Sand followed after Trad as he guided her to the dorms, trying to commit the way to memory as they walked. There were few distractions on the way there. The other students walking the halls had business of their own, and Trad’s attention as they walked was largely focused on his scroll, leaving the group to make the trek in relative silence.

Trad finally lowered his phone as they reached a door, and he announced their arrival to the team’s room. Sand let herself in, ignoring a sudden feeling of unease that gripped her as she walked past him. murmuring her thanks as she walked past him. Her boots thumped against the wooden floor as she stopped before a red, circular rug, taking the view in. The off-white walls and open window opposite to her, along with the obvious signs of being lived in, gave the room a warm aura.

“Not sure if it compares to the dorm you had at Atlas but I’m sure you’ll agree it’s better than bedrolls in a ruined fort,” Trad said as they walked in.

Not that the latter’s hard to beat. She nodded. “It’ll do.”

Trad continued to point out the door at the side of the room. “Bathroom is over there by mine and Grane’s beds, if you need to study we have a few desks right here by Robert and Delta’s…”

Sand glanced at him as he paused, and saw Trad’s eyes fixed on one of the beds. She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Well, I guess it’s your bed now…” He muttered somberly. “If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to go check on Robert, see if they know the extent of his injuries.”

Sand stepped aside, letting him through. Briefly, she wondered if she should say something, but the man was out the door before anything worthwhile came to mind. Instead, she walked over to Delta’s bed.

The sheets were messy, as if someone had slept on the bed that morning, and a Beacon uniform was splayed over them. Sand knelt to grab the pillow, which had fallen to the floor, and dropped it at the head of the bed. It’s not as if Delta expected what happened. She reminded herself.

“Is that a bathroom?” she asked. An inane question. Trad had already said as much, and she didn’t wait for confirmation before she walked in.

She closed the door behind her and placed her hands on the sink.

Too fast. This moved too fast. She could not blame the Headmaster for making the decision of placing her in this team. It made sense. But perhaps he should have allowed some time for mourning, or at least for someone to collect Delta’s personal effects.

So I could at least pretend I’m not a replacement. I wonder how Delta would feel if he knew the next person his team met only minutes after he died had immediately filled in the vacancy he left. Was that all he was worth? She had never felt so much like an intruder in her life.

She shook her head, letting out a tired sigh. Then again, among them all, she had the least right to complain. She had lost no one in the debacle, after all.

Sand turned on the faucet, letting the cold water pool in her hands before bringing it up to her face. The cool liquid washed over the layer of dirt and sweat that had accumulated on her skin. Energized, she took the moment to eye herself critically in the mirror.

Her hair was greasy, matted with sweat and straighter than it would normally be. She would need a good shower the first chance she got. She could not see any injuries on herself, at least. Her clothes had light tears and scratches here and there, but something told Sand a deeper examination would only reveal bruises, at worst. She’d have to make a choice later as to whether she would have to replace her apparel or sow it back together. Glancing down, she lifted one leg, looking at where one of the Creeps had bitten her early on in their outing. The Grimm had failed to penetrate her boot's tough leather, but its teeth had left whitish marks around the ankle.

She hummed. Looking at it a certain way, it gave the boots character.

Her scroll vibrating distracted her, and she pulled the phone out of her pocket. She nodded as she scanned the message that announced her welcome to the school, and the activation of her scroll ID. It seemed she would be free to come and go as she pleased. Good. Regardless of her feelings on the matter, she would need to begin settling in.

Sand entered a number and brought the phone to her ear.

---

A moment later, Sand left the bathroom, looking refreshed, but this time she didn’t pause to take in the room. Instead, she walked past the beds, towards the door.

“I got some things to take care of,” she said as she made for the hallway. “I’ll be back later with my things.”

Charon opened the door do his team's empty dorm room, wearing a robe while drying his hair off by massaging his head with a towel. He walked over to his bed and plopped down on it, throwing the damp towel into his laundry hamper. He let out a sigh of relief; he felt a lot better after a nice hot shower, "At least I had enough luck to have some hot water for a shower..." He mumbled to himself.

He glanced over to his nightstand to spy his scroll all lit up. He reached over and grabbed it, opening it up to see that Ferris had texted him twice.

From: Ferris

Come join me by the air docks, some guy set up a grill, and now there is a little grill out going on. 
I figure we can use this opportunity to meet some new faces and introduce ourselves.

Someone set up a grill on the air-docks? Huh, free food does sound nice, especially if there is something there that beats my rather disappointing breakfast.

He scrolled down to read the next message, which made him frown:

From Ferris: 

"Too slow, grills canceled. :( Sorry guys. 
Meet up with me anyways. I'll make it up to you."

Well shoot, an opportunity for good food came and went, and just like breakfast I didn't know about it until it was too late. He closed his eyes and sighed again, sick of his abysmal luck this morning in satisfying his hunger with good food.

He opened his eyes again and decided to message Ferris back,

Just my luck, I miss a cookout while I was in the shower. Oh well, where are you exactly?

He waited a moment and his scroll buzzed in his hand, with a new message from Ferris:

At the Courtyard beyond the Air-docks, waiting for you slowpokes

Charon smiled, and replied :

OK, see you in a few captain

Charon placed his scroll back on his nightstand and got up to walk to his dresser to grab a fresh pair of his favorite casual clothes: A purple plaid shirt over a gray T-shirt, and some blue jeans with some wool socks. After getting fully clothed, he hung his robe up on the door to the bathroom and grabbed his pair of brown leather combat boots along with his pair of gaunlets and quickly tied them on. Lastly, he put on his harness for his Greatsword-Rifle, but due to the rather casual occasion, collapsed the shoulder pad down a comfortable size, readjusted his bandoiler onto his back underneath the scabbard for his sword to be out of the way and out of sight, and hoisted his weapon, whilst in sword form, into the scabbard.

He grabbed his scroll and stuffed it into his pocket and went through a mental checklist to make sure he had everything before he left, and of course, forgot his favorite hat, which he left in his dresser. Throwing that on over his head, he left the room and locked the door behind him.

---

Charon guided himself to Ferris's aura, spotting his team leader lounging under a tree while reading a book in the middle of the courtyard. A songbird sang in the tree above him and Charon smiled while he approached his team leader, "What a lovely songbird, sounds like a finch has taken interest in what you're reading Ferris."

Charon took a knee next to him trying to read the text in the book, "Er, what are you reading anyways?"

@Crimson Raven @Caasicam

On this most cheery of mornings, even the sun shone brighter. It shone through the shutter blinds and curtains on the students' windows; it bathed the green, green grass of their home away from home in light. Yet, nature's jubilee carried with it the definitive tone of a last hurrah, for a hint of a chill blew in from the north. With it came the realization that autumn would soon be falling upon the kingdom of Vale. The season of yellow, orange, and red also meant that the time would soon come to buckle in and commit oneself to the daily grind of studies, exercises, and so forth. The students' missions for the most part shouldn't have been as serious as they ended up being, and they served as an omen of even greater seriousness for the future.

All the same, the future could wait. Dreary hours spent poring over books, memorizing information, or drilling movements into one's muscles needn't occupy the thoughts of the students today as they celebrated their last real holiday. Many an alarm carried a note of joviality, and not just because everyone got to sleep in. Room by room, the dormitory emptied, its denizens headed toward Beacon's outdoor athletic center in small groups. For sure, the thought of coffee, Shiny D, and fresh crepes made Abel's stomach -so used to oatmeal or hotel eggs and sausage patties- grumble uproariously. He went through his usual tidying-up routine at a leisurely pace, making sure to greet Scoot the ferret and give him a good tickle. Not for the first time, the guardian thought about how great of a blessing it was that the doctors at the island laboratory took advantage of the earnest mustelid's intelligence to potty-train him. After that, Abel put on his favorite jacket, waited while his animal friend situation himself on his shoulder, and made ready to embark. Of course, he wouldn't be participating in the great race at 9:45, but he wanted to watch, and of course he didn't want to miss out on the complimentary breakfast.

Meanwhile, at the newly-renovated special obstacle course, the gym teacher Ahriman Kore Agesander wrapped up the final test. So loaded was the course with moving, mechanical components that it took a lot of ironing-out to get everything functional, but with his adoptive brother Solomon -who wasn't up to much during a day off anyway- and a whole heap of other Beacon staff to help, all the technical issues had been resolved just in time. Now, with the finished result on display for him to take pride in, Kore felt his angry mood slipping away. Soon the students would arrive, and not long after the event would begin. The handiwork of the Agesander brothers would make for a challenging run indeed! A ways off, Headmaster Ozpin examined the course from a distance. He held in his mind no concerns for the functionality of the course, but instead yearnings that the students would, on this special holiday, be able to escape from the misgivings and misfortunes that plagued them. Seldom did a school employee wish for escapism, but to leave the awfulness that the hunters-in-training had experienced behind, Ozpin hoped that this whole shebang would be just the ticket. It all lay upon the students to take the final steps and allow the fun to work its magic.

@ABillionCats
Diamond nearly choked on a laugh. "Oh, that is precious. First Cobalt tries to not so subtly dump his job on me and now outsiders are starting to mistake me for our leader. Maybe I should just shut up and do it." she smirked before leaning towards Emerald, patting the faunus on her head. "Hey, how about we go ask the nurses if you can grow back together in your own bed? I'm sure if you promise you will not move around too much they'll let you - because you won't move around, right?" she suggested on a condition before moving to support the Faunus as they started walking back towards the infirmary.


@Harinezumikouken
Cigarette smoldering in between her lips, Esther stood with her arms crossed. A rather bored look on her face as she stared at her robotic training partner. Bearing striking resemblances to the new Atlesian Knights that were recently released, only much worse for wear. Displaying countless gouges, scratches, dents, dings, and even gunshot holes it was surprising how the training robot was even functioning at this point. Needless to say, ‘Bobbie’ as it was referred to, was a tough trooper. The Abyss Walkers were lucky enough to get their hands on the first few prototypes of the Atlesian Knights before they were all ‘prettied up’ and features added/removed to adjust costs per unit. Once ‘Bobbie’ was properly accounted for in their inventory and systems, the Walkers got to work putting the bot through its paces. Esther had ‘borrowed’ it for this weekend’s private lesson with one Ms. Diamond Frost.

Her hair had been pulled back into a tight, tidy, and neat bun. Rifle slung across her back, knife on her hip, pistol holstered on her thigh, Esther looked ready to fight at moment’s notice. Looking at the time displayed on her Scroll, she was quickly growing a bit irritated. Diamond had yet to show up early, as she figured. Eyes down at the ground, Esther absently kicked at the loose bits of rubber that saturated the ground of what she called the Practice class’ ‘Pit’ with her tan boots. The Pit being the class’ ground fighting spot, it was comprised of old and discarded tires that had been shredded and dumped into a big hole in the ground essentially. Might as well have Bobbie go through its paces.

Removing her cigarette to tap away some ash, Esther sighed.
”Bobbie.”
The bot blipped and beeped, ‘coming to life.’
”Conduct functions check of full range of motion.”
The bot nodded once in the affirmative and start doing a series of odd looking stretches and movements as it went through its tests.

Esther grunted and put her cigarette back to her lips, looking up at the bright afternoon skies with a sour look. Nice, bright, and warm. Perfect for a day of training. Looking around at the rather isolated Pit, Diamond still hadn’t shown up. No one that she could see as of yet hiding in the treelines. Just what was the girl playing at? Was she even going to take this all seriously or just waste Esther’s time? If that was the case, she would have to schedule a return/refund of whatever the girl decided to pay her.

‘Bobbie’ finished its test and notified Esther in an electronic young boy’s voice.
”Test complete, ma’am.”
Esther glanced at Bobbie before continuing to wait and grow annoyed with Diamond.
”Test result report.”
”Test results confirm. Lubrication, fluid levels approaching required replacement PM date. Full range of motion functioning at 89% of optimum operating rates.”
Esther grunted, exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke. She wasn’t really concerned with the bot needing some new fluids, as long as it worked.
”Run through basic hand-to-hand combat routines.”
”Aye, ma’am!” Bobbie nodded once and turned away from Esther, shadow-boxing with the open air as Esther waited.

First lesson and Diamond was already cutting it close. Right after she was done with taking care of her teammates, she grabbed a power bar, inhaled a can of soda and headed for the practice grounds. At 17:58 she finally made it, albeit a little shallow on breath. Suck it up, Frost. she told herself, looking around for a short while before finally spotting two people.

On second look, only one person plus one weathered Atlesian Knight. A bun? Great. Devil instructor of the battlefield it is.. “Good evening!” she pipped, hand reaching to tip the hat before her mind reminded her of its absence.

