Students from schools across the kingdoms hurried to their classes all around Iesous as he held his probability theory books close to his chest, his tail close against his back as he kept his eyes sharp for Cardin Winchester. He'd heard how Cardin picked on most of the faunus students at this school and didn't want to be counted among them. Carefully he navigated between the students, stepping out of their way or subtly directing them around his without drawing attention. He was good at going unnoticed. It was likely no one had really seen him all morning.
Iesous slipped into the far back corner seat of a lecture hall as he listened to the other students, those who got there early were usually the best to listen to. A bunny faunus wearing reds and browns listened on quietly, like himself, as her exuberant pink companion yammered on about how 'uber cool' their Professor was, talking at length of how she'd built her hammer from one of the Professor's early designs. Near as Iesous could tell this class was going to be on the properties and uses of Dust, but what was there really to know? Dust powers everything, machines, lights, communication, weapons. Tactically all he needed to know was that if you shoot it from a gun you get cool elemental effects depending on the type of Dust used.
More and more human students filed in and took seats in the hall, each apparently experiencing different levels of morning grogginess. Some laid their heads down to try catching a couple of seconds shut eye. Humans all seemed to have trouble with early morning classes. Only a couple of them seemed to notice the strange stone pillar standing at the center of the lecture hall, floor to ceiling.
Iesous, however, had been looking over the pillar intently as he listened to everyone around. At first the structure had been difficult to identify, but eventually he realized the striations were a spiral mix of black and white marble. It had to be a fake, the chances of finding, mining, and transporting such a large solid piece with such a perfect spiral would be astronomically improbable. Running the numbers in his head he'd gotten down to 10x9^-15 before a rumbling caught his attention.
The low sound was coming from the top of the pillar. It wasn't long before the humans noticed it too. Fire circed down the pillar in a spiral counter to the marbel's pattern and all the students looked up to it, gasps and hushed talking flowed across the isles and Iesous smiled.
As the fire crawled further down the top of the pillar started to melt. Gouts of flame burst to the sides and two new pillars started to form, each half the size of the original, one of black marble, the other of white. The flames kept descending, melting the original and forming the new pillars until finally they reached the floor of the lecture hall and a woman emerged from the dying central flames, applause all around as the side pillars solidified.
She wasn't smiling, but she definitely looked proud of herself. Iesous hadn't seen a faunus looking so aristocratic since he'd left the White Fang, before they'd turned to their modern terrorist ways. Her eye's struck him first, they had seen things, terrible things, far worse than anyone her age should ever have seen. If not for those eyes she would fit right in with the older students at this school. Where others often wore armor or battle skirts she was wearing an Atlus Navy uniform, spotless white and blue with trim of grey and a red tie barely poking out above her chest. Faceted gems dangled from platinum caps on the ends of her spiral horns catching the light of the room and casting a multitude of tiny rainbows around the room and on the white band in her coarse black hair. Her tail wafted side to side with confident ease. As she walked Iesous could see there was something a little bit off with her stride, nothing significant, but not quite natural. The coloration of her left arm was also subtly different from the rest of her skin, but once again, a very close match, no human could see it, few faunus would be able to tell either.
She stepped up to look the front row students in the eyes as she evaluated everyone in the hall with military precision before booming out in a loud voice, "Welcome, students and visitors to Beacon. I am Brigadier General Toso Bogatyr Voin Hefner, and for as long as the Atlus Navy remains stationed here I am," she paused and gave a huff of resentment through her nostrils, "on loan, to this school."
General Voin Hefner, the name rang a bell in Iesous' memory, but before he could recall it a couple of late students nearly tumbled into the room. One in green almost threw his companion down the stairs, cursing as he tried to leave the lecture hall. Before he get out the door the 'Professor' snapped her fingers and the doors slammed shut in his face.
"So good you could join our class. A recommendation, if you'd like to keep using those bows of mine I'd suggest you arrive on time and pay attention in my classes. I believe we have four more together this term." She gave the boy a wicked smile of satisfaction as he found a seat next to his companion, resigning himself to his fate.
