With thanks to RoyalPsycho for his assistance on this chapter.
OBEE
Volume 1
Chapter One: Arrival.
September 4th, 1460 of the Vytali Calendar.
Shade Academy, Vacuo.
The warrior knelt in his sleeping cell, checking his gear over once, then again. His sword, as always, was closed up and attached to his belt, an extension of himself. His armour he didn't bother with - he had no anticipation of entering a hostile situation today, so he doubted he needed it.
He paused. One should always expect to enter a hostile situation, one of his mentors always stressed.
But, one of his other teachers would always add, armour has its limitations, and not just from a fighting perspective. True skill requires none, for the skill itself becomes your armour.
The warrior sniffed thoughtfully. Contradictions, always contradictions. How to resolve them, he wondered…
He left the shoulder armour off. It was an unnecessary hindrance. But he placed his wrist armour on, carefully adjusting the straps. He knelt once again, this time in prayer.
"I am one with the universe," he said quietly. "But a single component in the larger scheme, but a single speck on a single speck. All things are in accordance with how they are intended. All is as the universe wills it. And I fear nothing."
If only saying it made it true.
There were many things one more familiar with the academies in Vale or Atlas might have found strange about Shade Academy. First of which was the overt iconography - the symbol of the embossed 8, the mark of the Revanchists and their belief in the infinite universe and its power over all life… a mark also visible on the masks of the many Revanchist Guards that patrolled the Academy, their hooded and cloaked forms at once unnerving and reassuring (depending entirely on what you thought of them).
The building itself was huge - a colourful, stepped ziggurat that towered over the whitewashed structures of Vacuo City's Upper Residential District. The immense school rose in four beautifully crafted tiers that were crowned by a central tower that rose out of the highest, and smallest, level. The edges of each level were lined by triangular crenellations, giving Shade an ancient and militant pedigree that matched its huge size. There were, however, some signs of a more peaceful decoration. Every level held small gardens that were either situated within the outer galleries of each wall or hung from them in long irrigated balconies.
Dominating the centre of the lowest level was the main gateway, a huge imposing portal that was ringed by frescos painted onto the blue, stone walls, depicting brave warriors battling terrifying reconstructions of Grimm beasts. The carvings and paintings were bordered by thin bands of gold that contrasted the lines and creases in the portraits and added to the ostentatious and regal structure. Crowning the gate was the Revanchist mark, one of the few reminders of the school's origins. In front of it all was a wide moat formed from the river that flowed through the city and provided the metropolis with much of its water. Flanking either end of the bridge of that connected Shade to the city around it were two statues of men in formal robes, their faces concealed in closed helms and long pikes in their hands, crossing over the centre of the bridge. It was the place where many of the greatest heroes of Vacuo had been trained, and it looked the part.
All of this, of course, was extra nerve-wracking for Edmund Skye as he stood in the group of new students that had just arrived here, feeling ill-at-ease even in his customary loose white training clothes, a dark grey poncho tossed lazily over the outfit. The courtyard was green and pleasant, but the statues of ancient Revanchist heroes - including the man himself - added a sense of what Edmund could only think of as responsibility, or maybe heritage, to the place. As though there was a sense of expectation attached to even standing there.
"Chill out," came the voice of his sister Elena from next to him. He threw her a glance, her brown eyes twinkling with mirth from her round face, her stance altogether looser than his own (though that might have been the flowing material of her white dress). "You look like you've rammed Peacemaker up your ass."
"That," he said, with as much dignity as he could muster, "is the worst mental image."
"Really? Damn, you're easy to freak out," she snorted. "Don't worry so much."
"How do you know I'm worried?"
"I've known you all our lives," his sister pointed out. "You always worry."
"I do not," he said.
"You do," she retorted with a roll of her eyes. "You worry about Dad, you worry about me, you worry about everything. I'm half surprised you didn't pee your pants that time you saw him talking to R-"
"I do not 'pee my pants'," Edmund hissed in a sibilant whisper, cutting his sister of.
"Good to know," a cheerful voice said from behind the two.
Edmund and Elena turned, to see a tanned boy about a year older than the pair of them smirking at the two of them. His hair was dark, and he wore a loose, open-necked white shirt under a black vest.
"That was a private conversation," Elena said with a scowl.