Esther and Bobbie both turned their heads at the same time to lock onto Diamond. It was clear Esther was not happy. Narrowing her eyes, Esther flex her jaw.
”Bobbie. Halt training routines. New training partner registered, Ms. Diamond Frost.”
The bot stopped and stood straight, unmoving as it processed the new information.
”Intermediate hand-to-hand close quarter combat session. And skip the Gentleman’s Bow, will you?”
The bot nodded once, turned to square up with Diamond and immediately charged at her. Swinging savagely with hooks, jabs, and kicks.
While Bobbie ‘greeted’ Diamond as its new training partner, Esther used her command voice to make sure she could be heard.
”I’m so glad you decided to join us, Ms. Frost! So, what’s your excuse for being late?! You really are starting to impress me with how seriously you say you want to improve! By the way, this is Bobbie! Bobbie is going to be your punching bag!”
Or rather, Diamond would become Bobbie’s if she didn’t provide Esther with a satisfying enough answer to calm her down. Off in the distance, Esther exhaled a cloud of smoke nearly finished with her current cancer stick.

Barely having enough time to catch a breath, Diamond grabbed the infernal machine by the wrists in an attempt to stop it. “I’m on time, and actually I was trying to teambuild until now so get-” She growled, eyes flashing as she set to cooling the tin can’s shell so she could hopefully break it to pieces, “-off-” Woefully not enough time to do that. Combined with her exhaustion and the robots actually impressive strength, she would have to come up with something else. “-my case!” Letting herself fall back, her legs shot up against the robot’s ‘stomach’ in an attempt to boost it into the air and over herself.

Bobbie was a veteran in and of its own rights, which is why Esther had picked its model instead of any of the others. Of the first batch of Atlesian Knight prototypes, Bobbie was the oldest and most beaten down. Fond memories played a part in Bobbie’s selection but also due to the fact that it had been in the most number of combat scenarios when compared to the other models. The moment Diamond fell back to kick at its stomach, it took the hit but squatted down to dig into the ground, absorbing the impact as it grabbed at Diamond’s ankles. With its strength, Bobbie lifted Diamond up and slammed her back against the ground. Lifting her up a second time, Bobbie chucked her in some random direction before chasing after her flying body.

Esther continued to heckle Diamond from the sidelines, doing her best to get a rise out of the girl and taking satisfaction in knowing it was working. All part of the test, really. ”If you’re on time, you’re late! You’re on time only if you’re early!” With a mocking round of applause, she continued ”Well, that’s all fine and dandy but you’ve gone and hurt Bobbie’s feelings! Bobbie was waiting to meet you and now look at you two! Already getting to know one another so well!”

Diamond twisted as she was tossed about like a ragdoll, managing to land on her feet, her boots dragging two ditches in the pit’s surface as she slid to a stop. She took a breath to tell Esther something she wouldn’t like repeated, but then the gears in her head finally started turning. Oho? Right! You think I get too emotional in a fight. Trying to wind me up are you? Fat chance. Planting one hand on the ground she caused the ground under the robot’s feet to freeze over while trying to summon a dagger to use. The result was somewhat bent something, but it had a pointy end and a bulge that would guard her hand - good enough. Switching to forward grip for greater accuracy, she went straight for the robot’s optics - Technically, Esther didn’t tell her she had to stick to hand-to-hand.

Bobbie’s feet got frozen over, causing it to stumble and nearly fall over. Trapped for but a second, Esther issued it another command. ”Bobbie! Fight dirty.” lights blinked and flickered in its faceplate as it added a slightly different combat sub-routine to its own programming. Punching straight down at the ice covering its feet, Bobbie grabbed the shards and chunks of ice to crush them in its hands. As Diamond neared it with a shadow-formed dagger, Bobbie threw the now-powdery ice particles at her face.

“Ahahaha.” Diamond chuckled as the ice particles simply melted when they approached her. Swinging her arm from above, she twisted it at the last moment to come from below instead, the tendrils of her aura surrounding the makeshift weapon to give it the punching power to go through the robot’s head. Let me enlighten you tin can - Fighting ice with ice does not work.

On another human or living thing, Diamond’s last minute swing adjustment would’ve spelled its end. But Bobbie is a military fighting machine, it didn’t rely on something as slow and unpredictable as reflexes. It had its own reaction time that was a step or two above that and as it saw Diamond’s attack coming upward Bobbie used its forearms to counter the attack by applying sudden force downward. Since Diamond was in Bobbie’s work space, it moved quickly right after the block. Locking Diamond’s attacking arm with one of its own and trapping the student, Bobbie followed up with strikes at the side of her neck, throat, and head.

The machine seemed to be a step ahead. If the block that wouldn’t have been humanly possible wasn’t a tell, then the dip Diamond’s aura just took from the strikes was a dead giveaway. It was becoming hard not to get angry, but the pair of brown eyes lingering on her just fishing for any mistake she would make so she could get chewed out for it made her stubbornly resist it.

It was ironic that the extra request she intended to make was to get her better at fighting at close range without a weapon. She was aware that with her semblance acting up she had no way around it. Locking the other arm with ‘Bobbie’s’ again, Diamond found the space to ask one thing. “How mad are you going to be if I break your toy?” the glow in her eyes turned paler as she put her spells to work. Since the robot wasn’t actually living, she had no trouble focusing on its specific parts.

Esther took one last drag of her cigarette before removing it and flicking it off to the side. Exhaling, she clapped her hands together once. ”I wouldn’t be. Bobbie, end training session.”

Bobbie seemed to freeze up, straightening its posture as its faceplate lit up. Beeping and blipping once more, Bobbie nodded once and spoke with that odd little boy’s voice. ”Aye, ma’am. Training session ended.” Releasing its hold on Diamond, Bobbie took a step or two back before politely bowing to Diamond. Turning, Bobbie walked over to Esther’s side and awaited further orders.

Esther reached into her trouser pockets and pulled out her packet of smokes, opening the top to slip one out before returning it. With her other hand, she pulled out a metal lighter and lit up. Flicking the lighter closed with a clink, Esther quickly eyed Diamond up and down before motioning at her with a hand.

Esther put her free hand on her hip, thinking of removing the bun she had her hair in. Why she put it up in the first place, she wasn’t quite sure. Sure, they were on Beacon grounds but they weren’t exactly there during normal school hours. Esther wasn’t necessarily on the clock. She was dressed the part, but she hated fucking buns and ponytails. In a few minutes or so, she would probably take her hair down, thinking about it more.

As the machine froze, Diamond gave esther a side look. “PAH!” She slammed her fist to the frozen machine’s chest, watching it slowly topple over with a silly giggle. Sighing and stretching her arms, she turned to the teacher. “You know I was about to ask for part of these lessons to improve my hand to hand, did you read my mind or something? I left my tinfoil hat at Atlas.”

Esther looked at Bobbie, lightly kicking at its chassis with the side of her boots. ”Bobbie. Get up. Go practice your combat routines on a tree or something.” She dismissively waved a hand at Bobbie as it stood. Nodding once, the robot said a quick ”Aye, ma’am.” and actually went to the nearest tree to start punching and kicking at it.

She shook her head, shrugging her shoulders. ”I had no idea. You were late which pissed me off and I decided to have Bobbie gauge your close-combat skills. Spoiler alert, you do indeed suck ass but I didn’t need Bobbie to know all of that. You’re quick to rely on your Aura, Dust, and Semblance before actually using any physical weapons or skills. Not that I’m saying you should hold back with that, but what if your fists were all you had?”

Sucking on the end of the cigarette butt, Esther took another drag and exhaled it to the side before looking back at Diamond with her cold dull eyes. ”So? Is that what you want to work on today? Your physical fighting prowess or lack thereof?”

“Wonderful work at stating the obvious. And you need to learn how to read the clock.” Diamond grunted under her breath. “What would I do? Improvise.” she said back in normal voice, “I am used to using the environment. True, mostly the city but the general principles still apply. There will always be something to grab or place to go to put some distance between me and whatever. Besides, I think I can work on that on my own well enough. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to focus on the casting and semblance?” she suggested. After all that was her comfort zone in a fight, so she needed to get the grip on those back again as soon as she could. Sighing, she looked up: “You’re going to want to hear about what happened right?”

Esther cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head when she thought she heard Diamond mutter something under her breath, but ultimately decided to ignore it. ”Suit yourself, it never hurts to improve basic hand to hand combat just remember that.” Another drag and another exhale, she was burning through her cigarettes rather quickly today for some reason. Was she particularly stressed about something? Perhaps it was merely boredom. ”This is your private lesson, whatever you feel you want to learn or work on, that’ll be the focus. I don’t have a syllabus planned out for you.” Finally having enough of her hair, Esther started to undo it. Her hair falling and resting in their natural state. ”Whatever you decide is important to tell me, feel free to and know that anything you say to me will have teacher-student confidentiality.” What could it be though? Something the girl wanted to get off her chest? If so, what was it? She had no idea what it could possibly pertain to.

The assurance made Diamond’s mouth rise in the corners in a faint ghost of a smile. She wouldn’t bet on anything sounding so formal as ‘teacher-student confidentiality’, but… she would trust Esther with this. Frankly, more than her own teammates, because with her she was sure she would get an honest answer rather than a pep talk. It still wasn’t easy to talk about it though.

Diamond sat herself down on the ground tyres. Gods, how many times did she want to tell someone? How much did she crave for someone to tell her if she did right or wrong? But there was always an excuse. Never a good time. Not a person good enough.

“Well… It is what my discussed limit is and how I found out… I figure that might be important somewhat.” She started, her tone still sounding uneasy and hesitating. “It was… two years ago. Back when I had that unfortunate holiday in jail. Somewhere halfway through… It was after dinner, some two idiots put something in my food, thought they would make themselves a fancy evening or something. They gave something to the guard in our sector to mind his own business and cornered me, all hazy and wobbly thinking I couldn’t defend myself.” she continued, her voice picking up strength.

“When I saw a knife I was terrified! But then when they started cutting into my clothes and getting all grabby...” Diamond’s breath was becoming ragged at this point, “I got so angry!” she growled, her hands clawing on the ground, “I wanted them dead! And then… then...” Just as fast as her voice picked up, it fell silent again.

“I don’t remember much of what happened then. It was like somebody else was at the helm. But I’ll never forget the end. It was like… I don’t even know how to describe it… Like I [i]was[i] my shadow, not just controlling it.” She brought her slightly trembling hands in front of her, her eyes falling to them. “I’ll never forget how my arms looked, black talons with chunks of people hanging from them. And I’ll never forget their lifeless eyes. They looked like just seeing me would have been enough for them to turn into stone, even if I didn’t tenderize them. They looked so scared. It still keeps me up at night.” She looked up to Esther with pleading eyes, “Am I… A monster?”

As Diamond spoke, Esther stood without changing her expression or posture. Waiting until the girl was finished saying what she had to let out without passing judgement of any sort as her cigarette slowly burned away in between her lips. She wondered if she was the first and only person the girl had ever confided in. When Diamond finished and asked her question, Esther removed her cigarette and tapped away the ash. Eyes watching as the little ashes slowly drifted to the ground, Esther finally spoke up after giving herself sufficient enough time to process and digest what was said.
”No. You’re not a monster.”
Returning the cigarette to her lips, Esther took an especially long drag and gently exhaled a ‘lazy cloud’.
”To be honest, if I were in your situation...I would’ve done something similar. For whatever reason, those scumbags thought it’d be a good idea to take advantage and cause permanent irreparable harm to a young girl. At that point, I wouldn’t even consider them human beings. Filth, really. I would’ve put a bullet between each of their eyes. Playing the part of judge, jury, and executioner not losing a wink of sleep at night. But, that’s me. Obviously, you’re not me. You’re you, to be redundant.”

Esther blinked, now noticing she was nearly done with her second cigarette and reached for her packet. Opening it, she looked at how many she had left and stared at it while continuing to respond to Diamond.

”If you’re looking for an answer as to whether you were right or wrong, look at it like this. You’re here, aren’t you? If someone else thought you were wrong for what you did to them, wouldn’t you still be locked up in the clink? To me, you were right for what you did in every sense of the word. Morally, legally, whatever. Then again, many people may see that as rather extreme but I don’t really give a shit what other people may think.”

Esther absently shook the packet and touched her finger to each cigarette, counting them. Softly sighing, she figured maybe that was enough for now, smoking that was. Closing the packet and pocketing it, Esther looked up and locked eye contact with Diamond.

”Have they gone over Semblance Theory yet in any of your classes? If not, then this is something to think about. If so, oh well it bears repeating. A bunch of people much smarter than you and I with fancy degrees have theorized that a Huntsmen’s Semblance is an extension of their souls. Their spirits, their personalities. Who they really are.”

Little stars appeared in Esther’s eyes as her fingertips lit aflame with the color of her Aura. Touching at her sheathed knife on her hip, she ‘pulled’ out multiple copies. With her pointer finger, she drew circles in the air, commanding each blade to form a slowly hovering and rotating ring.

