Chapter 1: Arrival
"So, Blake. Remind me again. Why do I have to keep my mask off?" Adam asked, irritated. Blake rolled her eyes in response.
"I think it would be a little suspicious for a bull faunus wearing a White Fang mask to come waltzing into Beacon." Adam sighed.
"Yeah, I know." Adam exhaled loudly once again. "How did you talk me into this again?" Blake chuckled lightly at that.
"I didn't 'Talk' you into anything."
Blake sighed sadly. She and Adam stood on opposite train cars. Blake pulled out Gambol Shroud and began to cut the connection between the cars. "Goodbye." She told him sadly, tears evident in her eyes. The train cars separated. Thinking quick, Adam jumped across the cars to Blake, a scowl on his face.
"You can get away from the White Fang, but you're not getting away from me that easily." Adams scowl had turned into a soft smile.
"Yeah, good point. I just feel so exposed out here without my mask."
"You shouldn't be so afraid Adam." Blake told him. Adam scoffed at that.
"There's a difference between being afraid, and dreading the inevitable."
It didn't take long for the ship to finally arrive at Beacon, Adam and Blake got off the ship after most of the crowd to avoid pushing their way through everyone. Adam looked at the bow on Blake's head with a scowl. "Why're you wearing that stupid bow Blake?" Blake sighed.
"I don't want to be judged by it." She sorrowfully told him. Adam scowl grew.
"I'm not wearing anything to cover mine." He pointed to his horns sticking up from his head. Blake sighed once again, and quickly changed the subject.
"I need to get our delivery, our weapons should be here by now. Just go on to the entrance ceremony, I'll meet you later. Okay?" Blake then walked off and left Adam standing in the courtyard of Beacon. He Wasn't in the courtyard very long before he heard yelling coming from a few feet in front of him. He froze and glared when she saw the source of the yelling. Incredibly pale skin, White, knee length skirt, White hair tied in a pony tale. Piercing blue eyes, Weiss Schnee. She was currently screaming at a small black haired girl. A vial of red dust rolled at Adam's feet, he picked it up and walked up to the two girls.
"Hey!" Adam growled out. Weiss turned to the voice.
"What do you wa-" Her face quickly turned from annoyance, to shock. "I-it's you." Adam nodded and shoved the vial into Weiss' hands.
"Yeah, it's me Weiss. What happened to you changing?" Weiss looked down, seemingly in shame.
"Old habits take a while to die." She whispered, before turning and walking away. The red cloaked girl looked down and sighed, before looking up at Adam.
"Guess I'm not the only one having a rough first day. What was up with that?" She asked Adam. He turned to the girl, scowl still adorning his face.
"You know who the Schnee's are?" The girl nodded.
"Well you should know that they also get attacked by the White Fang on a regular basis because they use faunus labor. I saved her from an assassination attempt, afterwards she said that she would try to change her prejudiced ways. Looks like she's still treating other people as lesser beings." After Adam's explanation, everything was quiet for a few moments. "So, what's your name?" The girl smiled slightly at that.
"Ruby. You?"
"Adam. Well, Ruby let's go on to the entrance ceremony."
They had been walking for a while, before Ruby finally spoke up. "Soo…. I got this thing." She then proceeded to pull out a giant red and black scythe from behind her back. Adam was speechless to say the least.
"Holy shit." His speech was breathless. Ruby grinned confidently before showing it off even more.
"It's also a customisable, high impact Sniper Rifle." She then proceeded to cock it once, an empty shell flying out of it. Adam was hypnotized to say the least, Ruby was the one to break the silence.
"So, what do you got?" Adam finally broke out of his trance, and grinned slightly.
"Well, after seeing yours, mine isn't much. Even so, I can't show it to you right now, my sis-"
"Hey, Adam!" Adam turned to in the direction the voice came from to see Wilt and Blush flying towards him. Wilt sheathed inside blush. Adam caught it easily.
"Thanks Blake!" The girl in question was already walking off, her nose in a book.
"So, that was your sister?" Adam smiled again and shook his head.
"Not really, but we've been together so long I treat her like one." Ruby smiled and nodded in confirmation, before turning to Wilt and Blush. Her eyes quickly lit up, so Adam began to explain what it was. "The sheath, I call Blush, the blade is Wilt. Not only is the sheath a gun, but I can fire the blade out with it like so." Adam then proceeded to shoot wilt into the air, easily catching it in blush when it fell back down. Ruby's eyes were like diamonds at this point. Adam smiled and shook his head again, ruffling the small girls hair. "As much as I would like to stand around and discuss weapons with you Ruby, we gotta get to the ceremony.