She turned and stepped back between the two pillars before facing the class again. "During the coming weeks we will be exploring the many properties and uses of the most foundational elements of our universe, Dust. We are all, ultimately, Dust, but in a crude form, everything around us is crude Dust fashioned into common forms we experience every day. It has lost its spark of power, it just is. My Semblance allows me to momentarily revert this crude matter back into it's base form."
As she spoke she reached out toward the black pillar and sent flames arcing up its structure. The flames were almost transparent and Iesous and all the students could see as the marble became black and brown glowing granules, flowing through the flames and moving around. "In this form I can move the charged dust to new locations," she said as the flames and the flowing particles moved out above the student's seats. "And return it to matter." Small marble pebbles started to rain down upon the students in all the lower rows, spilling out across the floor as some students used books and binders to deflect the strange rain.
Did she just look at me? At, me?
"Generally, when we speak of Dust we mean it in the raw, powerful form, or any of it's many processed, focused, distilled, or imbued forms." The flames quickly flashed across the floor and the marbles vanished. "In one form we have Dust flowing all around and through this school, through our homes, through our vehicles, providing the power to create light, heat, motion, to keep our food cold, or deliver our entertainment." The black marble pillar grew in flames beside her as she lectured on. "Once, this feat was a marvel, but today it is the most common method we experience the power of Dust. If you choose to go into such fields, I am teaching a specific class on this topic as well, see your administrator if you would like to join that class. However, here, we will delve into the more… mystical applications of Dust."
"Students here and most visitors are, I am told, training to become Hunters, to take on the threats to the civilized world posed by the horrific monstrosities known as the Grimm. To this I assume, at the least, you have all unlocked your Auras. I will not be teaching you about Auras here, but they do have a role to play in how we use Dust. Technology powered by Dust is at one extreme of how we use it, at the other is directly controlling Dust with your Aura."
"The unlimited potential of what one can achieve by controlling raw Dust with Aura is matched only by the difficulty and the costs of failure." Iesous saw a twitch in her left arm accompanied by a minor facial movement indicating a history of pain associated with whatever memory she was experiencing. Of course, he realized, she had tried it, and knew the costs of failure from experience. "This form of raw magic we will each practice with in a very controlled manner near the end of the term. Students who show promise in that field will be picked by Glynda Goodwitch for additional training."
"The majority of our class will focus on the uses between pure Technology and Sorcery. We will talk about and experiment with the processes of imbuing Dust into physical objects to grant them special properties, mixing the types of Dust with the materials to achieve the specific results you desire. Our first unit will be on potion making. Potions have the distinct advantage of being usable by anyone once prepared, one simply needs to imbibe them. While less commonly talked about, it is important to note that potions can also be prepared as other foodstuffs for longer lasting effect, but doing so considerably slows the rapidity of their consumption. Read up for next time on how to make Goldenrod Tea. These potions are not going to be combat potions, for those you will need to learn from a more specialized teacher, likely the school's historian. These simple, everyday potions will just teach us the basic process of using your aura to infuse Dust into the ingredients with a clear enough result to know if you have succeeded or failed. Do not miss any of my classes, each is important and builds upon the lessons of the previous class."
"Once we are done with potions we move onto simple scrolls for alarming an area. This can be a time consuming process but is quite versatile."
"Alchemical transformations of similar elements through fusion and fission will help any hunter who is well aware of the material properties around them. Primarily using Fire and Earth Dust you can generate considerable explosions by fusion if tearing apart the right materials or alter those materials to have the desired properties. Turning an iron wall into lead, converting hydrogen to helium. Bear in mind, lead is almost impossible to turn into anything else without considerable processing, so do be careful."
"We will begin our exploration of armor craft with cloth infusion of a durable cushioning cotton that weighs almost nothing, and then move onto my specialty, metal infusion. Tempered with fire Dust metal can become either easy to forge or highly fire resistant, air Dust can make metals nearly weightless, earth makes them stronger and/or heavier. Achieving the perfect balance for the task at hand is a delicate art form which I have spent my entire life mastering."
"During these lessons I expect you will have been practicing the use of your aura and semblance, if you haven't discovered yours then speak with Professor Goodwitch to get the help you need. Once we are done with metal infusion we will move on to channeling Dust into your semblance to alter its effect. I know some of you have already been experimenting with these techniques. We will be pushing you further, to the edge and beyond what your Semblance can normally do. This is the beginnings of Sorcery, and it is not to be tried without careful direction and controls. Sorcery is the most heavily regulated form of Dust use. Performing Sorcery without authorization is a serious criminal offence." She glared, for just a moment, at the wiry green archer who had come in late.
