin gestured with his staff towards the top of the highest tower in the vicinity, “I wish you a good day.”

The crow faunus glanced at the towards the tower and nodded “Thank you professor, hopefully there will be no issues that require your attention” . He took his belongings and walked towards the dormitory building, Dolor began to cawing as they approached the building “Quiet you..” the young huntsman whispered as he entered the base of the building.

As the two crows entered the dorm for the first time, a red haired student passed by on the way out of the dorm, pausing a moment to stare at the the small bird on Basil’s shoulder. The man sniffed the air before shaking his head and carrying on, out of the entry hall and into the open air of the academy plaza.

Basil raised an eyebrow as the man sniffed the air and moved on before moving along himself. After a few moments of walking in silence the faunus reached the elevator and pressed the button that would take him to the first floor. After exiting the elevator moved along the corridor, checking each of the room’s numbers as he did. Eventually he reached room 207 and proceeded to knock on the door, wanting to at least be remotely polite when meeting his new team for the first time.

”One moment please,” chimed in a female voice. True to her words, the door opened not a moment later to reveal a Violet haired girl with blue eyes and a small beauty mark underneath her left eye. Confusion seemed to cross her face as she quickly gave him a once over causing a small twitch in her left eye at the lack of color variation,

“Good evening,” she smiled politely while doing a practiced curtsy, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

”Well due to one of your teammates being excluded from Beacon, I’ve been transferred from Atlas. I’m your new teammate.” Basil replied

“Excluded...right,” said the witch as her smile became more practiced, “come right in. You’ll have to excuse my teammates lack of presence. No one informed us you’d come here today.”

“It’s fine, I’m sure they have other things to do at the moment. I’ll need to sort my baggage out anyway, I’m sure I’ll have met them by the end of the day As Basil finished speaking Dolor cawed and stared longingly at the window.

The witches eye seemed to light up as she registered the source of the noise, “well now, I do believes proper introduction are in order, I’m Viola Lis Marsilea,” she finished, with an identical curtsy to the one made earlier.

“I am Basil Trista Plagas,pleasure to meet you.” Basil returned Viola’s curtsy with a shallow bow

“Aaaaand,” the young adult chimed, waiting on Basil to continue.

“Ah, this is Dolor, my crow,” the faunus replied stroking his pet's head affectionately

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” she said sweetly before her smile faltered for a second, “Tierra’s bed...was the top bed of the bunk, and half of the changing room next to...hmm, I wonder...”

The pale boy raised and eyebrow “What are you thinking?”

“I share a changing room with Sir Argent, much like you will with Miss Cereza. But if you’re willing to wait till they come, we could make it so me and Miss Cereza share one changing room, while you and Sir Roan would share another.”

“I see, well I can wait for the others so we can organise the changing rooms”

“Splendid,” she said with a single clap of her hands, “perhaps while we wait you could tell me more about your little friend.”

“Of course, there’s not to much to tell however. I suppose I’ll start with how I found him, I actually found the little fellow a few days before I started Atlas Combat Academy. Tiny little bird when I found him, I decided to keep him since he was alone, the rest is simple really, he stayed around and helped me with his….unique ability” The faunus explained.

“Oh dear. By chance, did he fail on his first flight when you found him?”

“Yes I believe he did, there was an abandoned nest a few feet away with no other crows in sight. Oh well, there loss the boy explained while stroking the bird.

“Is he friendly?” asked the witch while eyeing the had Basil used to pet the bird.

The faunus smiled slightly “Depends if he likes you or not” he replied.

“...hmm,” she said thoughtfully while extending a hand, but moving it lower, aligning it with the birds feet,”may I have a moment of your time Mister Dolor?”

The crow tilted his head and looked at the girl's hand before doing a movement with his wings similar to a shrug.

Viola would try and befriend Dolor without pause, stopping only when her teammates arrived. Whether Basil didn’t stop her out of politeness or amusement, she may never know.

As students filed into the large workshop, they could see a cleanly dressed Huntsman at the heart of the class. On a large workstation sat a briefcase with a holographic map of his weapon hovering above it.

"Welcome to class, kids. I know many of you are already familiar with this technology," the brown haired Huntsman said, turning to face the incoming students before gesturing to the large foundry dominating the workshops far end, "But for whatever reason you need a refresher course. Nothing wrong with admitting you need help.” He observed, shifting his green eyes to look over the room before turning back to the central workstation and dismissing his own project.
“There are a lot of reasons you might be in this class; Some of you never got the chance to learn properly, some of you had their weapon destroyed at Initiation. But the fact remains, you need to start from the beginning, and I’ll gladly help any of you who ask.” He noted, “Otherwise, feel free to work as you will, but come to me for approval before you start forging.” He trailed off, waving a hand to the rows of workbenches. “Oh, before I forgot. Mister Waldgrun.” He added almost as an afterthought

Some might have found it degrading in one way or another to end up in this class, hell “remedial” was in the title, and Russ was fairly sure that wasn’t an honor. The man that would be their teacher sounded like he was trying his best to ease things, but it didn’t take much to scratch through the surface, this was the “oh fuck” class, the “oops” class. Russ was well-acquainted with both sayings, nearly second-language in fact, and considering she had no actual bar to lower, being remedial didn’t seem so bad so long as she came out of it with a weapon.

Which was all well and good, confidence was confidence and rarely could it be considered a fault. But, standing before the workbench it became suddenly and extremely clear that Russ had no idea what she was doing. Sharpening weapons? Sure. Cleaning? You betcha. Creating one from the ground up and expecting it not to break apart or blow up in her face on use? Ehhhh…

She raised her hand. ”Ay uh… ‘Mister Waldgrun’?’ Any tips for a first timer?”

”Rori, right?” he inquired, gesturing for the girl to join him at the large work station in the heart of the room.

”Russ,” she said, absent, passive, but sure all the same. She came over to his side and cast her gaze over the table.

”Alright then, Russ,” he confirmed before tapping a few keys on the workstation, loading a blank weapon template ”First things first, always start knowing what sort of weapon you want.” he informed the girl, bringing up a catalogue of basic forms ”Any idea where you’d like to start?”

Russ stared at the blank template. She had an idea of what she wanted, swords were all she’d ever done more than polish, but all the same if she had to look at something like the Son or the Daughter again, she might hurl. At length, she gave Waldgrun a nod, and tried to picture it with her hands as she spoke.

”Sword, one-handed...made for slashing. Get the job done clean and quick, y’know? Don’t wanna have to draw it unless it’s gonna get dirty.”

”Hard to go wrong with the classics.” the teacher observed, filtering through the weapon catalogue ”One handed slashing, What do we have…” he scanned the various blade forms ”Preference on blade length? Single or double edge? And do you want any range capacity?”

She held an arm out, trying to eyeball its length. ”About yea long. Single-edged, and keeping it fairly melee, I’m no sharpshooter. But…”

The blade wasn’t all she’d have to worry about. Sheathing the Son and Daughter had been easy, but there was nothing to it. Besides, she’d chosen a slicing weapon without minding that her muscular strength was perhaps below the stellar average.
”If it’s possible, I’d like to get dust chambers in the sheathe, and some manner of firing the blade out. Quick-draw, y’get me? Hot and fast.”

”Simple, and easily doable.” Another quick sort option for quick draw and the list was down to a handful of blades, ”Take a look, see if you can’t find one you like.”

She did, quickly even. Not too long, not too curved, maneuverable if she couldn’t get the job done with a few strikes.

Selecting her blade, she moved to the next step. ”Looks like a good fit.”

Grey nodded, ”Not a bad choice. Push there to load the base model into the workspace.” He instructed, pointing to a plus sign in the corner.

Russ did as instructed.

”Alright, see the crystal icon? Push that, it’ll bring up dust mods. Oh, You’ll want to look in sheathes first.” The brown haired teacher indicated, taking a moment to look around at the other students working unusually quietly, seeing no indicators of odd behaviour.

