As the class finally came to an end and winded students began to leave the training field, a blonde head glided through the crowd. It moved without aim at first, exploring the throng of bobbing heads until it came close to a red one, then promptly made a beeline towards it.
There were many thoughts and budding worries Sand had been stewing on for the better part of that day, and near half of those were related to the red-headed boy.
“Hmm… What to do, what to do, what to do?” Robert asked himself aloud as he thought about his after school plans. Those plans including: Nothing and jack squat. He’d been in such a grumpy mood all morning that, now that he had gotten over all that boiled up angst, the redhead had realized that at no point had he considered how he would spend his free time. “Definitely don’t feel like being alone right now. Kinda want to hang out with someone. But who’d want to to do that on such short notice?”
“Robert.” Sand’s hand fell on the his shoulder, drawing him to the side so that they could talk. “Are you done for the day?”
Almost as if she had been reading his thoughts, one of his teammates suddenly appeared to grab his attention. Robert almost jumped as he felt a hand suddenly rest on his shoulder, bringing him out of his head and back to the real world. “Oh, hey Sand.”
“Are you done for the day?”
“Yeah, I don’t have anything planned. What’s up?”
“Good. I’m glad I caught you before you ran off,” she said, then hesitated. The girl took a glance at her surroundings, her eyes resting on the other students with a hint of displeasure, before seeming to come to a decision. Tugging on the duffel bag strapped over her shoulder, she said, “I wanted to talk about something, but I’d rather do it somewhere else. Follow me?”
“Uh, sure I guess. But can I get a hint as to what it is you want to tell me?” Robert agreed, though he would follow after Sand whether he received an answer or not. He trusted his team leader and whatever she had planned for him. If she thought it was important that it was discussed in a private setting, she’d hear no argument from him.
“A hint?” she echoed as she led him away from the practice grounds. “I guess. Do you consider yourself a good fighter?”
Robert gave the question a few seconds of consideration as the two casually walked through the halls. He couldn’t recall if he had ever even considered the topic since he was accepted into Beacon. At the time, he thought that if they thought he was good enough to join, he must have met their requirements. Now that Sand had asked though? “Hmm. I guess I do think I have room for improvement. I mean I could probably hold my own against a normal person. Compared to our classmates though? Not so much.”
She hummed an affirmative. That was in essence her own assessment of the redhead, and it saved the both of them time if he saw it as well. “That needs to change,” she said simply.
“How are you going to do that?” the boy asked, most naively.
“How indeed,” she mused, refusing to elaborate.
The girl lead the boy through academy’s halls until she reached the room where her school day had essentially started. Opening the door, she peeked inside the gymnasium, gaze hovering over the few people still inside. Most of those who used the facilities outside of class during week days likely did so during the morning, leaving plenty of room to play with.
Sand nodded and pushed her way inside, leading the pair to a relatively open space. She left her bag near a bench and turned to consider Robert. She had thought about what she would say if they got that far, rehearsed the conversation in her head, but getting down to it was a somewhat different matter. “Before settling on anything,” she started, “I’d like to know what we’re working with. What’s your Semblance? We could probably work our way out from there.”
Robert looked a bit embarrassed by this question, scratching the back of his neck as his cheeks turned to a redder tone. “Well you see… I don’t actually know myself. In fact, part of me has wondered if maybe I don’t even have one,” he admitted. Nobody usually asked him outright and it wasn’t something that you’d just go about your day bragging about, so the boy wasn’t completely comfortable admitting his lack of knowledge about his own abilities.
“No Semblance?” she repeated, eyes widening imperceptibly. Why, that was only half her plans out the window. “Are you serious? Not even a clue about it?”
“Yeah, I’m serious. I really, really haven’t got a clue. For all I know, it’s something stupid like ‘the ability to have bad vision so I must wear glasses’ or ‘the ability to be born a ginger and not have a soul.’ That would be just my luck.”
Her first instinct was to ask how he had even been accepted to the academy in such conditions, but she forced herself to swallow that impulse. Even she realized that would only serve to demoralize her teammate.
“You know that’s not how it works.” Still, she needed to know more. “But now I have to ask. Did you have any formal combat training before Beacon?”
“... Define the word ‘formal,’” he replied.
“I see.” And that was all the answer she needed, was it not?
Things were worse than she had suspected, and she had not prepared for him being so far behind the rest of the competition. What did that leave her in this pitch?
After a few moments, Sand sighed exasperatedly, her lips twisting into a grimace.
The truth, she supposed.
“This is a problem.” She brought a hand up to her hair, brushing it back in an effort to put her thoughts in order. “I’m going to be honest with you, Robert. You’re sloppy. I thought so when you threw yourself at an exploding Creeper at the fort, when I saw you fight, and even today in practice. When Ozpin had us switch places, the first thing I realized was that I would have to take you aside to talk about it.”