"Uh huh," the boy said with a snort. "Private between me, you, and probably half the other guys here."
A couple of other new students looked uncomfortable, but said nothing. Elena scowled.
"Who are you, anyway?" she asked.
"Ben Juan," the boy replied with a smirk. "You two?"
"Elena Walker," Elena said easily. "This is my brother, Edmund."
Edmund's expression was unreadable. The pseudonym 'Walker' was one their father had chosen for them.
"Nice to meetcha," Juan said with a wink.
"Excuse me," a girl in a black dress said from next to them, her voice prim and proper. "Can we please concentrate?"
Juan raised an eyebrow. "What on? The glorious standing around doing nothing we're all doing?"
"If you paid attention, you'd see we're not 'standing around doing nothing'," the girl said haughtily. She pointed ahead at a pair of figures talking. "We're waiting."
The two figures were standing quite far from the group of new students. One was a very old man in a tweed jacket, his hands clutching a walking stick tightly. The other was a man in a tan obi and brown cloak, a goatee on his face and long hair tied back.
"That's the head, right?" Juan asked quietly, a frown on his face.
The girl in the black dress snorted. "Yes, that's the head."
Juan smirked. "Great - we can finally get this show on the road."
Elena and Edmund shared a glance. Edmund couldn't help but find something admirable in the way Ben Juan was nonchalant - it was a kind of coolness he himself had often lacked. He still felt overwhelmed, despite (or perhaps because of) Elena's words.
The headmaster finished his conversation with the older man, who began walking back to the main building. That done, he turned and walked towards the students. Edmund could hear several of the students take deep breaths, as though they too were battling nerves, and he couldn't help but feel a little better about his own worrying.
"Greetings students," the headmaster said quietly as he reached them. "For those of you who came up through the grades to this point, welcome to your first day as senior students. For those of you who haven't been here for all of those years, my name is Quinn Kane. I am the Headmaster of Shade Academy - for the next four years, you will be under mine and my colleagues' tutelage." He smiled. "Some of you may, thanks to your previous experiences here, be somewhat familiar with Shade and its… eccentricities. For those of you who are not, we will begin with a small tour of the school in order to acclimatise you. I hope our old hands will not begrudge us a little wander around."
"When do we get to meet Nox Skye?!" someone called out.
There was an embarrassed hush, and then whispers broke out. Where was Nox Skye? Everyone knew that he worked here, at least some of the time.
Quinn smiled patiently. "Nox Skye is only ever a guest lecturer at the academy. As you should know, he has many responsibilities for our nation. And if I may be so bold, if you have only come here in the hopes of meeting a war hero, I would have recommended Beacon Academy instead. Jaune Arc is the headmaster there, and it would be fair to say that he is far more personable than Patriarch Skye."
"Ain't that the truth," Elena muttered, too quietly for anyone but Edmund to hear. He threw her a look, but she simply smirked at him.
"Nonetheless, I am certain that you will have the opportunity to witness Patriarch Skye in action during your time here," the headmaster continued, still smiling. "He takes his duties here as seriously as his duties anywhere else." He motioned. "Shall we?"
Wish that were true, Edmund thought to himself.
"Well, this is going to be fun," Juan drawled from behind Elena and Edmund. The latter couldn't help but agree with the sarcasm - he couldn't help but have a strange, indescribable bad feeling about all of this…
The rooms were very old fashioned on first impression. They were all large, with stone walls that occasionally had obviously replicated tapestries hung on them. Overhead, more familiar light fixtures lit the rooms whilst thin curtains covered the wide windows, dimming the bright light of the sun but allowing the heat to escape as well. Orderly rows of low-hung desks led up to the other end of the classroom with cushioned rolls behind them for the students to kneel on. At the other end was a larger desk with a tall, high-backed chair behind it.
A closer glance eventually revealed the more modern equipment that had been carefully added to the room. Holographic projectors were situated on plinths in front of the desks and the the surfaces of each desk had a power port for people to plug electronic items into to recharge them. All of these features were hidden away to preserve the archaic aesthetic that the architects of the room had tried to maintain.
The strangest thing that Edmund noticed was the fact that the halls were occasionally patrolled by small groups of warriors, in ones or twos, clad in golden robes and wearing masks that concealed their faces. Edmund found them unnerving - they were utterly silent as they passed.