Again she sifted through the menus, coming upon a design she liked. Rectangular, thin enough to be worn across the hip, the small of the back, or over the shoulder, but wide enough to accommodate for the blade as well as what mechanisms might be required. That done, she waited for the next step.

”This is where it starts to get tricky. You’re going to have to decide placement of the dust system manually. Pick the dispenser you want and the program will format it for the current weapon, but you need to set where it mounts. Make sure it doesn’t hinder your movement.”

As far as engineering went, Russ could be thankful the design wasn’t too complex. Figuring out where to put the dust mechanism wasn’t hard per say, just involved a bit of forward thinking. On the flat of the sheath was no good, on the end was potentially disastrous, which left her more or less with two options: top or bottom. She went with the latter, that way she could still get her hand around the sheath if need be, and it would be less likely to impede her draw.

”Got it,” she said, once it was exactly where it ought to have been.

”Alright, that particular mod has two canisters. This is the fun part; picking your dust. Oh, you wanted quick draw, aye? Easy to mount a simple launcher in that sheath. Or go without if you prefer. All a matter of preference.” he trailed off, pointing at an icon resembling a platform with a spring underneath.

Two canisters, eh? That made matters simple enough, in fact she didn’t even need to think of her answer. Damned as the blades might have been, they were just what she was looking for.

”Wind an’ lava’ll do. Superheats the blade before shooting it out, trigger for each,” she said, and went about selecting each dust’s position.

”System is intuitive enough. I’ll let you make any other adjustments you might like, while I go check on the others, and then I’ll get the foundry warming up.” the teacher affirmed, stepping away towards the first row of benches to assist a young man with a growing look of frustration.

”Thanks teach, you’re a real lifesaver,” she said, and tried to make her voice match the genuine gratefulness she felt. She might have missed the bar, but the thought was there nonetheless.

With that she gave her weapon-to-be one last look over, made sure everything was in its rightful place, then nodded to herself and went to the foundry to wait.

A few minutes later Grey approached the foundry, waving his scroll across a scanner to authorize its use. ”Just hit load from main bench, the foundry will handle the heavy lifting.” He instructed before stepping aside, retrieving a toolkit from a locker and handing it to Russ ”Then you get to build it. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

”Can hardly wait,” she said, but gave him a thankful nod in tandem. She sent the foundry to work then stepped back to watch it do its thing. Russ had never heard of weapons being made in such a manner, but figured Huntsmen and Huntresses likely didn’t build all their weapons from pools of steel up.

One by one the parts were dispensed, and when they looked cool enough to touch without charring her skin, she scooped them up and brought them to another workbench. Then, tools in hand, she splayed the pieces out and tried to figure which went where. Wouldn’t be too hard, like stacking sticks, or building stone houses. Those two were comparable, right?

It took time, but eventually she had the blade in its handle, hiltless but with a defined cutoff. The sheath took a bit more fiddling, but it too came together, the blade even fit inside it without sticking or catching. It felt well in her hands, and on her hip, it wouldn’t sag and would remain latched inside until needed. Russ could claim to be proud of few things, but this sword was certainly one of them.

”Well, it’s all in one piece,” she said. ”What do you think? Did I pass?”

”It’s a start. You’ll stay in my class through the semester, though. give you time to continue tweaking it until you’re 100% confident. Nothing major, but maybe the blade’s too short or charges too fast,” he looked over the completed weapon, giving an approving nod, ”I’m not a huge fan of grades, so call it a pass on your first assignment. Make sure to practice whenever you get the chance.” With that, the green-eyed huntsman returned to his own workstation, waiting for another student to call on him.

Cereza scrolled through another news article idly as she returned to the dorm, reading about another series of home robberies. It wasn’t anything serious - just a few people low on their luck by her reckoning - but it had happened enough it was starting to gain the attention of a few of the higher up detectives around town.

Absentmindedly swiping her scroll across the lock, the blonde pushed the door open as she mused about what Midas was doing recently only to stop. Her violet haired teammate was cooing over a ratty looking black bird in the middle of the dorm while a young man with pale skin and extremely dark hair watched in what appeared to be bemusement. The technophile’s mind whirred as she slotted pieces into place in the couple of seconds it took to take in the scene.

“You are the replacement for Tierra,” She stated shortly.

The word replacement seemed to dampen Viola’s mood severely, but the only reaction Dolor could note was a slight twitch in her left eye, “Quite.”

Argent stepped into his team’s dorm room to find three people standing around somewhat awkwardly. On one side of the room was Cereza, on the other was a pale, dark haired boy with totally black eyes, some kind of avian Faunus probably, with a crow perched on his arm and standing between the two was Viola, who was looking back and forth between her leader and the newcomer, a slightly strained smile on her face as she attempted to ease the tension. After taking in the scene for a second Argent spoke up.

“I assume you’re the new Team member then?” Argent addressed the other boy, keeping his voice pleasantly neutral. While the prospect of losing, much less replacing a team member didn’t really sit well with Argent, he would judge this newcomer on his own merits.

Basil’s expression changed from bemusement to a neutral look as his two new teammates entered the dorm. “Yes, I am your old teammates replacement. Pleasure to meet you all,” the faunus replied to the two students. “I am Basil,” he continued, taking a slight bow as he did when introducing himself to Viola and looked expectantly at the pair.

Argent gave a small smile, and stepped forward offering his hand for a shake. “Welcome to the team Basil, I’m Argent.”

Cereza shrugged and made her way past the group to sit on her bed, pulling her boots off. As the lithe girl plugged her scroll into a dock attached to her laptop she introduced herself, “Cereza. You and Argent can fight over who gets top bunk, I guess.”

“I’d prefer the bottom bunk, but I’ll take either one really.”

“Well I have no issues with the top bunk, problem solved,” the crow faunus began to turn but paused and turned back to his team, “While I remember, do any of you have any medical issues? I’d like to know before I start making medicine for any injuries after a battle.” the pale boy asked as he began looking through the small black bag on his side before pulling out a black book and quickly scribbling in it.

“I don’t.” Argent replied.

“Nothing comes to mind, my father made sure I did regular checkups,” replied the witch, still trying to get the bird to climb on her arm.

“You’re a medic?” Cereza asked distractedly, typing away at her laptop, “That’s a useful skill to have on the team. I myself am the computer and technology expert of the team. I don’t have any medical issues that I know of, either.”

Basil nodded as he finished scribbling in the book before closing it and returning his gaze to his teammates,
“Good to hear, I won’t have to waste time finding alternative ingredients for my medicines. Now I’m sure you all have something else to do and I need to unpack.”

“Oh! Yes, about that, I don’t suppose you two would be against a little rearranging?” said Viola, as she alternated her gaze between her leader and partner, waiting for one to reply.

The hacker raised an eyebrow as she glanced up at the smaller female, looking around the room. Nothing looked out of place in the dorm and the bed situation was handled without any fuss. “What’s there to reorganise?”

Taking a moment, Viola tried to wrack her brain for the best way to word her next sentence; ultimately though, she decided this was one of the few times she would take a page out of her mother’s book and just be frank, “Would you prefer both closets to be mixed, or would you rather swap places with Sir Argent?”

“Oh,” Cereza stated, looking over at the two boys. “Swapping places makes sense, as it would reduce the chance of someone walking in on another person while they were changing and getting all embarrassed, I suppose. Sure, let me grab my stuff. If you agree, Argent.”

She half shrugged in acceptance of the idea and stood from her bed, waiting for the silver-haired knight’s answer.

“That seems like a prudent idea to me, let’s do it.”