It didn't take the two long to get to the Auditorium, we had to push past the group of people forming around the stage. A voice cut through the crowd: "Ruby! Over here! I saved you a spot!" The voice was coming from a tall, busty blonde on the other side of the coliseum, and Ruby quickly answered the call.
"Oh, I'm coming! Catch up with you later Adam!" She then proceeded to run off to the other girl. Adam turned and started to push through the crowd to find Blake, and accidently ran face first into someone."Ugh, shit so-" He looked up to see who he ran into, and was petrified. It was a girl, she had blood red hair tied up in a pony tail, large, beautiful green eyes, and she was dressed like an amazonian warrior straight out of Greek Mythology. Adam was spellbound, before realizing he was staring, in which case he shook himself out of his trance. "U-uh sorry for staring miss." Adam had turned slightly red. The girl simply smiled and waved it off.
"It's fine, no big deal." Just from her voice, Adam could tell she was probably the greatest possible person he could have ever run into at Beacon. The girl reached her hand out to him. "I'm Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos, and you are?" She asked, still smiling. Adam smiled back, and shook her hand.
"Adam Taurus. I'm already looking forward to getting to know you better Miss Nikos." Pyrrha's smile grew even more, as if Adam had just done something to make her happy. Just then, a voice cut through the air.
"I'll….. make this brief."
After the speech, Pyrrha and Adam walked out of the auditorium. Ever since Pyrrha told him her name, he had been running it through his head, trying to find out who she was.
"Hey Pyrrha? Are you famous or something? I can't help but feel like I've heard your name before." Pyrrha looked shocked.
"You don't know? I thought you were just being polite." Adam was confused. Pyrrha sighed and looked down. "I won the Mistrall fighting tournament four years in a row. Dubbed the 'Invincible Girl'."
"You're talking like you hate it."
"I kinda do, it's so hard to make friends when everybody thinks you're above them." Adam laughed slightly and brought a hand up.
"Okay. Kind, Badass, Humble, and completely gorgeous. Your list of qualities is pretty sky high." He held up one finger for each quality, causing Pyrrha to blush as red as her hair.
"S-shut up." She told him, looking down at the ground.
"I hope I get to fight with you during initiation." Pyrrha looked up with a smile.
"You're not nervous being around me?" Pyrrha asked. Making Adam's face scrunch with confusion.
"Why would I be nervous? If anything, you should be nervous. It won't look good for such a celebrity to be seen around 'Faunus Trash'." Adam's face had turned into a large scowl. Pyrrha quickly shook her head in denial. Her face was an expression that Adam had a hard time reading. Was it…. Desperation?
"Nonononono the faunus are just regular people, you shouldn't be afraid like tha-" Adam barely understood what she was saying she was going so fast, so he interrupted her, he was so confused that he interrupted her in a rather rude way.
"What's with your face?" He asked bluntly, not realizing how the question sounded. Pyrrha stopped at hearing his question, her face turning red and she looked at the ground with an incredibly sad look on her face.
"What do you mean, what's wrong with my face?" She asked, not looking at the young man in front of her. Once Adam saw that she was clearly hurt, he thought about the question he'd just asked, and his face turned red as well, and he quickly corrected himself.
"Nononono I didn't mean it like that! I'm so sorry!" Pyrrha then looked back up at him, her face still slightly red but her eyes hopeful. "I-I was just wondering why your face looked so desperate when you corrected me, that's all." Adam continued, looking slightly ashamed for screwing up so bad. Pyrrha's face soon became decorated with a smile, and she giggled slightly at his clumsiness, before answering his question.
"Well, it's just that. Like I said before, I've always had trouble making friends who weren't only around me for my looks and money. Honestly, you might be the first real friend I've ever made." She told Adam sadly, looking at the ground. Adam's eyes widened, and he walked up to the girl, putting a gentle hand to her shoulder.
"Hey, you don't have to worry about being alone as long as I'm here. Kay?" He told her with a smile. Pyrrha quickly looked up at him, her eyes clearly tearing up. Without thinking, Pyrrha planted a kiss on Adam's cheek, causing his face to turn a dark crimson. Pyrrha quickly pulled back, her face red too.