"Who are those guys?" Juan asked.
"Revanchist warriors," the girl in the black dress said. "Shade began as a Revanchist monastery before it became a Huntsman academy. They still have a token group guarding the place."
"Huh, great," Juan muttered.
There were other strange things: statues of figures in similar armour to the Revanchists, or display cases with ancient suits of armour or weapons displayed, little labels attached to the displays, detailing the former owners of the weapons and giving a summary of their deeds. Some even came with images.
The most recent was the battered armour of Dew Gayl, a lapsed Revanchist who had fought in the Witch War, represented Shade in the Vytal tournament, and had died in battle alongside Nox Skye. Edmund and Elena both stopped, looking at the armour for a moment as a representation of their history - both their cultural history, but also their permanent one.
He never talks about the war, Edmund thought to himself.
The final stop on the tour was the strangest, however. The group came to a large, sparsely decorated hall, one that looked like it had been carved from stone. There was a single statue in the room - a large, imposing figure, clad in a very old version of the Revanchist armour, more archaic than the figures who had been wandering about. His mask was all covering, a single t-visor in the centre of it, and over this was worn a long, hooded cloak that the sculptor had made look as though it was flowing behind the figure. The statue held a long, elegant sword in one hand, held behind him, and his other hand was extended forward, in challenge to some unseen enemy.
"And this," Quinn said quietly, "is the hall of the Revanchist."
There was a hushed silence. Elena and Edmund shared a glance. Quinn looked up at the statue briefly, before turning back to the group, his expression unreadable.
"Anyone who wishes may pay their respects in this hall now," he said quietly. "The rest of you are free to go where you will within the school, including to your temporary sleeping cells - tomorrow, we will meet in the Valley of Death, where you will begin your initiation and be paired with your partners and teams."
He left the room. At once, several of the students - including a young man with reddish-brown hair, dressed in similar clothes to the headmaster, as well as another boy, dark skinned and shaven headed - went to the foot of the statue, before kneeling, bringing their weapons out.
"Great," Juan muttered from behind Elena and Edmund. "Just what I needed."
Edmund turned and frowned at the older boy. "They can believe what they want. I don't see how it affects you."
The boy frowned. "Hokey religions don't kill Grimm. Weapons kill Grimm. This is an academy for learning how to kill Grimm and be a Huntsman, not for learning to bow to a statue. If I wanted that -"
"If you didn't want to come to a faith school, there are plenty of other academies," Elena pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
"Outside of Vacuo, sure," Juan said with a snort. "But I'm not leaving Vacuo."
"Why not?" Edmund asked.
The boy narrowed his eyes at him. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."
He turned and walked away before either of the twins could say anything else, leaving them both on their own. Elena sighed.
"That is a strange boy," she commented dryly. "I can't decide if he's got a stick rammed up his ass or whether he needs one ramming up his ass."
Edmund scowled. "Seriously. What is it with you, sticks and people's asses?"
"Was that the wrong time to walk past that conversation?" the voice of the girl from earlier asked, her expression somewhere between distaste and amusement. "Sorry, I just realised I didn't introduce myself earlier." She held out a hand. "Serena Lumina. A pleasure to meet you."
"Elena Walker," Elena said. "This is -"
"Edmund," the girl said. "Yes, I heard before. You're both new?"
"We've been home-educated for most of our lives," Edmund said quietly. "This is the first time we've really been in an institute like this."
"You're twins?" Serena asked.
"That's right," Edmund said with a smile. He looked around. "I guess you've been here a while?"
"I did my foundation training here, yes," Serena said with a smile. She motioned to the statue. "Even got into the Revanchist faith, a little. I'm nowhere near as dedicated as some of the people in my class, but -" She stopped, before shrugging, "It's really more of a philosophy, anyway."
Elena shrugged. "I never heard much about it. Can't really say I ever understood it."
"I always kinda wanted to," Edmund admitted. "You hear the occasional thing about the Revanchists, but…"
He trailed off.
"Well, I'm not really the best person to tell you," Serena admitted. "I guess you could ask the Mace, but he's… cranky. The headmaster knows a bit about it." She stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Or you could ask one of the guards, but they tend to be a little… also cranky."