”A good friend of mine, when he learned about that, said that it made sense. That my own Semblance is like how I can take the strength of my allies and expand upon it. Multiplying and reinforcing their powers to near infinite amounts.”

Pointing her finger at Diamond, the blades pointed their tips at her as they slowly circled around the girl’s head and neck.

”But you see, I was never always able to do this. Over time people change. Be it in the way they think, how their bodies function, et cetera. That part of your life occurred not that far off in the past, so I’d imagine you’re still recovering. You’re still healing from the wounds they had inflicted and it’s holding you back. At that point in time, that may have been the form your Semblance took because of how dark that event was.”

Touching her the fingertips of her hands together, she suddenly pulled them apart outward. Instantly the spectral knives she had created exponentially multiplied until hundreds of knives encircled Diamond. ”I’m under the impression that if you can overcome that traumatic event of your past and conquer your fears...Your Semblance’s true form may be very different. Even if it wasn’t, you can’t let your fears hamper your progress. If you’re serious about staying in this gun show, you’ve got to cut off and discard all of that baggage.”

With a snap of her fingers, every spectral knife shattered into pretty glittering shards of phantom glass. Softly landing on the ground before they faded away into nothingness.

”Your abilities are all your own. They don’t make you and don’t own you. So, seize control and embrace your strengths. People think Huntsmen are monsters anyways. I mean, when you think about it...How terrifying is it from the perspective of a normal civilian? That there are people who have the physical ability to go head-to-head with the Creatures of Grimm along with magic powers that can control the elements and bend the rules of this world? We fight. We kill. But most importantly, we survive. And we make it so that innocent lives can sleep peacefully at night, knowing that there’s a good chance that they’ll wake up tomorrow to resume their happy and boring little lives. I wouldn’t worry about how others may look at you, as long as you can look yourself in the mirror and be proud of who is reflected.”

Removing the now extinguished cigarette butt from her mouth, she flicked it away in the same direction as the first. Yes, she was littering. No, she didn’t really care.
”Did any of the Abyss Walkers tell you what their callsign for me was? I know Tony has a fat fucking mouth and has Chronic Word Diarrhea Syndrome.”
Turning her back to Diamond, Esther moved her slung rifle to her front and shouldered it. Raising its muzzle she placed a hand against its side and ‘pulled’. Slinging her rifle back behind her, Esther began to throw her hands about in a dramatic and exaggerated show as if she were some maestro of an orchestra. It didn’t long before a ridiculous amount of her copied rifle crowded the environment. To the point of where it even produced shade, blotting out some sunlight. Looking around at the countless phantom rifles, Esther turned back around to Diamond.

”They gave me the call sign ‘Death March’ because of one mission I completed in the past. I won’t tell you the specifics as they aren’t relevant, but the Walkers were in a tough spot. They needed a lot of Grimm exterminated and pronto. They were facing a swarm and were about to lose a lot of good men. So? They called for support and the higher brass sent my ass out on the HST. For some reason, higher command decided to only send me instead of a team. When my boots hit the ground, they couldn’t believe why I came alone. Hunkered down behind their defensive positions, they prepared to embrace Death.”

Esther smugly smirked, recalling the looks on the faces of her friends afterwards when everything was said and done.

”I, by myself, forced back the swarm. Eradicating every last Grimm and saving each of the Walkers’ lives. Even scarred the earth too, but I did it. Me. Not to toot my own horn, of course. But even though I pulled through and helped to rescue them…”

Esther’s smirk faded, changing into a sour sneer.

”They all feared me. Looking at me as if I were some sort of freak of nature or mutant. No one spoke to me. No one looked at me. They all stayed as far away as they could from me and even took lengths to avoid me altogether. They were scared of what I could do, because they didn’t understand who I was as a person. They didn’t know me. But after time, they all got over themselves and gave me that moniker. ‘Death March’. Wherever I march, Death follows. During that time, it hurt. Those people were supposed to be my comrades and yet they would rather have nothing to do with me. It hurt. It hurt a lot.”

Esther shrugged, looking up and admiring the ghostly weapons she made.

”I kept at it. I continued to work hard to better myself and do my job as a Huntress. I didn’t let it bog me down or bother me to where I couldn’t perform my duties. Now, here I am. Veteran of so many years and educating other Huntsmen so that they can do better than my generation. I’d say I made it pretty good for myself. You could do the same.”

With a single wave of her arms, every rifle simultaneously shattered. Falling to the ground like shimmering little stars, harmlessly. The environment returning to normal.

Listening as Esther spoke, Diamond idly drawn shapes in the pit’s surface with her finger. Her own thoughts were hammering inside her mind like a thousand little voices.

Barbarian!

Animal!



She mentally cried out to silence them. “It’s not that easy. It can’t be that easy, taking a life must never be that easy!” she exclaimed, little bewildered by Esther’s way of thinking. Although honestly, that was hardly a rarity. “I could have… I could have incapacitated them. Maimed them, maybe. Something! If there’s no second chances then by that logic you should put a round in my head as well!” she grumbled, ”I won’t think like that. I refuse, no matter what baggage it makes me carry.”

Taking a breath and shaking her head, she opted to focus on a different thing. “Yeah I knew how semblances are supposed to work, even before coming here. I’ve had one since I was nine. But, here’s another theory: Given that it was at it’s strongest the single time I actually intended to kill someone, my semblance is an extension of my bad side. Something that has been getting considerably weaker since I came here.”

Falling backwards to lie on the floor, she did angels in the rubber chunks. “But that would mean it’s just going away, maybe for good. Or maybe that it’s incomplete or that there’s some other side to it I didn’t yet discover. But no matter what angle I approach it from, I am still getting to one conclusion: It might take an awful long time to figure it out, if I ever do. I’m not saying ‘Let’s forget it’, but maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to focus the lessons on something else for now, most likely my casting. Something I can use in the meantime. The implant is something I have readily available unlike a weapon to replace the shadow and it is reliable. What’d you suggest?” she asked, looking up to the teacher.

”Well, to be honest..”
Esther put her hands on her hips, looking up at the sky.
”You’re right. When I first started out, it was hard. It wasn’t easy to take a life.”
How many corrupt individuals did she deem too far gone, salvation lost to them? How many had she executed with cold indifference? She lost count long ago.
”But after some time, doing what we do especially in my case..It just became part of the job. You got used to it. Maybe not completely, but mostly.”
Esther looked over her shoulder at Diamond.
”Could’ve. Should’ve. Would’ve. But the fact remains that you didn’t, so no point in lingering on the past. Learn from it, grow from it, but you should move on.”

Esther shook her head, realizing how Diamond had changed the subject and didn’t want to speak of the matters any longer. Sighing, she let it rest. Shrugging, she repeated herself after allowing Diamond to finish speaking.

”As I’ve said, these lessons are for you. Anything you want to focus on and work on improving is all fine by me. For your Dust casting, I already have a basic idea of what we could do to help you. It’s not going to be fun, most of it will be repetitious drills. Such as pushing yourself to form something like an ice spear faster and faster. Seeing how many you can summon at once. Actually using said spells against stationary and then mobile targets. Question is, you know supposedly how far your Semblance goes. But do you know how far you can take your Dust casting? Do you know what you can or can’t do with your Dust? What are the side effects of using it other than feeling cold? With your Semblance your only real side effects is potential psychological and mental damage. With your Dust, however, the damage becomes clearly physical and beyond ‘just feeling really cold all the time’.”

Turning to face Diamond, arms crossed under her chest, she figured now would be a good time to start.
”If you’re ready, we can begin. First, we’ll discover your limit with Dust casting.”

Getting up and brushing the ground rubber off as Esther spoke, Diamond have her a nod. “I heard you the first time, but your job is going to include me asking for a second opinion.” she smirked, “I’m little worried about how exactly you intend to find that limit. I am not a fan of the idea of casting until I cripple the other arm, just saying.”

To be frank, Diamond has thought about it. The doctor said that with the damage done to her other arm, she would be able to do more than before. But how would she know where that limit is if she couldn’t feel when that arm was getting damaged even further? No, best play it safe and go for a level that would be safe regardless. She took a couple of breaths to clear her mind. “Ready.”

Esther smirked back.
”Sorry, but I’m not really interested in your opinion. I’m just going to speak my mind and that’ll be that. You would be correct though, Ms. Frost. I want you to summon as much of your Dust power as you can…”
Esther uncrossed her arms, balling her hands into fists.
”And hit me. As hard as you can.”

“Ohohoh, can do! Question: As much power as I can summon at once or do I have time to prepare? You might want to boost your defense if the latter.” Diamond grinned, walking back a little bit to have all of Esther in her view, turned sideways just in case Esther would counter attack (Diamond just knew that was a very real possibility) to make less of a target and thought of where and how to actually hit.

Esther chuckled, not changing her stance or posture in any way. Whether it was arrogance or confidence, Esther didn’t appear to be worried at all. ”Oh no, by all means take your time. I want to see your strongest, hardest hitting attack. Do your best.”

“I don’t really have attacks per se, I can quite literally do whatever I feel like. Let’s see.” Diamond noted. Oh, she was happy to oblige. She remembered Esther’s regular gear being armored, so how should she do this? Aim for the joints? That would be a debilitating hit, if it connected. She had to remember that the teacher was probably pretty fast as well. Maybe something that could be altered easily? She chose to go with that.

Closing her eyes to focus, it seemed like she was doing nothing for two minutes, barely even taking a breath. All the while a blue glow was building up around her. After two more minutes, Diamond decided that perhaps she shouldn’t kill Esther now that she paid her ungodly money to do this. Her eyes flicked open and if one were to look, they would see the glow obscured the iris entirely, making the girl seem downright demonic. One snap of Diamond’s fingers later about fifty icicles as long and thick as her arm appeared from thin air. Swinging her other arm forward, they all oriented themselves and flown at Esther. Diamond kept her eyes on target - she accounted for a dodge and wove the spell in such a manner that she could alter the trajectory of the attack easily enough.

Esther stood there, staring down Diamond’s incoming attack as it came closer. What should she do, was the question? She could probably evade and dodge them all, as challenging as that may be. She could counter them using her favorite technique, Aura Counter. Should she attack back? Should she lead the attacks back at Diamond? Of all these thoughts, none of them occurred to Esther. She had already made her mind. She was just going to eat it, take it like a champ. As stupid as that may seem, especially taking into account that Esther would never do this in any other situation, Esther wanted to know what the girl had.

Making sure to stay relaxed and focused, not to tense her body, Esther just remained there. Standing stock still as the spears of ice flew at her, her eyes burned fiercely as her Aura flared and prepared to absorb the attack.

Her attack seemed to be true on it’s mark. Which was strange. Hunter of Esther’s caliber shouldn’t have (much) trouble dodging this, or for that matter obliterating the icicles before they even made contact. After the first few spears shattered against Esther’s aura, Diamond swung her arm to the side, making the rest avoid hitting and bringing them back behind her to have another go. “Are you actually going to just stand there like a muppet or are you going to try to make this somewhat challenging?” she complained, “Frankly we don’t have time for me to go all out since to cast a spell that would deplete my aura completely would take hours and I have school tomorrow! So could you at least move around so I have to put at least some control into hitting you?”

”I can’t accurately gauge your limits if you’re afraid of getting a little tired or of ‘hurting’ me, Ms. Frost. I told you to hit me as hard as you can and you pull the punch?” Esther smirked, scoffing. ”You really are a sweet thing, huh? I don’t know about you, but I have all the time in the world. I don’t care that you have classes tomorrow and I don’t care if you’ll deplete your Aura. Remember I work at Beacon, Ms. Frost. If you aren’t willing to go all out and devote yourself to this, you’ll never improve and you’ll be left behind.” Esther continued to egg on Diamond. ”Come on, after all this you still aren’t willing to try and put a hurt on me? How will you learn to hit a mobile target if you can’t hit a stationary target first? Crawl before you walk, Ms. Frost!”

A pout appeared on Diamond’s face. “You know what? You’re right, forget I said anything.” Oh I’ll hurt you alright. Diamond thought, her fists balling up. “Apparently I’ll have to actually make this a challenge for myself all on my own.” She split the ice spears into two groups. The larger one she let group up in a tree thick column and launched it back at Esther.

The smaller group she decided to have some fun with. A bead of sweat appeared on her forehead, immediately turning into a hail and falling off. The few ice chunks she had remaining floated to the ground and shifted their shape before coming together to form a skeletal golem. Admiring her creation for a fraction of a second, she made it launch itself forward and throw a punch.

Esther grinned when Diamond reformed her attacks and sent them back her way, bracing herself. The larger column of ice slammed into her defensive Aura, but it was hardly anything to Esther to withstand. Deflecting the inert column upwards with an uppercut, she then twirled on the spot and roundhouse kicked it towards the incoming ice golem to demolish it.

Thumbing her nose, Esther stretched out her arms. ”If that’s the best you got, then I weep for the future of Huntsmen!”