With that the faunus turned to his baggage and began to unpack, pulling out book, bottles, the occasional bag containing plants or ground up insects and arranged them around the room, generally placing most of the objects on the shelf next to his bunk bed, while the rest were busy swapping clothes and items between the two closets. During this, Dolor stood perched next to the window, idly watching the humans zig zag around the room with what one might have called curiosity.

It was certainly the loudest the room had been in a long time.

Two weeks into the school year, when the students had finally settled down and gotten used to sharing co-ed dorms and worked out a few of the kinks in their teams, Professor Goodwitch made an announcement to the early morning sparring class.

“Alright students,” She began, quickly hushing any conversations that may have carried from breakfast into the amphitheatre set up for sparring, “I am aware that things have been a bit hectic for some of you in the past two weeks. But now that things have settled, we can hold our start of year tournament.”

The blonde Professor tapped at her scroll, illuminating a pair of holographic displays that were easily visible from anywhere in the room. They flickered to life with a gentle blue glow, set to the default screen of Beacon’s symbol.

After a moment of excited chatter from the students, Glynda cleared her throat and continued. “The purpose of this tournament is twofold; first, it will allow me to gauge your individual skill and power levels in a controlled environment, which in turn will allow me to give more feedback on ways you might improve. Second, it will allow you to familiarise yourselves with how a tournament is conducted, which shall aid in any future tournaments you may participate in as well as granting you experience fighting against different people and different fighting styles.”

“Are there any questions?” The Professor obviously didn’t expect a response, as she barely flicked her eyes over the students before speaking again. “Then we shall begin.”

With another tap on her scroll tablet, an image of a student appeared on each screen. The images started spinning, flicking through the various members of the sparring class quickly before coming to a sudden stop. The pictures flashed before the class, showing the faces of a pale girl with shaggy black hair, black german shepherd ears poking out of the mop on top of her head, and mint green eyes, opposite the face of an olive-skinned girl with dark brown eyes, auburn hair swept back in a messy ponytail and a pair of sugar glider ears peeking out of the wavy locks.

“The first match shall be between Ciardha Dougal of Team NTSD and Cinnamon Muscovado of Team CHML. Please retrieve your equipment and make your way to the arena.” The stern Professor finished, adjusting her glasses. Anything else she may have said was cut off by the excited squeal from Cinnamon, who jumped to her feet almost immediately.

“Wish me luck, girls!” She cheered to her teammates, disappearing into the locker room before anyone else could say anything. Her opponent said nothing, merely exchanging a glance with the other members of her team before following the excitable cheerleader.

Cinnamon bounced on the balls of her feet, swishing her pom-poms back and forth. She didn’t look like much of a fighter to the observers, what with her cheerleader-style uniform and her so-called ‘weapons’, especially not when compared to Ciardha who was wielding a chainsaw styled like a doctors bone cutter. A big grin was present on her face as she waved to the rest of her team, ignoring the glare that seemed to be permanently etched into the Dog Faunus’s eyes.

“Students, are you ready?” Professor Goodwitch called to the waiting pair, and after a curt nod from Ciardha and an excited squeal from Cinnamon called, “Begin!”

Ciardha immediately glowed mint green, her aura flaring as she revved the teeth on her chainsaw. Cinnamon was moving before she could do anything more, however, closing the distance between the pair quickly and lashing out with a pom-pom to punch her opponent.

The lack of distance simply made it easier for Ciardha to hit the attacking girl with her semblance though, as a wave of mint green washed over the Sugar Glider Faunus. The auburn haired girl’s eyes narrowed as her smile grew strained, and she flipped backwards into a handstand to move away from the other girl. Ciardha didn’t let Cinnamon simply get away however, as she followed the retreating girl with her bone cutter at the ready.

The cheerleader flipped to one side, activating her semblance to run to the opposite end of the arena faster than Ciardha could hope to follow. A trail of cinnamon brown ribbons flew behind her as she moved, and she took to the slight respite the distance afforded her to rub at her stomach. Ciardha was quick to change directions, following the very obvious trail to where Cinnamon stood and start closing the distance again.

Cinnamon pressed a button on one of her pom-poms, and it unfurled to reveal a cat-o-nine tails whip. With a slight swish, she warmed up the whip even as she darted around her opponent, escaping to the other end of the arena once more. The grey-clad girl scowled deeper, growling lowly as she turned on her heel, studying her opponent. Her weapon had no ranged functions and Ciardha was too slow to keep up with the obvious speedster. Her only hope was outlasting the other girl in this instance.

Cinnamon lashed out with her whip, the nine tails flying threw the air towards her opponent. Ciardha raised her chainsaw as she jumped back, blocking the strikes of a few of the tails whilst dodging the trajectory of the others and not allowing herself to be caught in their grasp. Cinnamon didn’t let this deter her, pulling Marzipan back for another strike.

As the whip flew threw the air, Ciardha let go of her weapon with one hand and lashed out, allowing one of the tails to wrap around her arm. The boards above reflected the drop in aura she suffered because of this, but the Dog Faunus ignored it, instead pulling on the tail she had grabbed. Cinnamon’s footing slipped due to an over extended arm and the sudden shift of balance from the move, and she was pulled towards the other girl.

As she flew towards her opponent, Cinnamon activated the ice dust imbued in her weapon to create spikes around Ciardha’s arm. The other girl ignored the move, letting the ice dust drop her aura further as she revved Padrino and raised it to coincide with Cinnamon’s trajectory.

The Sugar Glider Faunus’s eyes widened and she released the whip, flicking out her other pom-pom. It stretched to reveal that it too was a nine-tailed whip, which reached towards the rails protecting the observers from the fight and wrapped around the metal bars. Inches from the lightning charged teeth of Ciardha’s chainsaw, Cinnamon pulled on her remaining weapon, sending her flying towards the wall of the arena.

Ciardha discarded the nine tailed whip wrapped around her arm, studying the auburn-haired girl as she landed against the wall. With a slash of her chainsaw, an erratic wave of electricity flew through the air towards the cheerleader. The olive-skinned girl used her whip, still wrapped around the protective rails at the top of the wall, to throw herself into the air before she retracted her weapon back into it’s pom-pom form.

The black-haired girl started forward, intent on intercepting Cinnamon’s landing with her bone cutter. Cinnamon punched at the air with her pom-pom, sending a spray of ice shards with each punch towards the charging girl. They peppered Ciardha’s arms as she raised them to protect her head, but it didn’t deter her.

Cinnamon braced herself as she came down, lashing out with an ice-studded pom-pom as she raised her legs to protect herself from the electrified chainsaw. They met in mid-air, Ciardha’s chainsaw colliding heavily with Cinnamon’s legs as an ice-enhanced punch collected with the side of her head. The force from each blow sent the pair apart. Ciardha stumbled as she tried to blink away the black spots the pain had induced in her vision while Cinnamon tucked her landing and ended in a roll that left her upright and facing her opponent.

Cinnamon took the chance afforded to her by Ciardha trying to blink away the spots, lashing out with her whip once more. Ciardha didn’t react in time, and the tails wrapped around her arm and leg. With a jerk, the Dog Faunus was sent flying into the wall of the arena.

A loud buzzer sounded as Ciardha hit the ground, interrupting the fight. Cinnamon glanced up at the monitors, where it was revealed that Ciardha had dropped below the safe levels of aura, and she was being declared the winner.

“I won?” She asked, before a large grin split her face, “I won!”

She squealed in happiness, jumping in place as Ciardha pushed herself to her feet. The Sugar Glider Faunus ignored her opponent, grabbing her discarded weapon as the protective shield around the arena dropped and the rest of her team burst into loud cheers.

“Knew you could do it, Cinna!” Maple called.

“Way to go, girl!” Honey cheered as well. Cinnamon waved to her friends, reaching out with her whip to propel herself over the protective railing and join her teammates. The quartet indulged in a group hug, squealing in excitement.