"Is there anyone we could ask who isn't cranky?" Elena asked with a less-than-enthusiastic expression.
"Therein lies a question," Serena said with a small, apologetic smile. She looked up. "If you'll excuse me - I should probably go talk to the Mace."
She moved past them, heading for the shaven headed boy, who had stood up.
"That's a shame," Edmund said quietly. "I was actually kind of interested in learning."
Elena snorted. "Can't say it's something that bothered me much. Respect's one thing, but you don't have to know about it to respect it."
"I dunno," Edmund shrugged. "I guess, it's just something I thought would bring us closer to Dad…"
He trailed off at Elena's less than thrilled expression.
"Now, I'm definitely put off," she said, before walking off, leaving Edmund alone.
Sighing, the boy turned to look at the statue. Most of those who had gone to kneel before it had moved off to do other things, but there was still the single boy kneeling by the statue, a blue katana drawn and placed in supplication at his feet. Edmund went to stand closer to him, before sitting cross legged in front of the statue, staring up at the masked figure of the Revanchist with a soft frown.
"They used to say," the soft, cultured voice of the boy said from next to Edmund, startling him somewhat, "that one could not stare into the face of the Revanchist and be unmoved by the power the man held. They say he was one of the first Silver Eyes, too."
Edmund didn't say anything.
"Of course, since no one knows what he looked like underneath the mask, no one has quite been able to say for sure," the boy added with a wry sprinkle of humour, standing up.
Edmund stood too, though he didn't know why. He still didn't say anything, and the boy seemed content to look up at the masked figure's face once more, before bowing his head.
"I suspect you and I shall meet again at our initiation," he said quietly, "if the universe wills it. Until then."
He walked away, leaving Edmund alone with his thoughts.
Quinn Kane stood on the balcony of his office on the top floor, an expression of curiosity on his face. Next to him, arms crossed as he stood overlooking the school, was Nox Skye. The latter was in his full black armour set, sans cloak, but he had his intimidating mask on, one built to vaguely resemble that of the Revanchist himself. It had always made Quinn feel like his friend took his life a little too seriously, or at the very least put too much emphasis on certain parts over others.
"So," he said conversationally. "The intake looks to be a mixed group, in a good way. A variety of skillsets and techniques on display."
"Variety is good," Nox Skye said quietly, his voice tinted by the helmet.
Quinn sighed. "I do wish you wouldn't wear that when we're having a conversation. Its effect on the sorts of people you normally fight against is one question. Its effect on the students is quite another."
Skye said nothing for a moment, merely unfolding his arms. He turned away from Quinn, before moving to remove the helmet. There was a soft hiss, and then the dark haired, scarred man turned back to look at Quinn, a scowl on his otherwise handsome face.
"Happy?" he asked sarcastically.
"Ecstatic," Quinn said with a small smile. "I happen to think you don't need that to scare people. Your normal face is surely ugly enough."
"Ha ha," Nox Skye said, snorting. His expression softened. "So - were they there?"
"Yes, they were there," Quinn said, rolling his eyes. "And looking every bit the part of young hunters-to-be, I might add, though I suspect it was all very overwhelming for young Edmund."
Nox said nothing, and Quinn sighed again.
"I've always respected your decisions in your private life," he said quietly. "Enough to not speak about it. But I have to ask - wouldn't they have been happier being here from the beginning?"
"No," Nox said at once. "It was enough for them to be safe at home, protected, where I could teach them myself, before they were old enough to come here."
Quinn raised his eyebrow. "Is that really what she would have wanted for them?"
Nox scowled again. "She's dead. What she wanted, I'll never know. I did what I thought was right, Quinn. I thought you, of all people, would understand that."
Quinn held up a hand to forestall further anger. "I do understand that, my old friend. I meant no disrespect, I promise." He sighed. "And in any case, your children are here now, preparing to go forward with their training."
"Yes," Nox said quietly. "I have faith in them both that they'll do well."
Quinn gave a wry grin. "I hear your daughter certainly managed to do well a few weeks ago. An evening in the cells, wasn't it?"
Nox harrumphed. "My daughter is too much like me for her own good."
"One shudders to think," Quinn said with a snort. "One of you was bad enough."