Expecting something like that, Diamond made use of the control spell she woven into the attack. Esther’s taunting gone unnoticed as all of Diamond’s focus had to be pointed towards directing the fifty-ish ice spears. She wasn’t sure if it was an oversight or a second chance from Esther, but with a swipe of her arms the column broke apart and reformed into a couple of streams, flying off to hit Esther from four sides as well as above.

Theoretically she could keep this up until she had no more spears left. Practically Diamond was feeling like her brain had to fry any second from the degree of control she had to exert.

Esther’s grin remained plastered on her face. Truthfully, she was just passing off not actually combating Diamond because she was feeling lazy. It was the weekend after all, and she didn’t feel like going to the gym or exerting herself too much. But when Diamond displayed a bit of creativity in reforming the column of solid ice she had deflected, she couldn’t help but take the bait and bite. After all, she could always use the practice to keep her edges sharp. Might as well take advantage of the girl, in a different way.

And show off a little.
”Attacked from all sides, huh? I like it. This ought to be interesting...”

With an agility, speed, and precision that only a veteran Huntress of many years could display Esther remained in her spot and yet began to deflect and evade every one of Diamond’s spears. In a series of graceful movements, Esther dodged large groups of ice spears easily. Largely ignoring them and letting them fly by her unscathed. The ones she knew she would have difficulty with she practiced her favorite technique on, Aura Counter. Using just very small amounts of her Aura and with near perfect timing, with only light taps and touches with various spots on her body Esther sent the would-be dangerous spears spiraling and spinning away.

Perhaps the most incredible part of it all, was that Esther refused to destroy a single spear. Diamond had already admitted to her that to expend all of her Aura casting spells would take an entire day’s worth of combat. So, how else to push the student to her limits? Let her practice her control of her spells on a large scale. She could craft, cast, weave whatever she wanted. But how well could she combo them together and chain them along? How well could she control them and for how long? That was what Esther wanted to see next.

Slippery Snake! Diamond thought in a bit of frustration. Still, she got Esther doing exactly what she wanted, probably even thinking it was her idea. Smirking, she kept throwing the spears against her to keep her distracted while she moved a couple of the projectiles in slowly along the ground. Then with a snap of fingers she made the spears rise in an attempt to pinch Esther’s arms and legs in between two spears each and hold her in one place. “What was that about finding my limits? Do you think not fighting back is pushing me as hard as you can? Oh hold on, my accountant is on the line: She’s speaking of refunds...”

Esther faked a look of surprise when suddenly her arms and legs were locked in place by ice spears that she ‘hadn’t noticed’. Struggling against the spears, she looked up at Diamond and listened as she spoke.
”Hm. Creative, but not quite enough. So, she wants to go all out then..? She makes a good point.”
Ignoring the bit about a potential ‘refund’, Esther smirked.
”Alright. Just remember, you asked for this.”

“I’d rather leave bleeding than with any energy to spare!” Diamond taunted back, doing her best to brace herself for what was to come.

Curling her right index finger into a ‘C’ shape and slowly pulling at an invisible trigger, Esther mouthed the word ‘Bang!’ at Diamond. Gunshots rang out from different directions, cracking and popping as a hidden firing squad first freed Esther from the ice spears and then worked at whittling away each of the ice spears that still remained. It was over within seconds. Fingertips of her gloves glowing with those little green-blue flames that indicated she held control of some phantom copies of weapons, Esther dusted herself off of the frost that had accumulated on her after all of Diamond’s spears had been destroyed. As she did so, numerous specters of her copied rifle emerged from their hiding places and gathered behind her in a neat formation with their barrels pointed upward.

As it seemed, Esther hadn’t gotten rid of all of her earlier copies. Having seeded them undetected in spots all around the Pit. Looking at Diamond for a brief moment, a thought occurred to her.
”Ah, right. This is supposed to be a somewhat realistic combat situation. What am I doing?” She remembered.

Unslinging her rifle and shouldering it to point it at Diamond, the dozens of rifles in formation behind her did the same and snapped to point their muzzles at her. Fitting her fingers into the slots of her rifle, she twisted the insert with a click-click-click charging her rifle with Fire Dust, her copies doing the same. One hardly had time to blink and take a breath before the Hellstorm that followed. From sudden silence, the air erupted into a cacophonous orchestra of gunfire. Each shot imbued with an explosive flaming power as they threatened to shred Diamond to pieces.

No longer remaining stationary, Esther charged at Diamond as she kept her rifle up to continue firing. Her phantoms flew ahead of her, chasing after the young Huntress and looking to surround her to trap her in a ball of crossfire just as she had tried to trap Esther with her ice spears.

Gunbarrels. What was it with the World pointing those at her recently. Well at least this time she expected them, although the fact that Esther managed to keep some of her spectral weapons took her by surprise. The shards of the broken copies must have hidden them for long enough to dig into the ground tyres before Diamond could notice them.

When she heard the clicks, Diamond knew she had only seconds to prepare. Dropping down to the floor, she dug her hands into the pit’s surface until she reached below, her fingers brushing against a layer of clay.

She didn’t like her situation. It forced her to assume way too much. But from what she saw of Esther, Diamond knew she had fire ammunition accessible to her and was guessing she would try to use it against her. She did tell her she had troubles dealing with high temperatures after all.

Casting her dies, she caused the clay to shift and form a dome around her just as the hail of bullets erupted.

It worked, after a fashion. None of the bullets hit her and the heat was turning the clay into a hard shell. The downside was that slowly but steadily, it was turning her makeshift bunker into a pizza oven, with her being the main course. She needed to get rid of those rifles.

The first idea that came to mind was to eliminate them at the source, but she quickly ruled that out. Hardly anything she could do to Esther would distract her enough to lose control, or so she thought. That left destroying the rifles themselves. But how? She needed to rid herself of all of them at the same time, until the dome hardened all the way through and started sending ceramic shrapnel at her-

“Heh. Heheh.”

The inside of the dome got bright as a day as Diamond’s eyes lit up white. She could feel her left arm tingling, her casting speed just bordering causing more damage. And after a short while, she pushed. To all sides, at once, making the semi-hardened dome explode like a frag bomb.

Esther brought up a hand to shield her face and eyes as the clay dome the girl created ruptured, but didn’t lose her focus on her ‘target’. Diamond’s quick thinking and acting impressed her, but it still wouldn’t be enough. She needed to coax more creativity and critical thinking from the girl. So what to do? Increase the heat and pressure, of course.

Diamond’s ‘attack’ did what she intended, and a majority of the phantoms were destroyed in the explosion of shrapnel. Pouting and placing a hand against her cheek, Esther cried out in a mocking tone.
”Oh nooo...You got rid of my Ace~! Whatever shall I do now~? I have no hopes of possibly beating this up and coming Huntress in battle~! Woe is me~!”
Done with the theatrics, Esther reassumed her combat stance as the stars in her eyes increased in their bright intensity. The small balls of flames on her fingertips burning hungrily as she pressed her palm against her rifle and ‘pulled’ outward with a sharp swipe of her arm. Within seconds Esther recreated her phantom rifles, only this time she had tripled their numbers. With a quick few flicks of wrist, she separated the battalion of rifles into three platoons. Inserting her fingers into the slotted insert in her rifle, she twisted it once more and charged all of her ammunition with a different element.

”Click-click-click!”
A display in the sight of her rifle showed the word Fulmen
Her rifles crackled with arcs of electrical power.

Immediately, the first platoon of phantoms opened fire on Diamond directly from the front. Any shot that missed exploding with paralytic voltaic arcs. The second and third platoons angled away and aimed to move in at Diamond’s sides, entrapping her in a hellish pincer attack. A figurative claw of gunfire. While her guns did their work on the girl, Esther stood in place and placed her hand against her sheathed knife. Quietly repeating her incantations to herself as she began to summon and create a ring of blades surrounding her body, her hawk-eyes stared down Diamond with razor-sharp focus as the air thundered and shook with the sounds of gunshots. Music to Esther’s ears.

Think! Diamond reprimanded herself while Esther was running her gob. She had only seconds before the teacher’s blasted infinite everything cheat semblance caused her more hell. Thinking it would be prudent not to stay in one spot herself so that Esther needed to at the very least aim, Diamond broke into a run, trying to not run in a straight line and yet get closer to Esther.

One memory was brought to light. Her sword and the spectral copy of it Esther made, or rather what happened to it. That’s right. When the original dissolved, the copy went away. Which means… That if this works, she’s still likely to be very, very angry with me. Diamond gulped, but by now she could hear the many rifles cycling through their ammo choice.

With one last attempt, she tried to focus on the first part that would budge and rip it out of the rest of the rifle. Her time ran out before the spell was complete by the thundering sound all around her, and she did her best to stand against the lightning for long enough for the spell to activate, praying to everything holy her aura would last long enough.

The barrage didn’t last for long. Esther couldn’t have known at the moment and she would curse herself later for not remembering Diamond’s abilities sooner, but something had created a catastrophic failure within her rifle. The firing pin within the bolt carrier group must’ve prematurely hit the primer of a fresh round, causing a dangerous ignition before being seated within the chamber. Flinching and shutting her eyes, she pulled her face away from the rifle as the material warped and exploded outwards sending pieces flying. Thank the Gods and Goddesses above Esther had Aura to protect her, otherwise that would’ve been her face. Or even worse, her life.

As arcs of the electric dust ammunition crackled across her head and body, Esther’s perception of time had slowed as she blinked and stared at her destroyed weapon still in hand. Her personal, custom rifle. One that she had built from the ground up. One that served her loyally for years. She almost couldn’t believe it. Diamond actually did it. How many battles did her rifle go through with her? Beaten and battered countless times but always holding strong. Yet its strength as a weapon became its own undoing as now it was a useless hunk of metal alloys, polymers, and electronics.

Eyes flitting up to stare at Diamond, every fiber in Esther’s body screamed at her to just end the training session right now by punching a hole through the student’s torso. A snap of the neck vertebrae, maybe collapse the trachea. But no, Esther had to resist the urge to act recklessly and foolishly. It was just a weapon. Weapons could be rebuilt, improved upon, upgraded. Only she gave it sentimental value when truthfully it was simply an object. A tool to be used, and tools break down needing to be replaced or maintained. She could always repair it after, maybe even salvage some parts from the old rifle. It would give her a reason to shop for some new parts on her to-buy list.

Fighting down emotional struggles, Esther calmly exhaled and remained collected. Letting your emotions get the better of you in battle never ended well, and in the case of Grimm worked against you. She preached that all the time. How idiotic would she seem now if she lost her cool over her favorite toy? She made a mistake and she paid for it. Learn from it. Move on.

Time resumed its normal pace for Esther, having relaxed. The instant the rifle had failed, every copy created from it shattered in a spectacular display of shimmering starlight. Unslinging her rifle from her body, Esther tossed it aside to be properly retired later. For a brief moment, she thought to go for her sidearm and continue to put the pressure on but she hesitated. In part, she hesitated because Diamond would more than likely try for the same move. Discarding any issues she had with losing a second gun, the other reason she hesitated was that she was supposed to be teaching Diamond.

What was she teaching Diamond if she was going to try the same move again in a row after the first one failed so wonderfully? No, instead she withdrew her knife and called into formation the multitude of blades she had created while standing by. Making sure her grasp on her knife was firm, Esther moved at Diamond and began slashing at the air.

The hundreds of knives she had ready closely lay flat against each other and overlapped until they created an odd ‘wing’ with its ‘feathers’ like the serrated edge of a saw blade. With each flourish and wave of her arm or slash of her knife, the numerous wings mimicked her and raked themselves at Diamond from a distance.

”Well?! What are we training you for?! To know how to take a hit or to better your Dust casting?!”

The moment the rifle blown up, Diamond knew she struck more than the weapon. She struck a nerve. She could imagine she had the same look on her face when the deranged huntress ripped apart her hat. Oh dear, she should run for her life. Unfortunately she was barely standing. The hail of bullets might not have lasted too long, but their aim was true.

“Heh. That feeling right now? Remember that. Remember it next time you want to treat me like an incompetent child.” she managed to say before Esther’s fury resumed. Diamond tried to dodge, but she was too spent and the knives got her across the chest, breaking what little remained of her aura.

It didn’t make her stop. Diamond asked for a realistic scenario, well, she got it. Adrenaline was all that kept her going, her body flooding her in it so much she couldn’t even feel her fingers. She almost dodged the next strike, but the last tip slashed her under the right eye, making her hiss in pain and annoyance.

Drawing a deep breath she focused on the next attack. She dove under it. And then made a grab for the handles on the other sides of the knives, using the momentum of Esther’s attack to launch herself feet first against the teacher.

