The Cause of Neptune Vasilias
Drumming his fingers on the table, Neptune Vasilias eyed the entire cafeteria, crammed full of students eating their lunches, allowing them a break between their classes to recharge their batteries and to associate with their friends and teammates, as well as other students from the other kingdoms who had come for the tournament. Unlike his team captain, Neptune had no problem continuing his curriculum at Beacon Academy, and was rather thankful that the school was large enough and was able to accommodate all the additional students who came. However, looking across the expansive room, he saw something that he found greatly irritating, something that had always been a great concern to him.
"Hey, dude you okay?" asked Sun, sitting across from him, pushing around some applesauce around with a spoon. "You got that weird look on your face again."
"I really hate school uniforms," Neptune said, his voice sharp.
To his left, Scarlet gave a tired sigh, letting his head drop to the table, while to Sun's right Sage dug his face into his palms. "We're not doing this again."
"Hey! I need to say what we're all thinking!" Neptune said, defensively pointing a finger at Sage
"No one else is thinking that!" Sun threw his arms out, already exasperated. "You are probably the only person between the four academies who has put that much thought into this stuff!
"What are you guys talking about?" Team SSSN had not eating their lunch alone, and were sharing the table with the friends they had made at Beacon, Team RWBY and Team JNPR. From Neptune's right and continuing down the line was Weiss, Ruby, Jaune and Pyrrha, while from Sun's left had been Blake, Yang, Nora and then Ren. Currently, eight pairs of eyes were turned towards him and Sun.
"It's nothing," said Scarlet, raising his head off the table. "It's nothing, just ignore everything he says, it's absolute bollocks!"
"No, no, they deserve to know how I feel about uniforms in general, and how they could possibly be a determent to how we grow as people in general."
"If you don't mind me asking, what is your problem with uniforms?" asked Blake, and there were collective groans from SSS.
"I'm glad you asked Blake," Neptune said with a smile. "I'm just glad that SOMEONE takes an interest in my cause."
"It's not a cause," Sage said through his fingers.
Neptune ignored him and turned in his seat to face RWBY and JNPR. "As we all know, eighty years ago, our forefathers fought in a war for the sake of freedom of expression, so that no one would have to fear censorship, or be made lesser people for the sake of conformity. I myself am a firm believer that we should be able to express ourselves however we want, and to be forced to don uniforms seems like a step back in so many ways, and if we want to keep with those ideals, then-"
"You just want to wear what you want when you want because you think Haven's uniform is ugly," Sun said, already giving up on the conversation.
"I think their both equally valid points of view," Neptune said, folding his arms over his chest. "But yes, you are right, Haven has terrible uniforms."
"I don't think they're too bad," came Pyrrha's voice from the end of the table.
"Really?" Neptune leaned over the table to see her. "Have you really taken a look at a Haven uniform?" He pushed himself out of his seat and gestured to his body, dressed in Haven Academy's male uniform. "It's just black, and gray, it's just dreadful!" He then ran up the table for a moment, and when he had returned he was pulling along someone else with him. "The girls' uniform isn't much better might I add, just the same with a checkered skirt, which while appreciated, is only so much."
"I really wish you guys had gotten a girl on your team." Arslan pulled her arm out of Neptune's grasp and gave an annoyed huff. "I just hate that I have to be the prop in this dumb argument of yours."
"It's not dumb, Arslan, we've talked about this before but-"
"No! Shut up! It's dumb! AHG!" she screamed, covering her ears up before walking away, shaking her head as she did.
"She's right you know, this is dumb," Sun said.
"You have the worst fashion sense of anyone here, so you don't have anything useful to say. You don't even put the full effort into your uniform!"
"Huh?" Sun leaned back and looked down at his own uniform, the jacket unbuttoned while the dress shirt had three buttons undone. "Why do you care? Your whole argument is how you hate uniforms, so wouldn't me not wearing it like I'm supposed to be good?"
"If you're going to be forced into something like this, then you better do it right."
"That doesn't make any sense!"
"None of this does!" Slumping where he stood, Neptune looked across the room to some of the more casually dressed students. "I mean, look at the students from Shade, they don't have a dress code at all, and they all look great!" He pointed towards some of said school's students, Team NDGO in particular, in their regular combat attire. How envious he was of them.
"What about Beacon's uniforms?" Ruby asked, innocently. "I think they look cute."
"Stop encouraging him!" Scarlet cried out.
"I'm mentally checking out from this conversation," Sage said, returning to his meal.