"U-um sorry about that. Soooo, shall we go to the ballroom?" Adam quickly snapped out of his trance and nodded in response. Pushing the kiss deeper into the back of his brain.
In the ballroom
Adam and Pyrrha entered the ballroom, only to see the area incredibly crowded. Not an inch of the area wasn't filled with people. "Damn. Way too crowded." Adam groaned.
"Agreed." Pyrrha nodded. Adam sighed and looked around for somewhere to go and wait for the crowd to die down slightly. That's when he saw it, a large balcony resembling the rooftop of a warehouse was situated near the top of Beacon tower. Adam quickly grew a large smile.
"Hey, Pyrrha?"
"Hmm?" She looked at him curiously.
"Want a rush?" He asked her. Pyrrha narrowed her eyes slightly, seemingly worried about what he had planed. She thought for a second before responding.
"Sure?" Adam grabbed her by the waist, earning several strange looks from people standing nearby, and a deep red blush from Pyrrha. Adam didn't see it though, he was too busy being excited for what they were about to do. He leaped onto a nearby wall, running up it briefly before grabbing onto a banister, keeping him and Pyrrha. "ARE YOU INSANE?!" Pyrrha yelled. Adam chuckled in response.
"Probably!" He quipped sarcastically. There were several other balconies leading up to the highest one atop Beacon Tower. Adam casually jumped from railing to railing, running along one just to jump to another, laughing all the way. Eventually, Pyrrha began laughing along with him, making Adam have even more fun then he was already having. Eventually he landed on the top balcony, both of them still laughing. Adam finally let go of Pyrrha, she had stopped laughing now, leaning on the railing of the highest balcony and holding her head. Adam quickly became concerned. "Pyrrha! Are you okay?" He asked hurriedly. Pyrrha grinned at his concern and nodded.
"Don't worry Adam, just a little dizzy." Adam smiled and leaned on the railing with her, admiring the view. The two of them sat down, putting their legs through the bars of the balcony, and letting them dangle. "Wow, sucks we can't stay up here." Adam looked at his friend with a smile.
"Well, we still have an hour and a half left before curfew, so let's enjoy it." He told her and she nodded, leaning her head on Adam's shoulder. Causing him to blush, but not let her know of his embarrassment. They must have been up there for a half hour before Adam heard a small squeaking sound coming from Pyrrha. He looked down and saw that she had fallen asleep, a small smile on her face. Adam quickly got over the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life, when he saw that the outside of the ball room had cleared out. He felt like a criminal, but he had to wake Pyrrha up. He shook her gently but she didn't wake up, instead she mumbled something unintelligible and shifted her embrace, nuzzling her face into Adam's neck and wrapping an arm around his back. This caused Adam's face to light up like a Christmas tree. "Pyrrha, Pyrrha, wake up! Come on!" He whisper yelled, not wanting to scare her. Finally he gave up, she was gone. So he picked her up bridal style with one arm and began making his way down from the tower.
Back to the ballroom
Nervous was an understatement in describing how nervous Adam was. He was at the lowest level, the last balcony above the courtyard. There was only one problem, it would look incredibly strange to see a bull faunus walking into the ballroom cradling a celebrity in his arms. Finally, he sucked it up, and walked into the ballroom. He ignored the incredulous stares he was no doubt getting from most of the people present, and simply walked to the spot where he saw Blake. She had already set up another sleeping pallet for him, knowing he would easily find her. Even Blake looked up with wide eyes as Adam walked over to the pallet of blankets and placed Pyrrha delicately onto it. Blakes shocked expression then turned teasing. "Oh. Already making some new friends?" She teased with a smirk. Adam rolled his eyes slightly, but kept a smile.
"Yeah, that's a bit of an understatement." Blake kept her smile as well, feeling proud of the boy she considered a brother. That feeling of confidence quickly crumbled to dust when Adam spoke again. "Now that I've opened up to people, it's time for you too." Blake's eyes widened, and she shook her head in protest.
"I don't think so." Just then a loud female voice made its way over to the pair.
"HELOOOOO!" Adam and Blake looked over to the source, it was the blonde who'd called Ruby earlier, and she was dragging the smaller girl behind her. Adam immediately got the jest of what was happening and grabbed Blake's book away from her.
"Adam! Give me that back!" Adam theatrically twitched his finger back and forth in front of her face.