"That is the expected itinerary of the term. As I know there is considerable chaos this first day I shall do something today which I won't be doing again this term, so enjoy it the one time I give it to you. You may go early. Any students with questions, please see me personally in my office." She gestured to the door off the side of the hall's floor with her name on a plaque. Snapping her fingers the doors at the top of the hall swung open.
Most students left quickly, excited to be out early. The green archer leapt from his seat and vanished into a disk in the air before dropping from another by the door. Another student jumped straight from their seat to the door and nearly landed on the archer. A few walked down to speak with the Professor, but she walked straight to the office and closed the door. Some of them formed a line, others just left. Iesous slowly descended past the departing students and waited.
One by one the Professor called in the students to speak with them, and one by one they left. Finally it was Iesous' turn.
Entering the chamber he was struck by its size and complexity. This wasn't an office, it was an engineering workshop. He slipped into a chair obviously positioned for the students. The Professor, or Brigadier General, had removed her suit coat, the red tie more evidently hanging in the slight depression between her breasts. A robotic arm folded out from the wall and placed a tea set on the table before setting and pouring a cup for each of them. As the robot finished its task she put away a couple of tools and sat down across from Iesous, sipping from her tea quietly.
They sat there, just drinking in silence for a couple of minutes. This close, in such silence, Iesous could hear the flow of energy and the movement of mechanical parts coming from her arm and leg. Finally she spoke.
"Well, it would appear your patience outlasts my own, so I shall speak first. You aren't on my class roster, nor the list of visitors, so I'll need you to provide your own name, you already know mine." She waited a moment for a response, then added, "You have an intriguing semblance. I assume it diverts attention from you, almost as good as invisibility, but considerably less taxing to maintain. I'd guess that with care you can easily go months or years unnoticed in plain sight."
Iesous noded, "I have. Though, I didn't know it was called a semblance, but that does make sense. It makes me forgettable, as long as I don't draw too much attention to myself. It's always on. I don't remember what I was named, I don't even remember what I look like anymore. Sometimes I see myself in a mirror, analyze who I see, but I have to look at my hands again every time just to remember what color my skin is. I've come to call myself Iesous, but why, I don't know."
Toso sipped her tea and adjusted her tie before responding. "Indeed. If it weren't for my bionic eye keeping a transcript of this conversation for me to read I would have forgotten half of what you said already. It's the details that get lost first, I keep remembering you because you are so interesting to me, but the details of why slip away. It must be lonely, to be so forgettable."
His tail coiled around the chair leg as he held his tea cup firmly in both hands. "Lonely, but I survive. I, I get people to remember me just long enough, they give me money, they sell me things. Sometimes I take things I need. I just have to be careful around people who fear faunus. Fear is memorable, even if I'm not. While they remember me, they beat me, and then they forget they ever did it, but their satisfaction remains. Ask them if they've ever beat one of us, they smirk with a memory of pleasure and hate, and they say 'no, but I would' because they don't remember. Others regret it, and once they forget it I've seen them change. They don't fear me anymore. The beatings don't usually hurt much, I can take more punishment than it looks like I should. I've taken hits that should have shattered my bones. I make jumps that every medical text book I've read says should break my legs."
It took a while for Toso to respond again, "I'm sorry to read that, Yesus. Hmm, could you spell your name? As to the physical beating, jumps, and such, that is your Aura I mentioned in class. It protects you, allows you to do otherwise impossible things. Like the students who jumped from the bottom of the hall to the door in a single bound, that's not muscle power, that's aura. Now, from what you've said I would assume carrying a weapon is out for you? Even still, I believe we may be able to help each other. I think I can teach you techniques to rebuild your self identity, to only hide when you want to be hidden."
Iesous was just shy of scoffing. "Oh? And what would I have to do in return? I won't kill people. I'm not a fighter. Beside, being a threat to people interferes with my power, my semblance."