Ciardha ignored the festivities, glaring at the floor beneath her feet as she turned over her weapon, busying herself with the chain-driven bone cutter. She stalked back into the lockers, not even glancing back at her team as she left the amphitheatre.

”Good match, ladies.” the blonde teacher congratulated as the combatants cleared the floor, rolling the match selection once more. She waited for Ciardha to rejoin the class before activating the competitor selection again. The computer landed on a pair of fair skinned girls; one with deep crimson hair and bright blue eyes, and the other with softer blue eyes and shoulder-length violet hair. “The next match shall be between Zhu Chun Lan and Viola Lis Marsilea.”

Hearing her name, the lemur tailed girl excitedly hopped from her seat before a thought struck her. “Aw, that means I have to fight Lis.” she said while pouting, making her way towards the changing room door at a slightly slower pace.

“I’ll be there in but a moment!” shouted her opponent, as she rushed and ran towards the changing room.

Lan appeared first from the locker room with Shu Dao resting against her right shoulder. The red-haired faunus girl idly whistled while waiting for her opponent to arrive and Professor Goodwitch was standing so still one could mistake her for a statue, if not for the occasional tap of a finger.

Eventually, though, Viola made it into the arena, her hair now white and moving erratically. In her arms arms she was carrying a blob of water not unlike one would a large box that was made out of jelly. Getting closer, sharp eyed students could see fluorescent white threads inside the water, with more exiting the tips of her fingers. “Apologies, someone decided to clog the tap with earth dust again.”

“No worries.” Lan said casually, spinning Shu Dao in one hand before taking a ready position, bell blade forward. “Ready?”

With a hugging motion, the bubble thinned and grew at the same time, the water taking an all too familiar shape that coiled around Viola. Drawing her blade, the witch took a fencing stance as the water serpent coiled around her arm and blade. “Best of luck!”

“Students, are you ready?”The Professor asked of the waiting girls while she stepped off the combat floor. Upon receiving affirmation from both, she called out, “Begin!”

Lan was first to move, bolting a short distance before planting her spade in the ground and vaulting straight towards her opponent. The spade remained anchored in the ground as a length of wire extended from the staff.

Viola’s eyes widened at Lan’s sudden charge, but before her eyes could narrow at the faunus’s mistake her mind and serpent acted first, and a jet of water shot towards Lan’s path,‘Thrust!’.

Lan attempted to twist clear of the attack but was unable to do so mid-air and so was hit in the shoulder, knocking her off track. Recovering midair, the faunus landed on her feet and flicked a switch with her thumb, the wire retreating and tightening the line connecting the staff and spade.

Mirroring her friends actions, Viola lowered her sword to the ground, allowing Lis to climb up and coil around her arm and blade once more. Once done, she resumed her stance and eyed the strings connecting the spade to the staff.

Making a more careful dart, Lan dropped into a roll past Viola, spinning to her feet on the other side to strike towards her opponent with the crescent shaped blade, while tightening the wire towards Viola’s ankles.

With a short hop, the violet witch made sure her feet did not end up like her hair in the morning, but was forced to block rather than parry Lan’s weapon. An audile clang could be heard as the two blades collided and her brow furrowed. With the memory of Lans’ actions fresh in her mind, there was only one thought resonating through her head as the snake tried to switch resting spots, ‘Coil!’

“Sorry about this.” Lan apologized while splitting Shu Dao, stretching a small amount of wire and spinning it around the water snake's head before retracting the wire. Cringing a little at the sight of her creation getting beheaded, Viola made a mental note that both ends of the staff were detachable.

Focusing on the aura that wasn’t shredded, another head to a smaller aquatic serpent was formed. “I’m certain it won’t hold a grudge darling.”

“Good to know.” the blue eyed girl beamed before hopping back and reforming her weapon. Waiting a moment, Lan waited for a charge that never came. “Not very offensive, eh? Scared to get your dress dirty?”

“Always,” replied the witch without hesitation, “but sparring matches are there for me to learn, and I intend to do just that.”

“Never hurts to learn some new tricks.” the lemur tailed student agreed. Spinning Shu Dao around so the crescent was facing Viola, Lan fired off the spade towards the currently white haired girl.

With a motion one might have attributed to a fishing rod, Viola parried the attack with an upward slash before flicking her wrist. During this Lis detached from the blade and flew a couple feet, before slithering slowly towards Lan. The crimson haired girl quickly retracted her deflected spade and backed away from her slithering enemy, closer to the arena wall.

Tentatively Lis and Viola followed, making sure to stay a safe distance away from Lan, with Lis flanking her left and Viola her right. Out of the three, it was surprisingly Viola that made the first move with the snake soon to follow, the former making a short dash and jabbing at Lan’s stomach as the snake continued to move, ‘Closer!’

The faunus took the hit and moved with it, going into a roll as she felt her aura decrease. Coming to her feet and spinning on her heels to bring the crescent blade towards the witches stomach, she fired the dust housed in the end of her staff, sending the crescent blade whizzing towards her opponent.

Viola tried to parry the spade, but her surprise at Lan’s bold move meant the crescent still managed to hit her hip. With a determined glare she grabbed her rapier with both arms and stabbed at Lan’s stomach once more, as the serpent lunged at Lan’t chest, ‘Strike!’

Lan spun Shu Dao without retracting the crescent shaped blade, deflecting the rapier with a staff and cutting aquatic serpent with the blade. ’“Watch that thing, you could put an eye out.” She teased, attempting to distract Viola for a moment, “Sorry again, Lis.”

“Don’t be silly darling. At best i could have just severed your spine,” pointed out Viola with a gesture from her unarmed hand, doing her own attempt to distract Lan as the half of the snake that wasn’t severed crawled a small distance to reach Lan’s leg. With a burst of speed, Lis began quickly crawled up Lan’s leg, making it’s way up her body while Viola waited for a reaction.

As she felt the serpent crawl up her leg, Lan twisted her spade, the still hanging blade whipping towards Viola’s arm, planting the other end in the ground at the same time. With Lis reaching near Lan’s hips, Viola spun, moving her arm out of the way out of the strings path in order to slice at Lan’s legs.

Lan turned backwards out of the strike, allowing the rapier to strike her weapons shaft. The free moving blade quickly retracted into position on the end of Shu Dao, and the polearms owner shifted it free of the ground, bringing the weapon into both hands and making several quick, forward jabs

With two steps back for every three jabs, Viola was clearly on the defensive. The petite witch was unconcerned however, as the snake was on the offensive, moving up Lan’s chest and passing her left chest, causing the faunus girl to shiver at the cold water. Once it reached her neck neck, Lis acted like the beast it resembled, ‘Coil!’

Feeling the snake tightening around her neck, Lan paused mid strike before aiming the crescent shaped blade at her own neck and the bell at her foe, firing both sides of her staff simultaneously. The concave blade struck against her throat, taking a chip out of her aura but breaking the serpent’s grasp while the spade bolted for Viola’s chest.

Not wasting the opportunity Lis gave her, Viola quickly parried the bell before striking just below Lan’s abdomen, gambling that her friends current stance wouldn’t give her the time to block it. The lemur tailed girl sidestepped, and lightly spun her pole while extending the wire on the crescent blade, sending it towards Viola in an attempt to repay her for her last trick.

The wire connected and began to coil around its target when a loud buzzer sounded, declaring the winner. The sudden noise broke the girls’ focus, making both combatants pause. A glance up revealed that it was Lan who had been eliminated.

”A decent effort, ladies.” the blonde teacher congratulated as the combatants cleared the floor, rolling the match selection once more. The computer landed on the faces of a man with faintly tanned skin and dark red eyes surrounded by messy, dirty blonde hair opposite a man with blonde hair slicked back from a deeply tanned face and hazel eyes. “The next match shall be between Hadrian Nightshade and Leon Sarcelle.”