Again, another creative attack but one that lacked control. It lacked power and speed, really it could only be used to close distance and maybe surprise the opponent. Esther couldn’t help but cock an eyebrow as she saw Diamond fly at her. A quick and simple sidestep and Diamond’s attack would be harmlessly evaded, but Esther decided to punish her a little more than just that. After having evaded her flying kick with a sidestep, Esther quickly snapped her arms around Diamond’s legs and stole the girl’s momentum to spin the two of them around twice.
After the second spin, Esther skidded to a stop and lifted the girl into the air before slamming her back hard against the ground. With a few quick motions of her fingers, her blades then stabbed themselves in an outline around Diamond pinning her by snagging parts of her clothing. Swiftly drawing her handgun, she selected her electric Dust option and immediately shot at Diamond’s legs and arms. Aiming right for the girl’s ankles, shins, knees, wrists, elbows, and shoulders.

Pointing the barrel of her handgun at Diamond’s head, she stared at the girl for just a few seconds with a cold look as she switched to her flame ammunition. A thought passed and she switched back, shooting a phantom blade and controlling the electric Dust to arc between one another creating a paralytic snare. Humming and crackling tendrils sparking and jumping across whatever they could.

Diamond did not expect to have much success. Really, this was all just her defiance keeping her going. She refused to give up until she was no longer able to stand. She expected she wouldn’t do that if the grimm were trying to eat her, so why should she do that now. At least she’d have an idea of how much would it take to keep her down.

The answer was: One sadistic c**t. The girl expected her to dodge, or block. She quickly bumped her expectations when she was thrown face first into the dirt with enough force to bounce back up and land on her back, only to be nailed back to the ground. It shouldn’t have even worked! How were the knives so stuck in ground rubber?! Oh, mind control, right.

Diamond managed to free one of her arms at the expense of the sleeve of her shirt, but she wasn’t given much time to do anymore before she was hit by the mother of all tasers. Not just once. Unfortunately other than twitching offensively she could do very little to fight back. At least she managed to give Esther the flipped bird with her free arm before her arms were targeted, freezing the sign her hand was making in a spasm. Diamond could have done without her nails digging into the skin of her palm, but in the end found it worth it. She clenched her teeth and waited until Esther got bored, unable to do much else.

Esther stood there, handgun still pointed at Diamond’s body. She had half a mind to shock the girl a few more times for good measure, but decided against it. Boy, did she have to fight the urge to do so too! Ultimately, that would be too childish and immature of her she thought. She’d done enough to Diamond at this point. She’d punish the girl at a later time and date for the obscene gesture. Holstering her gun, Esther crossed her arms and tapped a finger against her body.

”Well? Had enough? Are you done? Did you even learn anything from all this?” Esther said, rather dryly and boredly.

Diamond didn’t want to give Esther the satisfaction of screaming, but when she poked her an involuntary whimper was unstoppable. She instinctively twitched away with as much control as she could muster. It took a minute for her to regain any semblance of composure and to at least sit up, staring Esther down with a gaze that could set things on fire.

“That you’re an angry child. And a sadistic torture freak. Also, no one is invincible.” she smirked, before sobering up, “And what it would take to take me out. Bit more than I would have expected, although getting in front of the power company’s firing squad again is not high on my to-do list.”

She tried to recall anything particular about the spells she cast, although she was having somewhat hard time focusing over all of her aching joints and limbs. “I swear if I didn’t have arrhythmia I have now.” she recalled her last lashing out to break the rifle. She could hardly say she was in control of the spell anymore, definitely not enough to target such a small thing as part of the firing mechanism. And yet she did make something in the rifle fail. “Maybe… maybe why I can’t target liquids and stuff is not a problem of focus, maybe I’m trying to do it the wrong way.”

Esther smirked, fighting back the urge to torture the girl some more. Something about the look in Diamond’s eye woke unspeakable things within her, that and the whimpering. She mostly ignored the rude comments about her, but she’d be lying if she didn’t take some enjoyment from making others suffer miserably.

”As long as you learned something, then this session wasn’t a complete waste. You still hadn’t answered my question yet. Are you done?”

As far as she was concerned, they were still in ‘combat’ until either party declared its end. She wouldn’t put it past Diamond to try and pull some more underhanded tactics and wouldn’t be satisfied until she was sure. Until she did, she wouldn’t offer to aide the girl to her feet.

“Am I do- the fuck is wrong with you! I can’t even keep vertical, my hair is never going to just lie flat again and- Yes! Quite done!” Diamond fumed. She understood the goddamn look in her eyes, but Diamond had no intention of giving Esther any means for giving her a few more zaps.

This wasn’t as she imagined a training session to go, but then again, it did fit her expectations of what Esther’s lessons were like. Considering she had voluntarily signed up for the regulars as well, Diamond suddenly realized she was in for a world more of hurt. Still, what she said was true, being put under such strain did help realize something. She would have to think on how to put what she found into practice later, right now she was still trying to put it into words.

Esther couldn’t help herself and actually burst out in laughter. If Diamond thought this was bad, she had no idea what the future held for her. In fact, she already had it planned to give the girl a particularly bad time during her class time with the student. Barring any interference from Professor Rowan, that was.
”Aww, poor girl’s worried about her hair.”
Esther reigned in control of her bearing and offered her hand to Diamond, to help her stand.
”Sleep it off. It’ll help you retain what you’ve learned and keep it in mind for any future training sessions.”
After Esther helped Diamond up, she turned her back to the girl and began to put her hair back up in a bun. Shouting at Bobbie to cease its tree-pummeling to have it return to her side.

Sitting up, Diamond grinned up to Esther, reaching up for her hair and tossing it in an elegant, shining flurry of red. “You know you love it.” She said before pulling herself up with the offered help. She was still a little wobbly and almost kissed the floor right back, but she managed to lean on the teacher before that.

“Regarding what I learned… When you think about it, your semblance is somewhat similar to what I do… How does it work for you in such large numbers? Do those apparitions follow your thought, imagination, are you aware of every single one or just the general, that kind of thing.” She asked, hoping to get more ideas if she heard different perspectives.

Esther slowed her walking until she stood still, messing with her own hair. She ignored Diamond’s comment about what she loved or didn’t, but instead turned to glance sidelong at her. Not exactly keen to divulge too much information of the specifics of her own special abilities. Even if it was to help a student further her own skills.

”The way my Semblance works...is a little difficult to explain. But to answer your question, I’m aware of each copy I call upon. My thoughts and intentions command every individual element. You already know I can pass ‘mastery’ of any phantom over to whomever I choose. Ultimately, I can also usurp mastery as the originator so don’t get any ideas with that. Satisfied?”
Esther cocked an eyebrow at the girl curiously, finished with pulling her hair back into a neat bun.

“Yeah, although I don’t think it will be of much use, your skill is too different.” Diamond sighed, “Well, if you have no further wisdom or pain to impart on me, then I suppose you’re dismissed for today.” the girl smirked, “And Vanessa? Take better care of your stuff.” she said and tossed over an item. It was Esther’s wallet which Diamond nicked when leaning on the teacher for support.

Esther chuckled and turned to fully face the girl, crossing her arms under her chest.
”Oho? Well, excuse me! I didn’t know you were the dismissing authority. Very well then. Dismissed, aye ma’am!”
She would’ve cut a salute but she was uncovered and Diamond was not a superior officer. Her light-hearted and playful mood immediately vanished when the girl tossed something at her. Reflexively catching it, she looked at the item in her hand for a moment. Realizing what it was, a priceless look of shock washed over her face as she patted her back pocket. Glaring at the girl, she slipped her wallet back to where it belong and corrected her misuse of her name.
”That’s Ms. Vanhomrigh to you.”
Esther said with restrained anger.
Turning on the spot, she walked back over to where her destroyed rifle lay. Squatting down she picked up her weapon to inspect the full extent of the damage. Mentally cursing when she saw just how warped and twisted the metal of the receiver was from the blow-out. After some struggle and fighting, she began to disassemble the rifle to inspect each individual part to salvage what she could. Bobbie joining her at her side and offering its assistance.

“Naturally. I pay you for this, so technically you’re my employee.” Diamond smirked smugly. It would be a lifetime before she was good enough to kick Esther’s ass in combat, but she could claim the little victories at least.

“So, Ms. Vanhomrigh, speaking of money... You really have to be more suspicious than this.” Diamond said, waving her fingers in front of Esther’s face, the teacher’s library permit appearing in her hand as if out of thin air, “Because-” another wave, the permit dropped and was replaced with her business card, “-I really-” Teacher’s ID this time, “-love card tricks!” she finished, now holding Esther’s Lien card. “Trust, but verify.”

Esther froze, more than annoyed when she was startled by Diamond snapping in front of her face. One of her major pet peeves. With each appearance of a new card that was supposed to have belonged in her wallet, the light in her eyes died more and more. Her expression growing more and more stone cold. Closing her eyes momentarily, Esther took a breath. After the pause, Esther opened her eyes and picked up the cards that had been dropped to temporarily slide them in her back pocket. Standing, she opened her hand palm-up. Waiting for Diamond to drop the jokes and return what was Esther’s without saying a word.

Diamond’s hand started moving forward, before an alarm bell rang in her head as she saw the look in Esther's eyes. The mental image of her entire arm being torn off forced it’s way into her head, and instead Diamond opted to throw the card, making it land spot on on the outstretched palm form a respectful distance.

Esther closed her eyes once more, taking another breath to keep herself calm as she pocketed what she supposed was the final card Diamond had swindled. Reassembling her rifle, she then slung it onto her back and turned away from Diamond.

”Ms. Frost. How often do you...exercise or go to the gym? When you go, do you make it a point to strengthen cardio?”

“I have no idea what your fancy words mean, I do gymnastics, does that count?” Diamond shrugged, “Pretty much every day that I am not swamped with something else, why?”

”Oh, no reason. I’m just curious. I wouldn’t really consider gymnastics to be intense cardio, however. As a Huntress, heart strength is very important you know.”
As she walked past Bobbie, she placed a hand on the bot’s body. Her fingertips burning brightly with little flames. Though Diamond couldn’t see it as Esther was turned away from her, telltale stars in her eyes signified the woman as utilizing her Semblance.
”I can help with that.”
Walking away to leave the area, she removed her hand as she swiped it away, instantaneously copying the robot ten times over. All of which stood staring at Diamond. After the Huntress had already walked some distance she issued a command to the bots over her shoulder.
”Bobbie! Execute basic hand-to-hand combat training routines! Your opponent is Ms. Diamond Frost!”
In unison, all ten copies of the combat trainer assumed an intimidating combat stance as they answered Esther with an ”Aye, ma’am.”
Waving back at Diamond, she said her farewells.
”Goodbye…~!” she said with a sing-song tone of voice.

As soon as the copies of the robot appeared, Diamond grown a shade paler (if at all possible) and sighed. “I hate people who can’t take a joke or a loss. I want you to know that I genuinely despise your continued existence!” she growled, already running like hell by the time Esther gave the order.


Diamond eventually managed to lose the robot clones. Being programmed as a training dummy apparently didn't include more advanced target acquisition, after all one would expect the opponent to stay and actually train. So when the girl left the ground and climbed to the roofs they quickly lost track of her.

She made it to the very empty dorm on sheer willpower. Damn, the crib was hers alone and she had no energy to party. Again! This has started happening too often for her own liking. The girl dragged herself to the sink and splashed some water on her face to wash away the sweat and grit. She saw the cut on her cheek and frowned - that was going to leave a mark.

Cleaning and patching up the slash she felt weak and useless. She could tell herself that Esther was an opponent too strong for her even on the best of days, but deep down she knew that ultimately that was a fault of her own. She played by the rules - since when?!

Looking up she stared at her image in the mirror. She looked at the long red hair she grown. It was nice, but easy to grab and it was a style more suited for some spoiled princess. The eerie blue glow in her eyes taunted her even more - she always loved her icy blue eyes, and now they were just annoyingly bright cyan. Why did she even had to do that? Did she really think she could solve her weakness with money?

The longer Diamond looked the more she grown appalled. She came here to change. But this was not the change she wanted. Without even noticing it she turned into the kind of person she despised. Weak, sociable and decadent. Without the looming threat of prison over her head she grown comfortable and entirely too nice. For a while she imagined the reflection in the mirror morphing into her younger self. That self looked at her with disgust.

Her fingers gripped the edge of the sink as she clenched her teeth. This was not her. She would allow herself to be weak anymore. No surrender, no retreat. Diamond Frost did not tolerate anyone telling her what to do, she didn't let anyone mock her or play with her like a rag doll. Did she not survive alone on the cold Atlesian streets? Wade her way through gang wars? Made fools of the most powerful men and their private armies? She used to stand alone against the world and she beat it!

Of course she did realize she could no longer go back to the way she was. The image of the infirmary came to mind - she grown to care about those three fools. Despite the unrequited attraction, despite the constant butting of heads, despite the general dissatisfaction, if only by exposure alone they were the people closest to her, she could no longer just wall herself in and not care. They were her gang.