"I'm glad you asked, Ruby." Neptune continued, reaching over and grabbing Weiss by her shoulders and lifted her out of her seat, rather easily, and set her on her feet, before going to the Ruby's right and pulling up Jaune, who could only look in distress to his lunch tray. "I'll admit that between the three, Beacon's uniforms aren't the worst..."
"My pudding..." Jaune said sadly.
"The gold trim works well with the black," Neptune continued, ignoring Jaune's pleas and Weiss' annoyed glare. "Guys have a blue vest underneath the jacket, and the girls have the red skirt, and even I have to admit that it works for what it is, but at the end of the day, it's still mandatory, and given the option I'd rather wear clothes of my own choice."
"What's so special about the stuff you wear?" Yang asked, propping herself on her elbows.
"Are you serious?" Neptune asked, offended. "I have put a lot of time and effort into my wardrobe, finding what material and color schemes go well together, optimizing styles and substance until I found a balance that I was happy with."
Blake leaned over to Sun, and whispered, "He's not serious, is he?"
"I wish," Sun replied, his head leaning into his hand. "He carries around a lint roller in his jacket pocket, and spends like thirty minutes every morning doing his hair."
Neptune went on. "To its credit, Beacon does seem kind of lax with its dress code, since I've seen some students not even in their uniforms, even in class."
Beside him, Weiss huffed and grumbled.
Ruby, in response, laughed. "Oh yeah, Weiss really doesn't like those guys too much."
"I don't see what's the big deal," Weiss said, her voice on edge. "It's just a uniform, there's no reason to not wear it. It's regulation!"
Neptune narrowed his eyes. "That's right, you're from Atlas, and basically everyone there is bred from birth to follow every single rule, straight as an arrow, without any sort of deviation."
It was at this point Neon Katt rolled by, leaving behind a rainbow trail while spinning around dust-infused nun chucks, techno-pop could be heard in the air. This went ignored by everyone.
From the other end of the table, on the opposite side, Nora called out, "Also, wasn't Atlas one of the kingdoms who were FOR censorship and uniformity?"
"That's right, they were." With a sigh, Neptune rubbed her eyes. "I just remembered how awful the Atlas uniforms are, they're stark white and they're basically military uniforms."
"It's sort of fitting since the Atlas military runs the academy," Ren said. "Especially given some of the rumors that higher marked students and heavily pressured by the state to enroll in the military when they graduate."
"That's not true!" Weiss turned around and stared down Ren. "Yes, there have been some distasteful rumors to how Atlas runs its armed services, but they certainly do not bully their students into joining."
"What about your sister?" Ruby asked. "She's in the military, and you've said she got the highest marks in her class, was she made to join the army?"
Weiss' response was to grab Ruby's hood down over her face.
"As I said," Weiss said sternly. "There is no shady business when it comes to how the military is run, nothing suspicious at all."
000
"Are you not going to eat?" asked Ciel, from the other side of the cafeteria, looking down to the empty spot before Penny.
"No, I have already eaten a hearty breakfast!" came the cheery response from the ginger-haired girl. "This morning, I ate bacon, and eggs, and a large bowl of guacamole."
"Pardon?"
"I meant to say cereal. That was what I ate for breakfast. Bacon, eggs and cereal. It was appropriately soggy. Especially the bacon!"
"...What?"
000
"It's okay Weiss, no one blames you for the fact that you grew up in a nation and house with rules so tight it's more or less like a noose," said Neptune, patting Weiss on the head.
"That's morbidly accurate," said Weiss, mumbling it under her breath and returning to her seat.
"I've said something like that before, but with a very different context," said Blake, her interest in the conversation dwindling with every second.
"I'm going back to my pudding," said Jaune, stepping back to his seat and to his pudding with the crumbled cookie bits in it.
"Is there an actual point to any of this?" said Yang, plucking at her own jacket.
"Well yes." Neptune coughed into his fist and stood straight up, hands behind his back with his chest puffed out "I want to try and abolish mandatory uniforms in the schools, or at least Haven, and I need as much help as I possibly can so that the next time I go to our headmaster, I'm not just thrown out like the last few times." He then gave his best charming smile. "So, can I count on any of you for help?"
Eleven pairs of eyes focused themselves on him, and he began to think that he would get the support here he could never could back home.
Then they each turned away from him and back to their lunches and each-other, continuing with their own business as usual.
Reluctantly giving up, Neptune sat back down to his own seat and stared at his own mostly empty tray.
Was there anyone would believed in this cause, or was he really alone in his beliefs?
000
"I hate school uniforms."
"We're not talking about this again Coco!"
000
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Mrfipp