Hey there, guys and girls! XtremeManiac33 here welcoming you to something I've cooked up in a state of boredom. This story is based on the hit webseries called RWBY if you are one of my followers. If not, then welcome to the story that you clicked in the RWBY section of the site!

Side Impressions is actually not a whole story with a linear plot. This is actually a collection of short stories I've written before and I just decided to put this up here. I though it would be a waste if I just let my team here not do anything after I finished creating them, so I just thought of some scenarios for them to take part in. Not everything in this story is concrete aside from the composition of the team and their backstories (I have a present link in my profile that takes you to their full profiles.). So Beacon Academy might not be their actual school and they might not even be actually studying in Vale when I decide to flesh out this story, among other things. The things you might read here might even become canon if I choose to do so.

Anyway, enough rambling! Here's the first short story.

I. Practice

Cray Nicholas did not know what had gotten into him when he had agreed to doing this activity his partner had suggested.

He had some free time before his first class of the day would begin, but he was already dressed in his Beacon Academy school attire in case he wanted to take a walk around campus. He had been lucky enough to have a schedule that starts right after lunch but ends at 7:30PM, unlike his teammates who started in the morning. Cray initially planned to lounge around the team dorm before lunch, seeing as he woke up early today. All that changed when half of the team came back.

Amber Solarys, his partner, barged into the dorm of Team MACL with an explosive 'hello', the door hitting the wall hard enough to make Cray jump. Lashe Sherwood trailed behind the orange-haired girl and stopped the door from nudging him as it came back around. Both had just finished their history class with Professor Oobleck, and it was apparent that the hyperactive teacher with a certain affinity to caffeine had gotten Amber excited.

No, she was not excited because of what she learned about the Faunus War or what kind of mistake General Lagune made. It was his constant movement and trailblazing method of speaking that had gotten Amber restless.

"It's gotten me pumped up that I wanna do something!" Amber answered Cray's question regarding her constant hop-skipping around the room. She had dumped her stuff on the nearest bed, which was Marille's, the leader of their fearsome four.

Cray was about to step out and exit to meet up with Malkas, his Faunus best friend, when Amber stopped him with a handful of his collar.

"Let's do somethin' fun. Whaddya say, Arrow?" She looked over to the silent archer, who was diligently putting away his books, and only made a grunt as a response. Somehow she interpreted it as a positive.

-MACL-

"Steady...c'mon, Drillbit. Steady..." Amber muttered, admonishing her partner's constant fidgeting. Cray glared at her as he tried to stop looking at the dangerous point staring back at him. She turned to the boy beside her, awaiting his teammate's move. Lashe slowly released a breath and let go.

In a single moment, Cray had both of his eyes open in an attempt to watch everything unfold, but closed them tightly the moment impact was made. He sighed after a few silent moments when Amber cheered. The raven-haired teenager blinked his open eyes and released the breath he was holding when he realized that it was over.

"Good one! My turn!" Amber declared, shoving the taller student and stood at one side of the room. A whirring sound started to enter Cray's ears, one that started slow and was about to build up speed and noise, and it immediately made him stiffen.

"NO! Nononononono! No!" Cray was waving his hands desperately, crossing over from the far side wall to where the other two were standing at the opposite side of the room. "I am not doing that again. Especially with that!"

"What!? Why?" Amber frowned at her partner's attitude.

"I'd rather not die, that's why." He then pointed to the taller teenager without even looking at him and then to the thing at what his partner had at hand. "He might look like he knows what he's doing, but with something crucial like this, I wouldn't even let him use that!"

"You think Lashe would miss? Even with Wild Dortchen?" A hesitant nod from Cray answered this question. "Pshaw! Lashe wouldn't do that."

"Never miss," Lashe added, his deep emphasis only assured Cray a little bit since it was probably true.

"Now don't be such a spoiled sport, stand over there again, and put this over your head," Amber was readying her stance for her turn after she threw Cray something, which he didn't even try to catch.

"No! What if YOU miss? Beacon's best and brightest would cease to-" Of course, he was referring to himself proudly, but was interrupted by smaller girl.

"...You should cease talking before I miss on purpose."

A glare met Amber eyes. "You wouldn't dare." Her only response was a cocked eyebrow, challenging her overconfident partner. Both teenagers stared down each other like two gunslingers about to be embroiled in a duel to the death.

One moment later, both launched into a dueling tirade of arguments that neither side seemed to hear the other. It became physical eventually with Amber jumping on her brazen partner. As much as Cray tried to fight, he was unable to get away and retaliate, seemingly overpowered by the girl's strength. But she has not won yet.