The fight between the two men was fairly closely matched. They found early on that Leon’s trident and Hadrian’s spear skills were fairly even. However, when the pair switched to range it was obvious that Leon’s flamethrower wasn’t as good a match against Hadrian’s shotgun. The flames took longer to travel and went in the direction they were pointed in, but the range was not as far as Hadrian’s ability to simply point his shotgun and shoot.

The fight was intense and drawn out, with Leon doing heavy damage to Hadrian whenever he did manage to hit the armoured man with his flames, and being fairly good at deflecting or dodging most of the shotgun spray from Hadrian’s weapons. However, the spray was too widespread to completely avoid, meaning he took damage every time Hadrian fired. It came to a battle of attrition, as Leon’s hard but sporadic hits tried to overwhelm Hadrian’s constant but smaller hits. In the end Hadrian was declared the winner, but only by a small margin.

”Excellent fight, gentlemen.” The blonde Professor congratulated as the pair left the arena, rolling the match selection once more. The image of a pair of blondes popped up this time; one with short messy hair with an undercut on the left side of her head, pale skin and neon blue eyes, and the other with long hair tucked behind her ears, extremely pale skin and blue eyes so light, they were almost white. “The next match shall be between Cereza Floriciente and Rima Tempest.”

Cereza would be lying if she said that her stomach hadn’t clenched when her face appeared in the screen. She had fought against people before; her brother had brought in a slew of tutors when she was younger who had all trained her, and she’d practised against Midas as he was the only person who had been available as a sparring partner. However, she had never been in a combat situation with so many people watching.

Initiation had been different; it was do or die. This was merely practise, and no one else was fighting for their lives at the same time so all eyes would be on her and her opponent.

Rima didn’t even pause before getting up to head down to the arena, gathering her fur stole around her and her Arctic Fox tail swishing slightly as she walked. Nothing seemed to bother the tall woman as she swept her way into the locker room, and Cereza followed her impassive opponent.

In what seemed like no time at all, the pair were stationed in the middle of the arena. Cereza fiddled with the vambraces and rerebraces she wore as she waited for Professor Goodwitch to start the fight, and wiggled the blades of Llaw Du like fingers in one last reaction test. Rima didn’t even look at the other blonde, instead smoothing down the fur she still wore around her shoulders and checking the dust capacity on her lance.

“Students, are you ready?” Glynda called out. Cereza took a deep breath to settle her nerves and shut out the gaze of so many people watching the spar, while Rima finally glanced up at Cereza, “Begin!”

Cereza reacted immediately, lashing out with a roundhouse kick. It looked like a futile effort, considering the distance between the two, but the pistols strapped to her boots quickly dissuaded anyone of that notion as they fired upon her opponent. Rima dodged to one side, getting clipped by a couple of bullets from the arching spray of pistol rounds before firing a blast of pressurised water from her lance.

Cereza used her polearm as leverage to take her up and over the attack, lashing out with her other leg as she landed. Rima followed her example, jumping over the spray of bullets as she charged forwards, lance at the ready.

The hacker spun to one side as the icy woman grew closer, swinging her polearm around to attack the woman’s relatively unprotected back. The Arctic Fox Faunus rolled forward with the attack as she activated her semblance, and the temperature in the room started dropping. Another spray of dust emitted from the tip of her lance as she rose to her feet once more, turning the piercing weapon into an oversized sword.

She lunged at Cereza, who quickly brought her own weapon up to block the strike. Mid-swing, the sword reformed into an axe, and it crashed heavily onto the hacker’s weapon. Cereza’s arms trembled in effort to keep the axe from hitting her, and the technophile quickly switched tactics. Tilting her weapon and bringing the blades around to create an acute angle, she allowed Rima’s weapon to skitter along the shaft that housed all the electronics for Llaw Du. As the axe head hit the angle, she raised a foot and kicked the other woman in the stomach, firing her pistol at the same time.

Rima took a step back from the impact, though she didn’t lose her grip on the weapon in her hands. Instead she dismissed the dust surrounding the tip of her weapon, sending it outwards in a spray of ice that peppered the arena and Cereza with small shards as she slipped the lance from Llaw Du’s clutches.

Cereza dodged back from the other blonde, cartwheeling a few times in an attempt to put some space between them. She ended in a handstand, her hands holding onto her weapon instead of being flat against the ground, and fired a spray of bullets from both heels before falling backwards and using the momentum to roll to her feet.

Rima retaliated with a wave of water spraying forth from the lance, which quickly froze into large spikes from her semblance before flying at the hacker. Cereza spun Llaw Du in front of her to block the spikes, sending them flying in random directions around the arena. She lashed out with another kick in attempt to shoot her opponent once more, only to curse as the pistols simply clicked.

’Shit! Eject!’ She thought to herself, and the pistols ejected the empty magazines. Rima took the opportunity to send a wave of water over the lithe girl, not bothering to freeze it this time. The water washed over Cereza, and paired with the icy temperatures she could feel the cold bite into her. Frost formed on parts of Llaw Du and her armour, though thankfully nothing that could impede her movements.

With a practise motion, Cereza crouched and replaced the magazines in her pistols using the spare ammo clips attached to her thighs, though she had to let go of Llaw Du as she did so. Rima took the opportunity to hit the polearm with a concentrated blast of water that quickly froze over, rendering the pivoting points of the blades useless. Cereza cursed, picking her now frozen weapon up against as she lashed at with more kicks.

The Arctic Fox Faunus rolled underneath most of the bullets, though a few still clipped her as she came up again much closer to Cereza. She conjured another weapon at the tip of her lance, this time an oversized hammer, and lunged at the messy-haired girl with the intention of crushing her.

Cereza reacted without thinking, throwing her polearm like one would a javelin. The three blades impacted heavily on Rima’s shoulder, knocking her off balance and diverting her strike to hit the ground beside Cereza.

Cereza lashed out with a series of kicks and punches in this moment, utilising the opportunity offered to her and the armoured plates on her legs and arms to inflict as much damage as she could while her opponent was down. Rima lashed out with her lance, shifting the ice into a large sword as she did so, which Cereza dodged by cartwheeling backwards. As the hacker put distance between the two of them, she fired her remaining weapons.

Rima took the hits in favour of unleashing a torrent of highly pressurised water from the tip of her lance at the retreating figure, only for the buzzer to sound. Her impassive face broke and she glanced up at the boards above the pair of combatants, even as Cereza was hit and knocked back into the wall of the arena, to see her own face crossed out. A slight scowl crossed her features before she huffed and stalked away from the arena, not even bothering to listen to Glynda’s congratulations.

Cereza winced as she picked herself up from the floor, glancing up at the board herself. Her aura levels were actually lower than Rima’s at the moment; however Rima had eliminated herself first by taking the hits from the hackers pistols in order to land a heavy hit on Cereza herself.

”Good match, ladies.” Professor Goodwitch congratulated the pair as Cereza collected her weapon again and left the arena, rolling the match selection once more. The pictures displayed this time were of another pair of ladies; an extremely pale girl with black and white tiger ears poking out of white hair that had a black streak on one side and deep blue eyes was opposite a lightly tanned face set with a pair of dark brown eyes and surrounded by fiery red hair with blonde highlights. “The next match shall be between Tsukiko Baise and Maple Arboretta.”

Only one of the girls called stood up, however, and both Maple and Professor Goodwitch glanced around the class in search of the red-heads opponent.

The lemur tailed team leader scanned the classroom for her teammate when Tsuki failed to appear, “Actually, I didn’t see her this morning…”

”Well, Miss Arboretta. It seems you get a bye.” Professor Goodwitch told the Raccoon Faunus, who pouted in mild disappointment before sitting down again. The blonde woman turned to the leader of LBRC. ”Miss Zhu, next time you see Miss Baise, would you please remind her that classes are a necessary and important use of her time here at Beacon?”