"Not before you socialize." Blake glared daggers at him, but quickly looked away when the other two girls made it over to them.
"So, I think you three may know each other?" The blonde asked. Adam waved briefly at Ruby, who smiled and nodded back. Adam then looked to the blonde.
"Who's this Rubes?"He asked casually. "I'm guessing…." He then snapped his fingers and pointed at the blonde. "Step Sister." The blonde shook her head.
"Half sister." She corrected. Adam clenched his fist slightly.
"Damn!" Yang laughed slightly and held her hand out to him.
"Yang Xiao Long! At your service!" She yelled excitedly. Adam smiled and shook her hand.
"Adam Taurus." She nodded her head and then turned to Blake, putting a finger to her chin in thought.
"Childhood friend who you treat like a sister." Yang guessed. Leaving both Blake and Adam spellbound. Yang fist pumped victoriously. "Yes!" She held out her hand to Adam. "Pay up." This earned a light hearted eye narrow from Adam.
"I don't recall taking a bet." Yang then looked down, dejected.
"Shit!" Adam shook his head slightly, not realizing the awkward silence that had settled in.
"So, uh nice night?" Ruby tried to break the silence. All this earned was a sarcastic comment from Blake.
"Yes. It's lovely. Almost as lovely as the book I would continue to read if Adam gave it back!" She raised her voice slightly as she talked. Adam shook his head.
"Blake, if I can feel this good socializing then you can. You need to break out of your shell." He told her with a very 'Older Brother' tone of voice. Weird seeing as how they were the same age. Yang then looked to Ruby with a similar expression as Adam.
"I think you should listen to him too Rub-" Ruby was focusing more on the book that Adam had tucked under his armpit.
"What book is it?" She asked curiously. Blake looked up at the younger girl, surprised at her curiosity. Adam smiled, and handed the book to Ruby. Who looked at the cover and instantly squealed. "EEEEEEEEE! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! I love this book so much!" Adam was taken aback at how the loud the girl was being. But was happy when Ruby sat next to Blake and began discussing the book with her.
"Well looks like my work here is done." Yang and Adam said at the exact same time. Causing them to unconsciously fist bump. Adam turned to the blonde with a smile. "I think we're gonna get along just fine Xiao Long." Adam was about to sit down on his pallet when he realized that Pyrrha was still laying there. Still peaceful as ever. Noticing that they only had thirty minutes left before curfew, Adam decided to take this chance to go to the locker room to store his weapons. "Hey Blake! Toss me Gambol Shroud!" Blake did without even looking, as she was still caught up with her and Ruby's conversation. Adam felt proud when he saw Blakes face with a smile.
"I'll come with you Bull." Yang cheered putting on her gauntlets. "I need to put my stuff away too." The two walked in silence for a while before Yang cut the silence. "Soooooo, what's with you and the tournament champ?" She asked with a smile. Adam turned slightly red at that.
"We're friends. She's definitely my best friend at this point, and we've only known each other for a few hours so that's saying something." Yang rolled her eyes at that.
"Yes. Because normal friends cling to each other when they go to sleep." Adam smirked and punched Yang lightly in the shoulder.
30 Minutes Later
Once the two had gotten back to the ballroom everybody else had fallen asleep. Yang and Adam split up to go to their separate pallets, when Adam realized that he had nowhere to sleep. He curled up on the ground next to Blake and Pyrrha's pallets. Soon after he laid down on the hard marble floor, a familiar voice called to him. "Adam?" He looked up to see Pyrrha crouched in front of him.
"Oh. Hey Pyrrha." He said casually. He could tell that the girl had just woken up due to her drowsy looking eyes.
"Why are you laying on this cold marble floor?" She asked with a grin. Adam grinned back.
"Well, it seems you were higher up on my priorities list as far as sleeping goes." He told her cracking his neck. Wordlessly, Pyrrha grabbed him by the ear and threw him on the pallet. "What the hell, Pyrrha?!" He whisper yelled at her. Only to grow speechless as Pyrrha curled up beside him.
"You're going to get some sleep." Pyrrha told him. "We'll deal with the awkwardness of this position in the morning.
Authors Note
Yes. I know I have a lot of stories going on at the same time. One I really haven't even started yet. When I come up with something I just like writing it. I'm gonna update this one fast. I'm combining the whole Cardin arc and the initiation arc into one chapter. See ya then.