Lashe looked on with indifference as the two fought for control up and down the room. He walked over to a corner of the room that did not intersect with the route of the two's fight, casually adjusting one of the curtains beside him and looking out of the window. Eventually, Amber got on top of Cray, one foot on his neck while the other hooked on his right shoulder, one of her hands held on to his long hair like she was in a rodeo.

Amber was trying to shout something to Lashe, but Cray had her mouth blocked with his hand, muffling her voice. He did know what she was trying to do as he eyed the thing being placed on Cray's head. A single orange struggling to be balanced on the ravenette's head. That was the signal Lashe was waiting for.

Everything was going smoothly when she arrived.

"What is going on here!?"

The three teenagers stopped at that instant, all eyes now directed at the person standing at the open doorway, a brunette with short hair wearing a breastplate on her chest and a long scarf around her neck with a confused look on her face. Marille Seance is her name and is the leader of the three teenagers. When her eyes went to Lashe, she swore he looked almost guilty as he averted eye contact.

"Lashe, why are you armed like you're ready to shoot something? Why are Amber and Cray standing like that? And why are there two apples on the wall with arrows through each of them?" Her questions seemingly went through deaf ears as nobody answered. She closed the door and spoke again, this time her hands on her hips and a no-nonsense look on her face. "I am not going to repeat myself."

The boy with the duck wing sigil used that opportunity to push off his partner away from his back, the girl landing on the floor with a thud.

"Well, team leader," his emphasis on the phrase sounded sarcastic, "If you must know, I'm the victim in all of this. Amber here thought it would be a fun idea to get rid of her energy by using me as a stand for apple target practice. She even convinced Lashe to take part in it. And look at what they've done to the room." He swung his arm to show her around the room to show the arrows they've used, Amber's attempts in using Lashe's weapon, as well as the two beds that were on its side due to the Cray and Amber's brief showdown. But he didn't want to admit fault in that as he put all the blame on them.

Marille turned to the smaller girl. "Is this true?"

"Yeah," Amber replied, scratching the back of her guiltily. Lashe stood beside her and nodded when the leader's attention went to him.

The two waited as Marille paced around the room with a serious look on her face, perhaps thinking of a way to punish her teammates for such behavior. Their team dorm room is not meant to be used as a place for target practice simulations. There's a place for that across the campus. When she stopped and faced them, they thought she had made up her mind on how they would fix this little problem as Cray looked on with a smug look on his face.

"The faculty would scold us if they knew what happened here, so it's my duty to sentence you two to…" A dramatic pause for dramatic effect. Cray could almost taste the satisfaction for getting forced into being made to stand like a post. "...a proper target practice simulation!"

"Excuse me?" It was Cray who broke the five second silence between them when the announcement was made by their leader. Cray's surprise could have not been apparent with how dull it sounded. Amber brightened at Marille's words. "Don't you see what they did to the room? They should be punished!"

"Oh they will. After our little team building activity, of course." At least Cray had that going for him.

Figuring that he would not be able to convince her of enacting a harsher punishment, he turned to leave. "Well then, if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting with a certain Faunus friend of mine. I'll see you guys later." He walked past his leader with a nonchalant wave over his shoulder, but was stopped when Marille closed the door he was about to open.

"When I say 'team building exercise', I mean the entire team," The shield-saw bearer of the team told him. He raised an eyebrow at her and tried to open the door again, which was closed a moment later. She only looked at him with a stern expression and he knew that she would not budge when she has made an effort to do something with the whole team, even though they had only been a team for a week.

Cray sighed frustratingly before leaning on the wall, crossing his arms and frowning at the ground. "Fine."

"Team target practice first, then you guys clean the mess you made." She then turned around to address the rest of the team. "But we need to make it interesting! Amber, go get 10 stacks of encyclopedias from the library. Make those big ones." She mimed the expected size she wanted her teammate to get. It was very thick.

Amber grinned and saluted her leader, "Yes, ma'am!" She proceeded to run out of the room excitedly, probably barrelling through a few students if the surprised noises and thuds from the hall were any sort of indication.

"Lashe, get all of the curtains in this room. Cray, you and me are going to get some cabbages from the cafeteria. Probably some squash too to make things interesting. Hopefully the ones that they won't be using anymore. There should be enough before lunch starts. We'll meet at the school grounds in ten minutes!"

Lashe silently nodded and started taking the nearest curtains. Cray sighed in disbelief, head hung in defeat, as he followed the exiting Marille.

"Now where can I get a catapult…" An audible whisper came from Marille as she wondered out loud.

"I knew I shouldn't have gotten up early," Cray mumbled sourly, shaking his head as he followed the girl in front of him.

There it is, the first chapter of Side Impressions. If you have any thoughts or constructive criticisms or just want to ask something about this chapter, feel free to make a review. I'll put the second chapter soon. Thank you for your time.