But look at her now! She imagined Esther's mocking, scolding voice telling her that her emotions made her weak and a liability. What did she know! They were always her strength! Anger at her rotten luck! Defiance in face of the system that left her for dead! Grief at her losses! Fear of her own mortality! She took them and made them her strength, her drive to go on in face of the odds, even her semblance become a way to make them a tool!

Looking back to the mirror Diamond straightened up, pulling herself to her full height, her eyes narrowing as she looked at her reflection.

She would not let them turn her into one of them, pathetic obedient members of the system. Even if she had to fall all the way down, she would climb on top once more, and she would do it her way! So what if the Grimm hunger for negative emotions? She'll force feed them so much it will make them sick!

Reaching for the scissors, she took one last look on her present self before cutting her ponytail off. Tossing the excess hair into the trash she stormed out and fished the bleach, golden blond hair dye and a jar of gel.

In half an hour she was done, and even her teammates would have hard time recognizing her if not for the blasted glow in her eyes. No more miss nice gal. No. More. she spent a final thought on the matter, abruptly turning away from the mirror and heading to bed, unaware of her fingers turning pitch black for a second and scratching four gashes in the basin.


@floodtalon
It was finally here. The worst day in the year by a long shot. Family day. Another reminder of the family she didn't have. I need a smoke... was the first think on Diamond's mind as she woke up. She still felt sore from the beating she received the other day... and on the mission before that. Her nerves needed their fix. Slowly opening her eyes she checked around to see if any of her team members made it home last night, her gaze falling on Cobalt being present. "'Morning." she greeted before stretching her arms as a yawn crawled out of her lungs.

I heard a splash and like a switch my brain switched gears. My eyes dried and I rose my head like an animal listening for prey.

“What was that?” I said turning to Gratia and putting a hand on C’est La Vie.

A loud crack resounded through the room as I immediately got up and began walking towards the door. The handbag I was holding liquefying and solidifying once more, this time in the shape of a spear. I pushed my door open hard and walked towards the room. The door was open and I saw someone go into it as I peered in.

Huh?

Jer and Luke?

What would Jericho and Luke be doing together in a room with lound noises coming out of-

Did I catch them.

Am I a pervert?

Jer was holding his side, blood seeping out from between his fingers at a reassuringly slow pace. And yet, bleeding from one’s side was never too reassuring to begin with.

I guess I didn’t catch them.

“What’s going on here?” I said shifting my spear back into its handbag form and retrieving from it my sewing kit. I sat on the bed and patted the space I left beside me instructing Jericho where to sit.

@Plank Sinatra@Write@Silvan Haven@HereComesTheSnow


Gratia rapidly rose from the chair before her companion had even finished her question, striding towards the balcony in pursuit of that splashing noise. She was aware of Nuit's exit of the room to inspect the crashing sounds next door, but what was of greater interest to her was what it was that had entered the water surrounding the cruise ship. The door to the balcony was pushed open, and she immediately rushed for the railings, leaning over in search of the sound's source. In the darkness, her vision of the sea was obscured, but there was clearly something sinking into the waves.

Her onyx eyes narrowed.

That was a body.

Had somebody tried to hide the body of their victim by throwing it off the ship?

The Mistralese teenager immediately turned from the railing, bursting back into Bianca's room and running out the door. If the banging from next door had been the sounds of a struggle, then the survivor of that fracas was likely still present. Gratia entered, finding herself facing a scene that had progressed faster than she had imagined.

"Who the fuck's this?" she could only ask, gesturing at Jericho.

And why was Bianca tending to him?

"What's going on here?"

Bianca Nuit would have been a major boon to my team.

After the satisfying results of my heel-driven attempt at breaching the door, I'd stepped over the two halves of doorway on the floor and entered the room to find a...

A very battered food cart. That had been strange, but stranger still was the contents of said cart.

Namely, not food. Instead, it was occupied by own bloodied, battered, and otherwise beaten waiter that looked strangely familiar.

Well, to cut down on my facetiousness, the familiarity was the least strange part about the whole thing. This was the guy that had been flirting with Bianca just an hour or two ago, and now he was slowly bleeding all over his food cart. A stab wound, narrow but deep, was plainly obvious against his flank.

And on the other hand, he just saw some short unassuming guy kick a door in half.

Needless to say, he and I had spent a good few seconds gawking at eachother.

On the other hand, Bianca Nuit had immediately displayed the ability to surmise the situation at a moment's notice. Even as I blinked out the confusion and attempted to report something along the lines of "I think your friend her just got stabbed", she had already surveyed that much and was taking action, her spear morphing into the form of a purse as she began retrieving a needle and thread.

"Who the fuck's this?"

Gratia wasn't far behind, either. Another person who got straight to the point.

Both were quick on the uptake and decisive.

Something we at JCL could really use, and practically the antithesis of myself. A counterpoint against my overdeliberation when lives were on the line.

But, there was one quality of mine that would prove helpful countless times.

"Ah, I can handle that." I told Bianca, gesturing to the wounded staffer. "Just hand me the needle."

The new wrinkle added to my semblance would get the guy up and running in no time flat compared to trying to stitch him up.

Which would give us more time to grill him about the cause of all this mess.

Question Number One, for instance.

Just what the hell were you doing here?

>complètement perdu ;-;
>dans V
>TOK?
>choco ici
>rdv l'école??
>@+ après choco

Hazel eyes glanced down at the phone in her left hand, watching as the messages popped up onto the dimly-lit screen. There were no sounds accompanying their arrival, but had there been they would have been drowned out by the rushing wind. Only the vibrations of the aging device alerted her to each new text, and it was when the phone became still that her fingers began to type out a reply.

>Je comprends.

She flipped the device shut with one smooth motion, dropping it into her messenger bag. Her parents would probably be roaming the city for a while. Even if they were to escape the state of 'being lost', they would still get distracted by everything that central Vale had that Mistral didn't. It was obvious that they were going to make the most out of Beacon's subsidising of their trip here for Family Day before all the events began.

They were pragmatic like that. A foreign country provided a lot of new things for them to do with that money.

She sat down on one of the wooden benches that dotted Beacon's campus, leaning back to watch airships lazily move through the clear blue sky. Unlike her parents, she didn't particularly care about having new experiences, so she would wait until they were done. If they were to get lost again, then she would just have to look for them.

Her sister wouldn't be happy if they failed to turn up. She could wait and watch for an eternity if it was necessary, but that didn't mean her parents could tour Vale forever. They had an event to go and spectate. She was going too, but she wasn't the person her big sister was hoping to see the most.

The time was 7.00am.

She removed a rolled-up newspaper from her bag, unravelling it before her to inspect the front page.

A violet-haired woman placed a box of knick-knacks down on the empty space next to her with a huff before leaving.

She turned a page. It appeared as if Atlesian exports of Dust to the other Kingdoms had been decreasing.

A gaggle of cheerful children ran past her, followed shortly after by a ponytailed young man in military garb.

Vale seemed to have a lesser amount of television channels.

A pale boy struggled to escape the grasp of a pair of housewives.

The time was 7.15am.

She folded the newspaper away.

There was another airship descending into the docks.

Galla Mindaro waited.

---
@Sho Minazuki

Taidan breathed a sigh of relief as he shut the door to his dorm room behind him. That had been a super exhausting chase around the school, one that had been far harder than he had expected. Even though he lived in a world where people lived and breathed aura, it wasn't every day that you got to find kids who'd worked out enough that their legs could outpace his. Those were feisty little fellows he'd had to chase down for their parents, though definitely not as feisty and awesome as him. Them failing to get away from him in the end was proof of that.

The prettyboy moved towards his bed, throwing himself onto the comfortable sheets with a 'splat' noise, or at least that was what he was aiming for. The 'plunk' was a more accurate descriptor of the sound produced, although others could also describe it as a 'thwop' or a 'kadunk'. Onomatopoeia were a highly subjective group of 'words', and the expectations of a fashionable Grimm hunter like Shuai Taidan could be radically different to those who were different individuals or possessed different occupations.

"Hey Varius," he said after a few seconds, rolling over so that he was looking up at the ceiling. "You got family coming over today?"

Varius sat in one of the provided chairs in the dorm room, reading a book. It seemed much like a studious and serious individual reading some complex material, as he usually would be, but examining the cover of the book would reveal that this was the latest volume of a popular ongoing series. If asked about this, he would simply respond that even he appreciated having a break once in awhile. Regardless, he did not move or show indication that he noticed Shuai had entered the room to collapse back onto his bed. Varius preferred to spend his days indoors or anywhere with peace and quiet. When asked about family, he simply responded,

"I'm afraid not. It seems to be a busy year. Demands for blades to be forged and used as parts in weapons for military have risen as of late. They say the Grimm menace combined with the White Fang is what is causing it". His family ran a business in creating blades, it made sense, his own weapon was the finest product their family had ever created. Regardless he did not seem phased by the lack of visit from family.

"What of you? Do you have family coming? Should I prepare some tea should they barge into this room at a comedically queued moment?", he did not look up from his book, more importantly, he seemed to have a specific scenario in mind too.

@Sho Minazuki

Shuai Taidan - Monday Night Raw

"I actually sprang up fully-formed from a lotus," said Taidan casually, although the big smile on his face was all evidence needed to show that he was being entirely facetious with the statement. "A few of them might be, dunno."

Of course, it was impossible for all of his family to turn up, especially when it was so big. Big enough to fill several rooms, in fact, and that was not mere hyperbole, because he himself had witnessed such during one of their larger reunions. Maybe ten or so could find the time to turn up, lured in by the festivities that Beacon was hosting, but not all of them. His cuddly relatives could possibly be busy with other things in their lives!

He wondered if it was a good idea for Varius to put the kettle on. He wasn't actually a hundred percent sure they wouldn't barge in, so it would be better safe than sorry to start preparing the tea right? But what if it were one of his tea purist cousins who'd come along? That wouldn't be too good for his teammate. What made a tea 'pure' enough? Proper method of boiling? The adherence to the necessary rites? Green tea? Black tea? Herbal infusions (eugh)? And if they hadn't chosen to turn up, it would be pretty problematic to get Varius to go to all the trouble of making tea just for nobody to come and drink it.

Beyond them, of course.

"Don't worry a thing!"

Maybe it was better not to.

"So booming business huh?"

Between pauses in their conversation he simply read his book. The series was getting rather interesting, it was fortunate that he returned to it when he did, as it was slow-going the last volume or so. He responded to Shuai's comment on his family business,

"Indeed, it keeps them busy, whenever I see them it's all about formalities, and it does truly become tiring. Though they always mean well, they sent me some souvenirs from their new forging method. Four small blades. I assume they mean to give them to our team, one for each", he spoke as if this was nothing, but that would explain the small package on the main desk. Four small blades? Likely tantos, based on his family. More importantly despite him being tired by formalities, he still speaks in such a formal manner.

Oswald couldn't remember much of Sunday. That was probably for the best, because he knew it hadn't been pretty. He was still somewhat shocked by what Diamond had told him. Even now, the knowledge that this group existed-that it was a group and not just a few random lunatics, shook his worldview down to its core.

It was one of these people who was responsible for killing more than seventy people in his village. Six of those people had been his teammates. Aside from his parents, who he was so very much unlike by nature, they'd been the only family he'd ever known.

He wasn't alone. It wasn't some random act of evil. No, it was part of some twisted cult's desire to "ascend" into becoming Grimm. It was around there that things started getting confusing for Oswald.

All he remembered were a few emotions: anger was one of them. Guilt came next, an overwhelming sense of guilt. But it was the last thing he remembered that was still haunting him: fear. Pure, unbridled fear at the knowledge that such people existed as more than a blip on the radar.

His team had been ambushed by them, nearly slaughtered. His old team had been killed by them. He wondered how many other lives these monsters had stolen. Who else they had destroyed in their mad quest for power and destruction?

It took Diamond's new look to break Oswald of his dread, the door to their room opening as he wheeled his broken body in. "You...got a haircut."

At least there was still sarcasm, right?

Unceremoniously almost, the date had changed. Normally, this would have been Sand’s first proper day as a student at Beacon, but she had quickly learned that a holiday would take place.

She could not complain. Her transfer had taken a turn for the sudden, and some extra time to adjust was appreciated. She had dedicated the previous day to getting her belongings and reporting the results of her final assignment to her superior at Atlas through the CCT. The former, she had mailed over to someone she trusted before heading out, having resolved not to stay return to Atlas by the end of her mission. The latter was handled simply enough, even if her boss had not been particularly ecstatic to hear about her failure to produce any of the items they had requested. Nonetheless, the day had marked a transition. Beyond friendships and acquaintances, she could not truly say she had any other affiliations to her previous school.

Tired as she had been by the end of the day, rest was easy to come by, even in the bed of a deceased hunter-in-training, once Grane had cleared away their belongings. Staying in bed had been another matter. Habit had taken over, complemented by a lingering feeling of unease, and Sand had taken off to do her morning exercises before the rest began to stir.

