AN: Well, welcome one and all to my first of hopefully many fanfictions. I've been writing for a couple years now, but its been mainly ideas in private notebooks or short scraps of ideas to friends. This is my first real "published" work.
With a new first chapter. Yay! Sorry this took too long, but just in time for the first of school for many people. I like this version a lot better. So, I will continue to sporadically re- write, but I'm going to start doing my best to put out chapters as quick as possible to make up for all the time I have taken recently. Thatnks for all those who have kept up, and welcome newbies! I hope you enjoy!
The bell rang, dismissing them from their second to last period for the day. Team RWBY got up, grabbed their books, and headed to their last class. Combat class with Professor Goodwitch. It was going to be exciting because the day before it was announced that they would have another hunter watching them. His name was undisclosed at the time for reasons still unknown to them. Ruby had gone the whole secret agent angle. Nora had heartily agreed that that was the most sensible explanation. The more sensible people from the teams had agreed that it was probably a confidentiality thing.
As they got to class, they saw a man standing next to Glynda in the middle of the battle area. He was a lot shorter than they had expected. He barely came up to her chest. Granted, Glynda was fairly tall, but he looked like a little kid next to her, not a trained hunter.
His clothing didn't look the part either. He was wearing a suit of metal armor that had an octagonal helm that covered everything but his face, which had an irritatingly confident smirk. And not Jaune's kind of confidence, like the confidence a person has as they realize they could take everyone in the room and win.
Most weren't affected by it, they probably didn't even notice it. It did irritate Weiss to no end though. She hated the overconfident smugness people some people carried. It just begged her to prove him wrong.
"Good afternoon class. Today we have a very special guest, as you can see." began Glynda as she gestured to the man beside her, he bowed slightly, the smirk gone. Left behind was a mask of stone. You couldn't tell what he was thinking, what his emotions were, nothing. His eyes were cold, calculating, and belied an intelligence anyone who didn't know him failed to pick up on. As he straightened they could see the sword across his back, having shifted to the side as he bent forward.
"We will be referring to him as Mr. Ying in this class, understood?" as Glynda, continuing. She got nods and vocal affirmatives from the students.
"Today he will be helping you students get a grasp on just how far you have to go to become full hunters. You feel like you're invincible, and, to the average person without aura, you are. But a fully trained hunter has faced much more powerful Grimm than you will easily be able to outsmart and outperform you."
"Oh please Glynda, you give me too much credit. That's not even that common. I've only faced a minor Drakoni and Alpha Deathstalker twice. This year. And it's only March." said the man, trailing off as he thought about the vast numbers he'd had the privilege of facing.
"But, it has been a busy year for me. It's the first time I've been recalled in four years, so I had a lot of Grimm land to make my way through." he said after a minute, humbling himself. That's when the students realized that he had an accent. It wasn't super thick, but his voice had a little bit of a lilt to it. He also sounded like he was slowing his voice down so they could understand him easier.
Through all this he sounded like he was just stating fact. His voice was flat, but not monotone. In only a minute he was already more interesting than most teachers any of the students had ever met. He was a lot younger than most of them though. He could only be 26 at the most.
"When do we finally get to face off? You promised combat, and I'm going to get it one way or another Glynda." said Mr. Ying, elbowing Glynda while smiling. She just gave him a completely flat, emotionless stare. He returned it, and the room got tense. Neither looked away for a good thirty seconds. They finally broke contact at the same time, neither really showing authoritative dominance over the other.
"Damn." said Yang, "Anyone that can match Goodwitch one for one like that has my attention."
"If anything, it just shows a lack of respect for authority." replied Weiss, turning her nose up slightly in the direction of the man now standing silently with Glynda.
"Guys, stop fighting. We're in class." whined Ruby. As she noticed the room get quiet.
"They're looking at us." stated Blake.
"It looks like we have our volunteers~." said Ying, smiling as he said it.
"Would team RWBY please go get changed and grab your weapons?" asked Goodwitch. The team complied, begrudgingly.