“Yes Ma’am,” the red haired student affirmed.

”Then we shall move on to the next match.” She tapped her scroll again and started the selection process once more. In no time at all another pair of faces were visible on the screen; a light olive-skinned young man with silver hair and pale blue eyes was opposite another young man, this one with fair skin and blue eyes underneath a shock of red hair. ”Argent Roan and Berry Caerulus Balaur.”

Argent saw his picture up for the next match so he stood and made his way down to the sparring ring, Raphael strapped to his right arm and Michael held loosely at his side.

Taking off his red hoodie to reveal a tunic with the right sleeve ripped off under a lamellar vest, Berry grudgingly handed it to his team leader, but not before delivering a quick message. “Anything happens to this I’ll finish what the snake started.”

“I can fix it if it gets damaged, you know.” the lemur teased, resting it on the bench beside her

Not bothering to reply to that, he ran a finger over his neck before following the knight to the locker room. He emerged with an oversized vambrace with a scowl so natural you’d be half tempted to believe it was set like that all the time. As his opponent stepped into the circle Argent firmed his grip on the sword and nodded respectfully to Berry, receiving a short nod in response..

“Good luck, Sir Argent!” chirped a now Violet haired teen in the stands, too exhausted to stand, but not enough to shout.

As his partner called out Argent flashed a tiny smile, though he didn’t take his eyes off his opponent he spoke loudly enough for her to hear him. “Thanks.”

“Students, are you ready?” the white witch of Beacon asked.

“Yes.”

“Yeah,” Berry said while pulling out a short sword from below his vambrace with his left arm and taking a stance with the sword forward, his right hand balling into a fist.

”Begin!”

Argent exploded into action, dashing forward and striking out with a short downward chop. Quickly lifting his sword, Berry parried that strike and aimed a punch at Argent’s face.

Argent raised his shield and deflected the punch, aiming a low kick at Berry’s left knee. Moving his leg slightly to his right, Berry allowed the kick to lightly graze his shin as he did a quick jab with his sword at Argent’s stomach, not necessarily to land a strong blow, but to place his sword between his stomach and shield, as he made another right hook, this time at his torso.

Argent didn’t attempt to deflect the punch, instead he slammed the hilt of Michael into the wrist of Berry’s sword arm and slammed his shield into his face, the two strikes landed practically at the same time, causing both fighters to reel back.

Taking advantage of the moment of respite, Berry massaged his jaw with his right hand before resuming his stance and slowly approaching Argent while flanking his left side.

As Berry edged to Argent’s left the silver knight shifted Michael into it’s gun mode and fired three shots at his opponent. Surprise quickly gave way to annoyance as his vambrace released a wrist blade that fanned out to become a kite shield with his hand pointing at it’s really sharp tip. Not wanting to waste time he closed the remaining distance and jabbed with his sword arm to force his opponent to stop shooting.

Argent sidestepped Berry’s sword thrust and shoved his revolver towards Berry, firing a shot at point blank range over Berry’s shield. Or at least he tried to, but a simple movement of Berries right arm caused the bullet to nick him in the arm instead, and he wasted no time to deliver a right kick to Argent’s stomach.

Argent barely managed to turn and lessen the hit slightly, it still hurt like hell, but he shifted both his weapons and swung Raphael to fire at Berry’s leg. Moving back a step to block the shot, the redheads shield turned 90 degrees, it’s tip pointing down to offer the best protection as Berry took an inhumanly long intake of breath before stepping forward to bash Argent with his shield.

Argent spun on his feet out of the way of the shield bash and lashed out with pommel of of his sword at Berry’s head on the tail end of his spin while shifting Raphael back to it’s shield form. Trying to move his head with the blow, the strike nonetheless connected, casing Berry to exhale a strong gust of wind in Argent’s general direction.

The gust pushed Argent back, but the moment it stopped he charged in slashing at Berry’s right side with his left while lashing out with his shield at the same time. Mirroring his opponent's movement somewhat, Berry struck with both weapons, shields and blades clashing together; not wanting to wait for more trouble, Berry swung his head forward into Argent’s.

Berry’s head slammed into Argent’s but he managed to hold his ground despite the pain and made to elbow Berry hard in the face. Reeling from his self inflicted damage, Berry continued to back away from Argent’s elbow while pulling back his now freed shield arm, which was transforming back from shield to its compact form. Once the transformation was done, Berry punched with his right arm towards Argent’s mid while releasing his wrist blade once more, sending a piston like punch towards the holyer of the two knights.

Berry’s blade clanged off of Argent’s breastplate, the impact caused Argent to stagger back a step, only to bring shield down on Berry’s outstretched arm. The sound of metal on metal could be heard once more as the their shields clashed from the first time this fight, causing Berry to take a long intake of breath, one that seemed to vacuum in the surrounding dust bunnies, before Berry blew a gust of wind at Argent’s feet as he made a downward slash with his now free sword arm.

Argent got knocked off balance by the blast of wind, and, taking advantage of that unsteadiness he dropped to the ground to his right, allowing Berry’s sword stroke to whistle past his ear. With the vambrace still in it’s wrist blade form, Berry thrust after the falling knight.

Argent barely deflected the wrist blade with his sword and turned mid fall to land on his butt. Undeterred and with his right arm still reeling from the parry, Berry slashed horizontally with his sword arm.

From his seated position Argent slashed up at Berry with Michael, content to take the hit from the red head’s sword in exchange for one of his own. Weather he regretted that decision it was hard to tell, as his thoughts were assaulted by a sharp pain as Berry’s sword connected with Argents face. Through the fog of pain, he could barely make out the sound of a buzzer.

Looking up at the panel, Berry saw that Argents hit, despite nowhere near as powerful due to the lack of footing, managed to dip his aura in the red, causing him to facepalm with his shield arm while shaking his head, “You still alive there dumbass?"

Argent shook his head hard and bit his lip to clear his thoughts.... and started laughing. “I’m fine, though that was NOT one of my better ideas... ow. Damn I haven’t had that much fun in a spar in a long time, let’s do this again sometime.”

“If you two are quite done,” spoke Glynda in a very unamused tone, “you may continue this some other time.”

As the pair cleared the arena, she rolled the selection process again. The images barely spun before they stopped on a picture of a slightly feminine man with extremely pale skin and cool blue eyes topped by messy platinum blonde hair interspersed with blue streaks, opposite a darkly tanned androgynous face set with clay red eyes and dark blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail with a crimson streak through one side. “The next match shall be between Kalte Blau and Haldis Nicanson.”

The fight was a good showing of dust skills from Kalte and pure physical strength boosted by the blonde’s terrakinesis from Haldis. When Haldis had the chance to get closer the boxer did large amounts of damage with each hit, but Kalte’s evasion skills paired with his semblance meant it was difficult for the muscular teen to do so.

Haldis’s own physical resilience meant the fight drew out as well, as Kalte whittled away at his opponents aura with range spells and countered what few ranged attacks Haldis had with skillful dust use. Being able to keep his distance, even if it did look like he was on the retreat for most of the fight, meant that eventually he was able to drop the blonde into the red, with his own aura levels being not far behind.

“Good fight, the both of you.”Professor Goodwitch congratulated the pair as they left the arena, and started the program again. The pictures that popped up were almost identical; a pair of mouse-eared teens with caramel hair and blue-green eyes. “The next match shall be between Rost Waldgrun and Lila Waldgrun.”

”No need for these if it's the two of us.” The twin combatants agreed before each taking a step back from the center of the arena, discarding their hooded cloaks on the outskirts.

The girl grasped the handle of her tonfa as a rust colored mimic appeared beside her, copying the action. Across the arena, three blonde haired boy's darted in different directions with a blur of lilac between them.