Those were done, but the day was still young. For the moment, Sand sat at the waiting room for the school’s infirmary, legs crossed as she absentmindedly stared out the open door. Her hair was once again tied in a short tail. The dirtied and torn clothes she had arrived in yesterday had been replaced by a simple grey tank top and dark cargo pants, fastened to her waist with the same thick belt that held her cased weapons at her hips. Her combat boots had been replaced by white running shoes. A small gym bag was at her feet. The casual, relaxed image made her coffee-colored eyes seem merely weary rather than irked.

A set of footsteps drew her towards an approaching nurse. “He’s awake. Want me to take you to him?”

She nodded. “Please.”

With that, the nurse ushered the visitor into the back rooms. Sand took note of the other occupied beds, presumably other students who found trouble in their own missions, but chose not to comment. Unerringly, she was led to a bed occupied by a bandaged, red-haired boy.

The nurse announced the new visitor, then quickly returned to her duties.

Sand raised a hand in greeting. “Hey. You look better than yesterday.” Which isn’t a difficult thing, truth be told. The pitiable condition Robert had been brought back in made her wonder if her intervention had made a difference in the end. Then again, she could not ask for more than his survival.

Noticing the chairs near the bed, she pulled one closer and sat on it. Absentmindedly, she wondered if he had been told of her induction into the team. He had been unconscious when Ozpin had made the announcement, after all.

Reaching into her gym bag, she pulled out a paper bag and placed it on the nightstand. “I brought muffins,” she said simply, by way of explanation. “So?” she asked. “How are you feeling?”

@Guess Who

Sunday-Cafeteria

Cobwlt was finally released from the hospital after the doctor gave the ok, so the first thing he did was head to the supermarket. He didn't like eating cafeteria food all the time, even if it was heavenly compared to that bland hospital food. Now all he had to do was go to the kitchen and ask to cook the food, it was going to be a busy night.

By the time he was finished it was just before midnight as he tiptoed into the dorm. He set the pancakes, eggs, and bacon down on the counter (all in seperate containers to preserve the heat) and went to lie down in his bed. For the first time in a while he fell asleep as soon as he hit the covers.

Monday-Dorm

Cobalt woke up before everyone and set up the food on the counter, everyone would wake up to the smell of bacon and eggs, Cobalt kicked himself as he had forgotten to get syrup for the pancakes. Next time for sure. Diamond woke up first and the first thing he noticed was the new look. "Nice haircut. You do it yourself?" Blonde looked good on her.

Oswald wheeled himself through the door and Cobalt waved hello. "I made breakfast. You guys want any?" He pointed towards the food alongside a couple of disposable paper plates.
@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN@Forsythe

When Sand entered his room, she found Robert absentmindedly staring out the window. With no other sources of entertainment like a book or video game, he didn’t have much else to pass the time with other than conversations with the nurses and any visitors that might come his way. Hearing the door open, the red haired boy turned to face his new team member, giving her a bright smile. The bandage over his head still remained as well as a few of the band-aids that covered the small cuts where the doctors had removed shrapnel from the explosive, but other than that he looked almost normal. “Oh hey, Sand. Yeah, I’m feeling a lot better now,” he told her.

Seeing her pull out a paper bag, his eyes focused on the object as he wondered what it could possibly contain. “Ooh, muffins? Cool,” Robert said, reaching his hand in and pulling out whichever kind was at the top. Quickly taking a bite without first checking what it might have been baked with, the taste of blueberries assaulted his tastebuds. Not exactly the boy’s favorite flavor, but he didn’t want to hurt the girl’s feelings so he avoided making any sort of negative facial reaction.

“What’d you ask? How am I feeling? Hmm…” the red haired boy replied, giving the question some serious thought before replying. “Like I said, I am feeling better. Kinda bored though. Not much to do here except rest and mope around. Ozpin told me that I’m no longer leader of the team, but I think… I think I’m okay with that honestly. It’s a lot of responsibility that I don’t think I was ready for. Sure, I was disappointed at first, but now that I’ve had time to think, the position seemed to fit better with one of the others. Speaking of which, what are you still doing here? Shouldn’t you have gone back to Atlas? Was it Atlas? It was Atlas right?”

“It was Atlas,” she confirmed with a wry smile. “Was. My transfer papers were approved some time ago. Didn’t think I’d arrive at Beacon the way I did, though.”

Robert nodded along as Sand explained her situation. When it appeared she had finished speaking, he asked, “So what’s the name of the team you’re on? Maybe we can do some joint missions or something at some point.”

The girl leaned back, looking at him meaningfully. “Don’t know yet, but I think we’ll be working together often enough.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

She tilted her head. “Just a hunch. Happens that the other members spell R, T and G.”

“Really? That’s the letters for my team too. What a coincidence.” Sand’s expression remained neutral, but as the words left his mouth the girl’s normally stern eyes seemed to sparkle, like a cat that had found a new toy.

She nodded knowingly. “Scary, right?” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “Well hear this. G is a faunus, doesn’t seem like he likes R much.”

“Hey, Grane’s a faunus too. Pretty sure he’s not a big fan of me either,” Robert said, still not understanding yet what Sand was hinting at.

She hummed in agreement, but continued. “T seems like the calmest of the three. Like he tries to smooth things out between the rest.”

“That sounds like Trad,” he said with excitement.

“Yeah. R got injured recently, though, and it’s got him worried. He’s in this infirmary too.”

“Sounds like it’d be a good idea to meet with them after you’re done talking with lil’ ol’ me.”

“Already did, actually. Brought him breakfast and everything.”

“Did you get him muffins too?” her teammate asked, still oblivious.

“Yes. In fact, and listen close because this is the clincher—”The girl drew closer, as if to tell him a secret, complete with discrete looks over her shoulder. “His name happens to be Robert.”

At this point, Robert was beginning to catch on. Squinting his eyes at her with suspicion, he asked her, “Does his last name happen to be Fallson?”

Sand looked at him with dancing eyes. “Amazing, right? What a time to be alive.”

“Yeah, what a coincidence,” the boy repeated, this time with heavy amounts of sarcasm.

A pleased smirk broke through her serious expression. “You can be rather dense, you know?”

“I’d take offense to that if it probably wasn’t true,” was his only response as he lied back in his bed and made himself more comfortable. “Welcome to the team, Sand.”

“Thank you. Looking forward to working with you.”

With the rest of the team visiting Robert, Grane figured he might as well clear out Delta’s locker. Find personal effects to send back to the family; It was the least he could do. Hell, they had been shipped out so fast Delta didn’t really lock much up. Made the job easier. The locker was organized well, clean and uncluttered. It was expected for someone with some military background.

Then again, there wasn’t much to begin with. There was only a duffel bag, some ammo belts, and a pair of binoculars. The ammo belts didn’t carry much, so he set those aside quickly. Grane grabbed the duffel bag next, slowly shifting through it’s contents.

He found an expensive sounding brand of coffee beans, along with some various tools he assumed were for brewing said coffee. Well, in the short hours he knew the kid, Delta did mention something about coffee. Perhaps he’d keep this for himself. A sort of memento to the fallen sharpshooter.

A teddy bear was next. For a military sniper, it was a bit odd. But perhaps Delta had a soft spot for stuffed animals. And he was an airhead. A good shot, but still an airhead.

Finally, Grane pulled out a photograph. It was Delta, next to a girl he assumed was a sister of sorts. Upon closer inspection, there was some writing on the back of the photo.



Well… Grane figured he should write a letter of sorts. Usually all families got were some copypasted crap that offered little closure.



While Grane did twist a lot of facts, or outright lied... he figured it was better that way. He left out the parts where it was probably Robert's fault, and the part where Delta was dragged away before he could do much. At least this way, Delta's family might be able to move on more easily. The last thing they needed was to find a target for their resentment, or harbor more grief that he died for nothing. A harmless lie... or so he hoped.

Grane placed all of Delta's personal belongings back in the duffel bag, along with his letter, and placed the duffel bag on Delta's bed. He'd have to call someone down to pick it up. Grane was just glad he wasn't going to be the bearer of bad news. He'd rather face all the grimm in the world than tell someone's family to their face that their son/brother died on his first mission at Beacon.

Once more Gren awoke from his stupor, somewhat lost and unsure of events that had transpired these past few days. He remembers briefly the adventure he, Shiro, and Sangue had into the Forever Fall; there were a lot more students there than he had anticipated, and things didn’t work out quite as smoothly has he had hoped during their mining excavation. Still they did get that titanite, so it wasn’t all a lost. But nothing would have prepared Gren for the threat they had found, and he’s almost certain that they aren’t going back without proper equipment this time.

Afterwards Gren spent much of his time in the Hunter’s Workshop crafting weapons. Not just Sangue’s arm either; shiro was immensely helpful in dividing up the workload and Sangue’s arm was effectively done by the next day. While it was still something of a prototype, what with it being untested and all, Gren was certain that it was fully functional. Still, more tests and later upgrades would be needed, but it’s not as if masterpieces are made all at once. They’ll hammer out any kinks as they find them.

In addition to Sangue’s arm however, Gren was commissioned to help a few other students as well. In particular, Skyra and Emerald, the other two kittens he had met prior to leaving for Forever Fall. Admittedly their cute charms won him over as Gren had hoped to use his weekend to lounge about, though at least unlike Sangue all they wanted was some weapon modification rather than having an entirely new weapon made for them. Using the leftover Titanite Gren went about working on their weapons, making sure that they not only looked like what Emerald and Skyra wanted, but worked just as well too.

For Skyra she wanted to use bow blades. Gren was familiar with the concept, and making the blades themselves wasn’t too difficult. The bow part was going to be slightly harder however; Gren has never used a bow before, and has only seen crossbow hybrids in the various weapon magazines he read. Still how hard could it be? Using the information he dredged from said magazines, Gren was able to create twin blades capable of not only slicing and dicing through most foes and conventional armors, but also could be stringed with a ring located near the tip of each blade. All Skyra would need to do is touch these tips together, attach at the hilt, and she’d have her bow. Comparatively, making the arrows were easier. Fletching was a bit confusing at first, but by referencing a guide online Gren was able to make hollow shafted arrows using some metals around the workshop, and even incorporated some dust in a few of the arrows. They were simple ones, such as red dust for flames, light blue dust for ice, and yellow dust for electricity. Anything more complicated than that and Skyra would have to figure it out on her own.

Next was Emerald's weapon. Best described as gun gauntlets, a classic hunter’s weapon. That itself was simple enough to work with, what was a bit harder was that Emerald’s weapon had a configuration where it could fire a beam of energy through her aura. Issue of course is that using aura for an attack was a desperate maneuver, since if you missed or failed to kill your target then you’re at a very precarious situation. She instead wanted to fire rockets instead, which was more up Gren’s alley. Now Gren could certainly just turn Emerald’s gauntlets into combi-weapons, using a revolver mechanism to give Emerald six rockets in each arm to use. It’d make both gauntlets heavier, but give Emerald more firepower. Alternatively, Gren could simply try and replace Emerald’s aura cannon with the rocket launcher instead, lessening the weight but preventing Emerald from having the versatility of dual wielding rocket launcher shotguns.

Trying to work with this conundrum is what ate up a good part of Gren’s weekend, and at some point he ended up with two pairs of Emerald’s gauntlets. Prototypes of course, functional but Gren didn’t have everything worked out until he knew which of the two that Emerald wanted. He had been meaning to find her and ask her which she would prefer, but Gren was scatterbrained.

He was meaning to try and organize another outing between Team Swansong and Team Kiss, this time to formally introduce Yue into Beacon. Never went through, though Gren does now have quite a bit of food. Then he had to go visit Robert at the infirmary. Gren mostly wanted to check on Grane, but of course he’d give Robert’s his regards as well. Sahme that Robert was asleep when Gren visited, though he left flowers and a get-well-soon card for him regardless. And of course there was monday. So much to prepare for. Of course Gren was going to wrestle, but he needed to get his costume ready. An entirely new one at that, as he didn’t want his friends and family to know about his secret identity as the Sakura Samurai. That would be embarrassing. And of course getting ready for his family to come over. Last Gren checked he had two younger brothers and a little sister, though knowing his parents there may be more on their way or a little one already around. And that wasn’t even counting the possibility of his other siblings returning from the White Fang, though Gren doubts that.

All and all Gren hasn’t even been in his dorm since that Saturday, and hasn’t really seen anyone else from his team aside from Shiro, and only when they were working on Sangue’s arm. He did catch a few glimpses of Sapphire in the shop, but Gren was often too busy doing something to investigate. He was certain that they wouldn’t mind; Gren’s presence in the Hunter’s Workshop wasn’t unknown, and the only reason anyone in the school might not know he’s there is because he hasn’t been working on his jetpack, and thus exploding out of the facility every hour or so. Gren had honestly forgotten that he even had a jetpack to work on until he was gathering up the weapons. ”Another day perhaps.”