She set down her tea, "No no, nothing quite so dangerous. I want to study your power and have you gather some information for me. While I doubt you remember what kingdome you are even from, there are forces aligned against all of us which require us to make an unprecedented level of cooperation, which is why Atlus sent the Navy here during these tournaments. Normally I teach at a similar school in my kingdome, where Hunters are not separated from the military forces, so I have been assigned to teach while here. The lax attitudes of these Hunter students takes some, getting used to, to be sure. Why, I remember when…. Hmm, I'm drifting again, forgetting what I was going to say, about you, what I want you to do. Yes, I need you to find and infiltrate the White Fang in this city. I know they are working with powerful criminal elements, possibly the League of Evil. The White Fang's political fervor has long been twisted by their fear and hatred of the humans around us into a terroristic zeal, but now it appears humans are twisting that zeal to their own ends. I don't want you to do anything with or for them, just give me information and I will see that it is taken care of. I have my soldiers, and other agents."
Iesous saw her look at the cup in his hands, holding tight and shaking a little. He put his empty cup down. "I was part of the White Fang, before."
Toso nodded to the wall and the robotic arm came out to refill their cups. "I know, I found your face in some of the early political protest photos. You were younger back then, I think, er, you had to be? I'd guess you must be around forty now. That must..."
"Closer to sixty," he interrupted, "I don't age very fast. Your eye, it took my image. I want a copy. And any other images you found of me. I didn't know there were any." He thought a moment, "You mentioned how tiring a semblance can be. What you did in class, that must have been extremely exhausting."
Toso smirked, "Redirecting the conversation? That must come naturally to you after all these years. Ok, yes. Reshaping that much marble is easy for me, I do it all the time, the taxing part was slowing it down and sustaining it for the students to see, then moving it in that raw form over their heads. And it's not real flame, that's just what my aura looks like when I extend it past my body. I don't enjoy being so drained," She looked at her left hand, flexing the fingers as gears whirred inside, "but Professor Goodwitch and Headmaster Ozpin suggested that a showy display would help catch the students' attention, interest them in my lecture. If that's what it takes to get these students to learn what they will need to know as Hunters, then so be it. I bring them the pillars of heaven, if they cast them aside, let the fall of knowledge crash upon them and dash them to pieces."
"Like sorcery dashed your body?"
Toso raised an eyebrow, "Interesting deduction. Yes, I attempted to use sorcery to restore my arm, but in the process I lost my leg and my eye." She reached across her body with her right hand and removed her left arm. The uniform had been modified as well to separate with it along a fashionable seam. She pulled the bit of sleeve up to show a gnarled nub of flesh ending above the elbow. "When I was born I didn't even have this much, nothing past the shoulder. I lost my leg and eye and all I got was this, but it's enough now to use as a mounting point for my robotics. I was such a vain child. Mmm, my, you do have a skill for getting people to tell you things. I haven't told anyone that in years. And going over the transcript, I've said a lot of things I probably shouldn't have."
Iesous leaned back, sipping his refilled tea and taking a lemon cracker. "Yes Professor, at times your mind thinks you are just talking to yourself. And for all I know, you have been. Not like I've said anything you didn't know or couldn't have made up in your own mind."
Toso gave a chuckle, but knew something was wrong, something was missing. "Oh, you are persistent in trying to be forgotten. But it's not going to go that way this time. I've been maintaining a record, remember?"
It was Iesous' turn to smile. "Oh, I remember, but you won't. Just as you don't remember getting the crackers. Quite delicious, by the way. Nor do you remember the password you set on the transcript, or why you deleted your search history. But some time, I will come back, tell you the password, and we can continue our conversation. Now, I believe you have work to do, Professor."
Toso nodded, stood up and headed to her machines. Putting on her thick leather apron and blast mask the smeltery heated up. Iesous watched as she slipped on her heavy industrial arm, forgetting all about him as he slipped away. It had been a good talk, one of the best he'd had in decades. He looked down at the printouts, bound in a nice leather casing with a shiny metal mirror she'd made for him. Finally he got to see what he looked like as he'd aged, secure in the knowledge that the only copies that remained in the world were in his hands and behind his password. Maybe he would take her up on that offer. It might be nice to be remembered sometimes.
Iesous looked at the other image she'd printed. The green archer, her special project.