The girl and her clone stepped back to back, raising their tonfa. A quick thumb across the base and a green glow coated the ends of the originals as her brothers decoys converged. The girl watched their footwork carefully, “You missed a step.” she shouted, swinging a single tonfa towards the leftmost of the three boys, knocking him backwards in a powerful burst of wind.

Two of the Rost’s in the arena dissolved while the third caught himself in a roll, jumping to his feet. With a spin on his heels, the mouse eared boy fired one grenade from each pistol. The first grenade landed to his sisters immediate right and she ducked away as it detonated, only for the second to detonate and destroy her doll. “You always fall for that one.” he joked

A split second later, the female twin flipped to her feet from the ground, linking her tonfa into a staff. Lila shifted a band on the shaft and the ends of her weapon crackled with electricity. She laughed, ”Really should work on remembering that move, huh?” the female mouse joked, bolting towards her brother. The blonde haired girl spun to drive her staff towards him lengthwise towards her twin.

Rost caught the weapon against the tops of his pistols, pressing the sparking end aside and clear of his body to flick the twin pistols upwards, allowing the blades to extend. Swords armed, he sent a left handed slash towards Lila

A slight click could be heard as leaf shaped blades flipped out of the ends of the metallic staff, deflecting the incoming sword with a quick spin only for Lila to be caught by a kick to the shin as Commandere ceased its rotation in her hand.

When Lila stumbled from the strike Rost attempted to strike across the shoulders, however the double ended spear in his sister’s hand split suddenly and was brought up to guard. A quick twist of her wrist brought the still electrified end into his arm.

”Shit, that stings.” he shouted , jumping back and splitting in triplicate once more. Each of the boys took an identical position, swords crossed in front.

Lila spawned a new doll, swapping the active dust in her tonfa to ice. As her brother and the copies approached, she passed off one of the tonfa to her mirrored clone, each swinging across to launch a handful of crystalline shards, unexpectedly shattering against the swords of all three “Finally took my advice on the earth, huh?” she asked, lining up her clone to link the tonfa back together into staff form

”It was a good call, what can I say? the three copies of her brother said in unison, each transforming their right sword back into gun form and firing two rounds. The grenades made contact with the ground behind Lila and two detonated, the spray of flame burning away her doll again.

As her doll evaporated, Lila lunged forward towards her twin”Nice try!” she shouted, delivering a full force strike to her twin’s gut with one of her tonfa, releasing a powerful jolt of electricity just as her doll fully evaporated.

Just then, a loud buzzer sounded twice

“We appear to have a double knockout.” Glynda observed as the two portraits on the display crossed out.

The twins shrugged "Not even slightly surprised."

“Very well.” Glynda noted, unimpressed by their confidence.

As the twins retrieved their cloaks and departed the floor laughing, Glynda spun the combatant selection. The randomiser brought up the image of a pale skinned girl with large russet brown eyes framed by black hair messily chopped short, next to a lightly tanned man with dark brown eyes and shoulder length red hair, half of which was tied back from his face. “The next match shall be between Rori Russette and Rufus Tenné.”

“Alright! My turn!” Was the immediate reaction from the Tiger Faunus, his tail twitching in excitement as he stood and made a fist in excitement. He was quick to gear up and head to the arena, where he would finally get to show his stuff.

”Go Rufus!” His mouse eared teammates cheered.

Russ would’ve been lying to say that seeing her face on the ‘wheel of fun’ didn’t send a pit into her stomach. The sword at her side --she’d name it soon enough, just needed something to come to her, dammit-- was made well enough, she hoped, but that didn’t change the fact that she wasn’t well-versed with it. Handling a sword would be fine, but what about the other 90% of the thing’s purpose?

Making her way into the arena, she saw that her opponent was a familiar face, albeit not an overly pleasant one. Tiger she thought she’d called him, though evidently his name was Rufus.

”Oh boy,” she mumbled, coming to a stop to give her surroundings a once over. Nothing fancy. Her attention turned to Rufus, she offered a slight wave. ”Uh...hey.”

“Hey yourself,” The large boy grinned cheerily, obviously in his element with the crowds attention, “Don’t hold back now. I wanna fight you properly.”

Russ huffed, eyes going up. ”Buddy, I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing,” she said, again more to herself and the air. Damn the guy was big, bigger than her anyway, despite that not being much of a feat. Plus there was a crowd, she hated crowds, at least when they were focused on her. She looked back to Rufus, then put a hand on her sword’s flat pommel, the other going to the trigger mechanism.

“Students, are you ready?” Professor Goodwitch called to the waiting pair. Rufus flexed his claws in reply as Russ nodded, and the stern woman called, “Begin!”

That was that then. Russ focused in on Rufus and took a light step to the side, she’d have to circle him for a while, see what was up. He was big, sure, but how quick was he? Could he keep up a chase? What--

Her finger grazed the primary trigger, perhaps just a bit too heavily but then how could she know what its sensitivities were? In a scream of air and burst of wind dust, the blade erupted from its sheath, flying from her hand and far off onto the ground. Worse, the unexpected force was more than enough to catch Russ in the exact opposite way she wanted to go, lifting her an inch or so off her feet and a good yard backwards flat onto her back. Ow.

Rufus started charging immediately, knowing that he wasn’t exactly the fastest in the class. The redhead was built for pure physical strength, and he was proud of it, but he also knew that tiny types were generally built for speed. That would give his opponent an edge if he didn’t close the gap almost immediately and keep them there.

Russ landing on her back wasn’t expected, but Rufus wasn’t about to say no to an opportunity like that. He pounced, reminiscent of the large cat that he was, with his claws ready to grab any limb they could, “Gotcha!”

Russ went wide-eyed when the first thing that came into view was the giant tiger faunus descending at her. No time to get to her feet, her sword was out of reach, and if she rolled she’d just be a foot or so to his right.

So, propping herself up as much as she could in that instant, she again --this time intentionally-- pulled the trigger on her sheath, and was launched backwards further, hoping to gain enough time to get to her feet.

The burly man didn’t drop his grin as his opponent slid away across the floor, and he landed in a crouch where she had been laying. His tail twitched as he glanced up at her, obviously enjoying himself, before launching his way after the girl.

Carrying momentum was something Russ excelled at, so using the backwards slide as a way to roll onto her feet was easy enough. But even still, a proper footing didn’t change the fact that she was still unarmed and outmuscled. She glanced off to her sword some feet away and made a B-line for it.

“Oh no you don’t!” Rufus stated, flexing his semblance to draw her attention away from the discarded sword and back to him. For good measure he switched directions as well, aiming at the sword in an attempt to either knock it further away or to intercept Russ there.

Her eyes snapped to Rufus, and she could not for the life of her pry them away. Russ found herself running towards him in the moment of confusion, but was quick to direct herself away --although that meant she was further from her weapon again.

”What the hell?” she muttered, but her feet kept moving, taking her towards the edge of the arena now.

Rufus allowed himself to smirk as Russ headed away from her main weapon again, coming to a stop beside the small blade. He retracted the claws on one of his gauntlets, allowing himself to pick the sword up and wield it properly. He may not know how to use it other than ‘swing it and the pointy end goes in the enemy’, but it kept it out of the black-haired girl’s hands.

“Are you missing something?” He called after the girl, falling into a ready stance with one hand prepped for clawing and the other holding the blade near his hip.

”Doesn’t suit you!” she called back. ”But hey, you look cute with a letter-opener.”

Yeah yeah Russ, big talk, fun banter, it wasn’t going to help win the match. Still, there was a lull, a moment to think, and that’s what she needed, so talking would do. She touched the second trigger on her sheath, the one to control the lava dust, and pressed it. Though no heat came through her hold, a hot light filled the opening. It was no sword, but close enough, she’d just have to make sure not to scorch herself.

Rufus shrugged, “Not everyone is a large as I am.”