Now if Gren remembered rightly, there was suppose to be some sort of event happening at the gym or somewhere around there. And obstacle course. Gren wasn’t sure if he’d be involved in that one, since he was almost certain that just smashing his way through would not be acceptable. But he’d still go in case anyone from his team or his friends show up, more so if Skyra and Emerald was there since he has their weapons for them. So gathering up all his things Gren went to the athletics area to see what all the hubbub was about. Getting breakfast would be nice too. It’s been about five hours since he ate anything, which was four hours too long for Gren.

Sapphire spent a large portion of the rest of the weekend in the armoury workshop. Her foray into the woods with Geni had given her a better grasp on the kind of weapons that she enjoyed and the problems that she had with her current arsenal. She'd come into the workshop late Saturday evening with an idea for duel wielding scimitars that could transform into a quarter staff. She had the technology and the resources to make such things at her disposal and she worked very hard at the design for some hours before coming to a conclusion: It would work, with around another twenty four hours she could complete the calculations for the folding tech involved and have the whole thing finished by Monday morning.

She also came to another conclusion, though she could make the weapon it wasn't a feasible design. It was too complicated with too many exposed moving parts. That would make it very easy to damage in the field and very difficult to repair without a full service workshop. What she wanted simply wasn't a good idea.

So Sapphire went back to the drawing board and back to the basics. There she came to a realization. She was quite fond of the fighting style utilized by her polearm. The problem came with the weapon itself. It was too bulky, and not nearly versatile enough for her tastes. So rather than come up with something new she set about redesigning her old weapon. Late into the night she finally had a solid blueprint. The old polearm had been built around the shotguns and adapted into a staff. Her new weapon was the opposite. The ranged capabilities had been done away with in the traditional sense. What she had now was akin to a highly versatile naginata. A full length staff with a curved blade that extended from one end. In storage mode the blade was retracted into the staff which split in two, the two half staffs were stored in a harness on Sapphire's back.

That part of it was relatively simple, what Sapphire was really proud of was the mechanism on the interior of the staff. In simplest terms it was a grappling hook that could be fired from the none bladed side of the staff. Once embedded in something it locked itself in by extending four spikes from the end into the surrounding surface. It would be just as effective on Grimm as it was on solid surfaces if she'd designed it properly. Even better though was that the rope was made of a flexible tripolymer that responded to aura. She would be able to manipulated the rope. Sapphire's control over it wouldn't be extensive but it would be enough to generate or redirect momentum in a fashion depending on what she was using it for. Stopping would be more difficult.

With the schematic finished Sapphire was about ready to fall alseep but their was something else she had to do tonight, a promise she had to fulfill. Atlas was several hours ahead of Vale so the middle of the night would be the perfect time to call. She didn't think she'd ever use the number. Patricia McGrath was the fourth member of her mother's hunter's team at Beacon, alongside Janus, Melanie and Daniel. After graduation she'd decided to go into research and design instead of pursuing a career in combat. Several years later when Melanie had followed the same path so she'd have more time to look after Sapphire and her sisters Patricia helped her get a position at one of Atlas' research facilities. At Melanie's funeral Patricia told Sapphire to call if she needed anything but Sapphire had never once thought to use the number. She wasn't even sure that asking for Atlas tech qualified to what the woman had meant. Still there was no harm in calling.

The scroll rung once, twice, three times, four times, just when Sapphire doubted she was even going to pick up the line went active. "Patricia McGrath's phone, how can I help you?" Sapphire paused for a moment.

"I'd like to speak to Patricia."

"Can I tell her who's calling?"

"Tell her... Tell her it's Melanie Rode's daughter."

Sapphire could hear the phone being set down and she waited for Patricia to answer. It had been a very long time since they'd seen one another and even then it had been brief. Sapphire remembered a few occasions Patricia had visited the house but she'd mostly interacted with Sapphire's parents. Still she could always hope.

"Sapphire? Is something wrong?"

She'd answered, now was the hard part.

"No no, nothing like that. This probably isn't what you meant when you gave me this number but I need a favor."

"What is it?"

"I have a..." Sapphire was uncomfortable with the word friend but anything else sounded to distant for the favor she was asking. "...a friend at school. She lost her arm some years ago and the prosthetic she'd been using is... rudimentary at best. One of my teammates and I have been designing a more functional replacement but in order to make it work we need..."

"Neural interface cards I'm assuming unless your friend wants to undergo rather extreme surgery."

"If that's too much I understand." There was a pause on the other end of the line, such a long pause Sapphire thought she'd hung up.

"I can help you but you must understand that this can't become a regular occurrence."

"I know, I told my teammate as much, I can't imagine your boss would look kindly on your funneling tech to a student four years from graduation."

"As long as you know that I can help you. Your a lot like your mother, she was just as selfless to those that really needed help. If there's anything else, any other kind of favor you need I'm just a phone call away. Your mother... I'm like to be more involved if you'll let me."

"Th-thanks, I'll bear that in mind."

Sapphire hung up the scroll. It was late and Sapphire needed a decent amount of sleep. She had a fair amount of work to do tomorrow, she wanted her new weapons ready before the Family Visitation Day.Sapphire woke at twelve, quite late for her normal hours. She went to the bathroom and showered in hot water. When she went to the mirror she found she didn't like what was starring back at her. Her face was hidden behind the curtains of her hair, she looked stern and uninviting. Somehow it didn't surprise her that her team kept their distance. In a moment of frustration Sapphire fetched Melinoe from her clothes and sliced off a wide swath of her hair at around shoulder level. A moment later she regretted her action, or at least she regretted doing it herself. A stylist would have done a much better job and Sapphire didn't have the skills to make it more presentable. With no other options she pulled her much shortened hair into a rough ponytail so she could begin the days work.

After fixing her hair Sapphire dressed and headed for the armoury. She spent most of the day forging the weapon she'd designed yesterday. Though the application was relatively simple the execution was more complicated. In addition to the materials she'd had to get she had to plane and cut small pieces of metal that were assembled into the naginata blade to allow it to dissemble into the shaft. The rope was more complicated, specially made wire rounded infinitely inward to create a dense but pliable cord for her purposes. She also had to cover it in a polymer resin to avoid cutting her hands on it when it was extended.

Sometime in the day she was approached by Gren, Sangue's arm was entering the final stages of completion. He wanted to know if she'd gotten the Neural impulse cards. Patricia had sent them on by overnight carrier. Sapphire as she'd said the previous day had gotten them but she would install them herself. While Gren was creating the final components Sapphire installed the cards. She wired them into the arm in such a way that removing them would severly damage their operation. It would not interfere with the function of the arm or cause problems with maintenance but Gren would not be able to remove the cards for recreation. Went she was finished she informed Gren that the neural impulse cards were fragile and not to try removing them lest they be damaged.

With that complete Sapphire spent much of the rest of the day finishing her weapons. Once they were complete she decided some time to herself was in order. She took the airship into Central Vale and after a good meal she found a hair stylist. They evened out the cuts Sapphire had inexpertly made leaving her hair shoulder length, at Sapphire's request they cut her bangs so they weren't obscuring her face anymore and on a whim Sapphire decided to do something a little different. She got three green streaks, two down the right side of hair and one down the left. Happy with her new look Sapphire spent an hour or so at a bookshop picking out a present for her little sister Demetra who she hoped would be arriving tomorrow.

Sapphire woke up early. It was family day and the previous night her maternal grandparents had send her a message saying they would be coming to Beacon and bringing Sapphire's little sister Demetra with them. This worried Sapphire a little. Demetra's semblance allowed her to experience the emotions of others, for someone her age it was very powerful and she often had difficulty controlling it. Sapphire herself had learned to suppress her emotions for her sister's sake but in a place this big with so many people she was worried that it wold be too overwhelming for Demetra.

It wouldn't have done much good to suggest that to her little sister though. Demetra tried as much as possible to avoid letting her abilities influence her path in life. If she wanted to visit Sapphire she wouldn't let Sapphire make any special preparations for her sake, she would simply arrive come what may.

Sapphire was awake, presentable and at the airdocks half an hour before the first transport of the day would be arriving. She spent that time preparing, calming her mind and her heart so that Demetra wouldn't have to listen to it on top of the all the others in area.

When the airship finally docked Sapphire had to try very hard to suppress her feelings of excitement and anxiety. Of her whole family Demetra was the one that Sapphire really cared approved of her. Sapphire and Cecily were not as close as sisters aught to be and the bridge between her and Janus had been burned to cinders long ago.

When the ramp from the airship descended a large crowd of people disembarked. Not large enough to be the entire families of Beacon but that was unsurprising. Most likely some would come a little later in the day, airships did have a maximum occupancy after all and there would be other ships.

Scanning the crowd Sapphire saw people that could be the families of students she knew but she didn't really concentrate on this as she looked for her own family members. Finally in the midst she saw them. Her grandparents who despite their age were still in active and in good health and between them Demetra. Sapphire waved frantically in their direction till they spotted her. A smile brightened Sapphire's face and she ran to them. She embraced Demetra who made a fake choking noise, "Can't breathe."

Sapphire released her hug and ruffled her sister's dark brown hair "Always acting." She knelt with her back facing Demetra. "Hop on, I can show you round the school."

Demetra smiled and climbed onto Sapphire's back. "I'm on top of the world!" She shouted.

Sapphire stood up and faced her grandparents, these were her mother's parents, they had no knowledge of what had gone on during the Rode sister's childhood and Sapphire was more than content to keep it that way. "Grandma, Grandpa, thanks for coming."

She hugged her grandfather Robert then her grandmother Sharon. "Let me look at you." Her grandma said. She spent a moment studying Sapphire's face before saying. "You cut your hair," Sapphire shrugged, she hadn't really thought about how her grandparents would react to it. "It suits you."

Sapphire spent the next hour or so showing them around the school, the grove where she liked to play her violin, the dorm rooms, her various classrooms. When she was finished she escorted them down to the track where the gym teacher had assembled an elaborate obstacle course for those interested in participating. Sapphire herself had signed up the day before.

She spotted Gren in the crowd. For a moment she thought about avoiding him but decided that there was no point. He would meet her family eventually and he was going to cause any problems they might as well get them out of the way now.

She approached him with Demetra still clinging to her back. "Hey Gren, meet my family." she guestured to her grandparents. "This is Robert and Sharon, my grandparents and this little runt she said ruffling Demetra's hair again "Is my little sister Demetra." She turned to her family. "This is my teammate Gren."
@Lucius Cypher

Cian sighed as she looked up from her family day was today and it seemed despite her efforts her brother figure has managed to find out about much to her displeasure.
"Hey heard about the family day might show up so look out for me will ya?"
She continued to sit there staring at the message how did he find out? She made sure to not tell him after all it was only trouble he was normally a cool person but the sheer fact she had two male members on her team was bound to get him going. This was not going well either way she supposed she best be off to meet him but where would he be?

Datura stared up at her old school, a knot forming in her stomach. The twenty-one year-old was beginning to regret making such a commitment to showing up for her daughter's "Parent's Day" event, long-buried feelings of nervousness and resentment re-surfacing for the first time in years. Aside from all of the strange looks she'd no doubt be getting for being so young, there was always the (very probable) chance that a teacher would recognize her. If that happened, well, she could kiss her hard-gained lifestyle of relative peace good-bye.

As if sensing her thoughts, Soot wrapped his right arm around her shoulders reassuringly. "If it gets bad for you, we can leave. I'm sure it won't hurt Siri's feelings." He whispered, leaning into her. "I don't think she expected us to come at all, to be honest." At this, he looked slightly ashamed. Typical. Internally shaking her head at her fiancé's- no, husband now-sensitivity, Datura wordlessly begin pulling him through the crowd of excited families. She would never admit it, but she missed the girl she'd nearly killed only a few years ago just as dearly as her softy of a man.

"She's got to be around here somewhere...if she isn't still smothering herself in blankets." Datura was very familiarized with her daughter's indulgent sleeping habits. "With any luck, one of her teammates woke her up before-" the ex-Beacon student was cut off by a gentle poke to her back. From the way he jumped, Soot had felt it too. Both of them turned around to be met with the sight of a beaming brunette.

"Mom! Dad!" was their only warning before being caught up it what could only be described as the world's most enthusiastic group hug. Soot, bless him, reciprocated immediately. Datura, on the other hand, was caught off guard and froze, a feeling of dread racing up her spine. Those words...shaking her head, she managed to choke out "O-oh, Si-Sepia, you startled me." Right away, the brunette's expression of enthusiasm shifted to worry as she pulled away.

Datura wilted slightly as her daughter said "Sorry, I forgot. Nothing loud or sudden." Feeling guilty over discouraging her friendliness, the older girl attempted to move onto a different subject.

"Don't worry about it. So, where's your team? Unless...you've managed to misplace them somehow." She smirked.