Robert decided to not say anything about the incident with the Creeper. In all honesty, he had done it less because he was sloppy and more so because he believed that he was holding the others back. At the time, he believed that their lives were worth more than his own. There was nothing good that could come out of telling the truth about that though, especially when he was actually feeling better since then and now would most likely run away than use his body as a shield. The rest of Sand’s evaluation was accurate though. “Yeah, you’re right. I want to be able to carry my own weight on this team too, so it really is probably for the best.”
“What bothers me...” she continued after his interjection, only to trail off.
This was the point she needed to drive home, she realized, but the silliness of what she was doing caught up to her then. What was she doing, acting like a lecturing mother? She found it hard to finish her thought, but at the same time, she was already too committed to the act to back off. “W-what bothers me is that you are not looking to keep up with the rest of the students. If I understand what you’re telling me, you’re looking to
catch up! Which means that if I come to you after the first class session of the week asking you if you have time after it, the last thing I want to hear is that
you’re free! If you want to start pulling your weight, you’re going to have to start working harder than everyone else, do you understand that?”
“Yeah, I see what you’re saying… But where would I even begin? It sort of feels overwhelming to look at the gap between me and, say, you,” Robert admitted. This wasn’t the first time he had compared himself to his fellow classmates and realized he fell short, but every time in the past his motivation was even closer to the ground than his ability. With Sand now confronting him though, he had no more excuses. He had to try harder or he would never progress.
“Look. You kept up with me at a dead run through dense jungle, while injured, with a pack of howling Grimm on our tail. You can do this, but, like then—” She held up her index finger. “—you need someone to light a fire under your ass.” At that, she pointed at herself with her thumb, struggling to keep the awkwardness out of her voice. “Seeing as I’m riding you about this, I guess that’s my job now. So come on and hit me.”
After hearing that metaphor, Robert looked down behind himself as if searching for something he thought he had dropped earlier. Then the realization hit. “Oh you mean figuratively.” Then as if his mind had only just caught up to what she’d said, he did a double-take. “Wait, you want me to do what?”
“You heard me. From now on you’re my official sparring partner, so act like it.” She tilted her head even as she lowered herself into a relaxed stance. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m team leader now. I get to make unreasonable calls like that.”
“You’re starting to sound more like me,” Robert replied before begrudgingly entering into a defensive stance to protect himself from Sand.
“Then you should know the drill,” she answered dryly to her teammate’s lip. He seemed to prefer letting his opponents have the first strike for some odd reason, but that would not do for what she had in mind. She made a beckoning gesture. “And turtling up is not what I asked you to do either, Robert. I want to see you move.”
“Uh… Alright, I guess,” the boy said, lowering his defenses and walking up to his team leader. Curling back his fist, Robert sent a weak punch to his opponent’s shoulder. The impact, if it could even be called that, most likely wouldn’t even phase Sand. It did not have a chance to connect either way.
Sand stepped into the half-hearted punch, throwing it off with one arm in the same motion as she pushed hard against Robert’s chest with an open palm. The blow sent him stumbling back.
“What was that?” she asked quickly.
“Er… a punch?” Robert questioned as he quickly recovered from Sand’s palm strike.
“Is that what you’d call it if I was a mugger trying to rob you? No. That’s an embarrassment.” She shook her head and a step back, resuming positions. “Again.”
Robert pulled back his fist again, aiming for the same spot as he had before. By comparison with the last punch, it was an improvement. However, at best it would make her flinch and that would only be if she let herself take the hit. It had the speed, but not the strength behind it.
It showed, as Sand deflected it as simply as the first one. She gave the boy another shove. “Again.”
His frustration showed as Robert ground his teeth. Making another fist, he threw his punch right toward Sand’s stomach, now with all of his strength and speed behind it.
Sand pushed it aside with a shove of her left hand, stepping in closer with the motion. Her right hand flashed upwards, catching Robert’s chin in her grip, and slid her leg behind his leading step. This time, her push tripped the redhead and made him crash forcefully onto his back.
The woman kept walking with the momentum of the motion, bringing her now free hands together in a slow clap. When she looked down at Robert, rather than disappointment, a pleased smile played on her lips.
“Better. Now, can you do that with a cool head?” As she spoke, she offered his hand to him.
“I can definitely give it a try,” Robert returned with his usual friendly smile, reaching out and taking his team leader’s hand to get back up on his feet.
“That’s the spirit.” Simpler than she had expected, too. She had thought she would need to be harsher to get him in the right mindset.
Honestly, it made her wonder if he was simply acting for her benefit.
A long, painful hour later, the two students were a sweaty, bruised mess. Well, only one of the two, for the most part.