There was an obvious double entendre there, by the way he quirked a mischievous grin at her and Russ couldn’t help but smirk back. ”That’s absolutely adorable, kitty,” she said, then nodded him forward. ”C’mon then, show me whatcha got.”

His grin widened, showing a set of pearly white teeth, “Well, I’ve got your sword for one. I’m also really strong. How much do you like your sword, by the way? It doesn’t look very flexible.”

”You break my sword, I break yours, then what’s kitty gonna play with?” she said, and shot him a mischievous grin of her own.

“Well,” Rufus started lazily, “If you break mine, that means you have to come real close, doesn’t it? I could think of a few things I can play with instead.”

He leisurely put the tip of the blade in the centre of his armoured palm, tapping the sword with his claws. “You want me to stop? You’re going to have to come and get it.”

”With pleasure,” and then she was moving, only this time she was moving quickly. Though it might have been impossible to see at a distance, Russ’s eyes had gone dry of color, and even that might not have been enough of a tip to figure out what she was doing. Her Semblance was not a showy one, one might mistake it for good speed or impressive agility until she started getting tricky with it.

Regardless, it didn’t take long to close the distance, but when she did, Russ didn’t go for any kind of strike. Instead, without losing even a bit of momentum, turned in front of Rufus, pointed the opening of the sheath out to him, and pulled the trigger. A jet of ignited lava dust sprayed forth, and though the force did register, her Semblance was quick to convert it into more speed for her continued run.

Rufus barely had time to flinch back as the girl appeared directly in front of him, and he threw his armoured hand in front of his face to protect himself from the lava. He hissed at the burning sensation it left behind, though his aura naturally protected him from any real damage, and flung the girl’s sword tip first in her general direction as the armour plating covered his other hand once more.

Russ didn’t so much as slow down, and let her Semblance-enhanced sprint take her away. Weapon or not, if the cat got ahold of her she was dinner, and if she had to make a swordless sheath work a little bit longer than so be it. She wasn’t as far away as before, and she still found herself looking more at Rufus than her now open sword.

Rufus’s tail twitched as his grin got a little sharper, “Finally stopped dancing around then?”

He sunk deeper into a ready stance but didn’t move, keeping a close eye on every move she made. Every muscle was clearly visible beneath his open vest, showing that he was ready to leap in any direction or attack in any way if she got close. The Tiger Faunus’s trait was the only thing that seemed energetic, as it twitched and swayed behind him.

Another lull, and Russ was more than eager to take it. She came to a stop, let her Semblance die down as she didn’t need it, then thought over her next move. The sword was priority after avoiding him, which alone wouldn’t be incredibly difficult if she could keep a good few feet of distance.

Again in a flicker her eyes dulled and she started jogging for the sword on the ground. If he was going to stop her, he’d have to make the move. The muscular teen didn’t charge directly at her, instead cutting across the arena to meet her halfway if they kept up the current trajectory. She’d do just that, picking up into a sprint towards him as the heat charged up in her sheath again.

Rufus’s claws lashed out with surprising speed considering the agility of the rest of his body, which was not the best. However, he had focused most of his training into arm-based attacks and was capable of delivering fast paced attacks with his gauntlets when he needed to, and in this instance it worked. His right hand closed around her right shoulder, and the Tiger Faunus used his considerable strength to lift her off the ground and slam her stomach with an armoured fist. The red-head kept a firm grip on her shoulder as he did this, allowing the extra length of his claws to wrap around the shoulder joint and provide him with purchase.

There went all of her air, and all the focus she used to keep her Semblance going. All at once Russ was just Russ again, except now she was in considerably more pain. Not an improvement past her would have been happy with. She didn’t make much of a sound when he hit, more a gasped groan, and a wince at his grip on her shoulder.

Her free hand remembered that it was occupied before her thoughts did, and she almost unintentionally pulled the sheath’s trigger. Were face shots allowed? Punches were one thing, but Russ was considering something that might kill a dude off the street. The decision was rash, perhaps uninformed and even worse, wrong, but she tilted the sheath down and to the side, aimed more for his right shoulder, before firing.

Rufus lashed up with his other hand as the lava shot at his arm, causing him to hiss. His left hand grasped at the source of the lava even as he toughed his way through the burning centred around his shoulder, his grin dropping to be replaced by a pained grimace. He felt more than heard the metal of his claws scrape against the leather and metal of the sheath attached to the petite girl’s hip, and the Tiger Faunus grabbed the weapon.

With a low growl he pulled it away from the young woman’s grasp, tossing it somewhere behind him as the lava flow finally stopped.

And there went her last line of defense. Russ could almost feel what little air she’d sucked in rushing out of her in anticipation of the tiger’s next strike, and found herself fueled by the urge to do little else but prevent that from happening. She needed to get out, then she could figure out what to do next.

Her legs flailed she kicked forward as rapidly as she could, even if the strikes didn’t carry much power to them they were all she could muster. Something must have connected though, as Rufus’s dark look was replaced suddenly by his eyes widening. A strangled sound emitted from his mouth and the sound of the buzzer announcing someone’s elimination accompanied it as he released her shoulder to curl in a ball.

Russ dropped like a sack of rocks and quickly found that she had no energy to scurry away. In fact involuntarily she too curled, hands going to her gut before she looked up to see her opponent had had the same idea.

”A-are you...freaking...joking?” she gasped. ”Hey...you a-alright…?”

“Peachy,” He squeaked, his voice about three octaves higher than usual. There were tears peaking at the corners of his eyes as he shot her a pained smile that looked like someone was trying to pull his heart out through his throat, “Good fight. Congrats. It was fun.”

She glanced up to the screen, barely registering that her portrait wasn’t crossed out before she sank her forehead against the ground. There was laughing, wheezy as it was, before she crawled back to her feet. Perhaps a bit naively, she offered a hand out to help Rufus up.

”You too...just promise...never to punch me again...you’ll kill me.”

“Only if you promise not to kick me in the nuts again.” He wheezed in return, but accepted the hand nonetheless. He didn’t really use her to pull himself to his feet, but more just shook it while he half-rose. He was still bent slightly at the hips, and his legs looked wobbly, “I need an ice pack.”

”I am so sorry, kitty,” she said, and slowly went to grab her sword and sheath before setting them back at her hip. When she returned she patted Rufus on the back and looked towards the exit. Well, that hadn’t been so bad.

”That was an...interesting way to win, Miss Russette. Congratulations to the both of you.” Professor Goodwitch spoke as the combatants cleared the floor. She waited for the pair to rejoin the class before activating the competitor selection again. The computer landed on another pair of fair skinned girls; one with dark green eye and a platinum blonde pixie cut and the other with a pair of wolf ears peeking out of a shock of flaming crimson hair and pale golden eyes. “The next match shall be between Vanilla Legume and Tamnocrven Bakar.”

The fight between the lanky Wolf Faunus and the petite cheerleader was somewhat interesting. Tamn’s hammers and general agility and bouncing attacks meant that Vanilla couldn’t pin her down with her lance, and Vanilla’s sonic boosts from the microphone of her lance meant Tamn couldn’t either.

Tamn was the better fighter however, and slowly whittled away at Vanilla’s aura until the petite blonde caught the Wolf Faunus in the backlash of a sonic blast. The sensitive wolf ears on top of Tamn’s head backfired on her, as the loud ringing disorientated the taller girl. Vanilla took the opportunity to unleash a heavy strike in the red-head, knocking her aura down harshly. A few more rounds of capitalising on the Faunus’s weakness and Vanilla was declared the winner by a marginal fraction.

”Well done, both of you” The lone adult congratulated as the combatants cleared the floor, rolling the match selection once more. The images this time were of a pair of extremely pale men; one with dark green, almost black hair and deep black eyes, and the other with dark blue eyes and a shaved head. “The next match shall be between Basil Trista Plagas and Asche Stauss.”