After Robert had gotten over his false start, the pair had settled into sparring in earnest, with short breaks in the action whenever Sand felt she had to explain something or correct her partner, or Robert took a particularly nasty fall.
“I don’t think I’ve felt this sore since… Okay well, our last mission, but before that… I think the Practice class the day before that.”
Sand pulled her lips away from her water bottle, offering it to the boy lying on the floor. “You’ll have to get used to it. We’ll be doing this every day after practice from now on.”
The boy happily accepted the water bottle, hovering it above his mouth so it fell into his mouth like a waterfall. Once he’d had his fill, Robert replied, “Yeah, that seems reasonable. It’s not like I go the gym ever either, so this and Survival will hopefully keep me in shape as well.”
She hummed a half-hearted affirmative. She would have hoped the school curriculum in itself would deal with that concern, but pointing that out made little difference.
“So, got any other plans for today?” the boy decided to ask, still lying there on the floor and not bothering to even try and sit up.
“Yeah. Something like that. I’ll head out for that soon.” Sand glanced at her Scroll. She did not seem particularly excited by the prospect, though that was not in and of itself strange for her.
Noticing Sand’s expression, Robert asked, “Something you don’t want to do?”
She shrugged. “Meeting with a professor. It’s fine. Just inconvenient.”
“Ah okay. Well if you need anything, I’m still free for the rest of the afternoon. Just gimme a call.”
“Sure.” Silence settled for a moment after that agreement, interrupted only by the slight shuffle of clothes as Sand leaned forward to take her bottle back. “Robert, where did you learn to fight? You said you had no formal training, but I can tell you’re not really new to it. Did you learn all of it here at Beacon?”
Robert was silent for several moments, long enough that Sand might have mistaken the lack of response to mean he didn’t hear her. Before she could repeat her inquiry though, he finally spoke up. “Well, let’s say that mugger comment from earlier was a bit personal. People can sometimes be really mean, even when you don’t have anything. I had to learn to fight for what little I had or end up losing that too.”
Sand studied him from the corner of her eyes, then nodded slowly, simply taking the information in. “A rough childhood. I’m sorry to hear that,” she told him, and that acknowledgement was as much as she could give on the matter. She had been meaning to broach the subject, but brining undue attention to the matter was the last thing in her mind. “I assume you’ve never had a chance to train with a partner, then. Would explain all your bad habits.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. What about you? You kicked my butt pretty good. Better than most people at this school probably.”
“There’s not much to say there. Standard combat school fare.” No sooner had she said that did her eyelids droop and the corner of her mouth take a wry turn. “Except I got thrashed often and I’m a sore loser. You could say
that’s what lit a fire under me.”
“Who was the one doing the thrashing to you though?” Robert decided to ask, wanting to make sure there wasn’t more to that comment before it was dismissed.
“Most other students during sparring practice, of course. And some I asked for help after-hours. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to teach you if you learn to ask… even if they might still thrash you while they’re at it.” She took a swig from the bottle, the motion almost sheepish. “You need to put blood and sweat into things like these if you want to improve, though.”
She blinked slowly as a thought crossed her mind. “It can be difficult, but if you don’t know how to catch up, you could always ask others. I don’t need to be the only one. If you need help with your marksmanship, or aura control, or geography lessons or what have you, find someone who knows about it. Even if you don’t think they would put the time, you could always ask them about their Semblance. People love to talk about themselves, and maybe that could give you an idea about yours.”
“Hmm. Maybe. It just feels… strange to ask others for help. I’m so used to having to do everything on my own, even trying to push away people who offered me their support because I didn’t want them to get involved with some of the things I was doing. It wasn’t anything too terrible, just pickpocketing and thieving”—Sand’s eyebrows rose at that, but she kept quiet, and Robert was not looking at her in any case, staring off into space instead—“but I still didn’t want to get other people in trouble at the time. Now here I am, back on the straight and narrow, I still have trouble actually gathering the courage to ask others for assistance,” Robert began to ramble, finally sitting up despite still being on the floor of the gym.
“That’s a shame,” she said after a moment, then sighed at her own non-committal response. “I don’t think that’s a bad habit I can fix with a bruising, but I could give it a go. You don’t need a troubled past to be shy about bothering others,” Sand drawled as she rose, pulling her bag from under the bench. “Not today, though. I should be heading out.”
“Alright. Be seeing you then.”
“Right.” Sand rose a hand in a lazy farewell before striding out of the gym, leaving the boy to his own devices.
Robert gave his own wave goodbye, though there was much more energy behind the goodbye than Sand’s, despite how exhausted he felt. With no other plans, the redhead gathered his belongings and began making his way to the cafeteria, looking for a snack to replenish himeself.
