"The view from Vale's got nothin' on this…"
"Ohmygosh, sis! That kid's got a collapsible staff!" Ruby practically drooled, "And she's got a fire sword! And that's-!" She trailed off, mouth hanging open.
"That's what, sis? I can't believe you'd- Oh." The two girls stood awestruck, much like the rest of the new students, by a massive set of white armor standing guard over the docks.
"Alright, new students, please head this way to the auditorium!" The armored figure droned. Her voice was distinctly feminine, despite the distortion from the helmet.
"Oh. My. Gosh!" Ruby whispered, "That armor's so cool! It looks like something from Atlas! Do you think she'd let me check it out?"
"I dunno, maybe you should go up and ask her." Yang offered, giving her a small push. "You should try to make some new friends while you're here."
"Yeah but… what do I need friends for? I've got you!"
"Well… Actually my friends are here now! Gotta go catch up! 'Kayseeyabye!"
"Wait! Where are you going?" Ruby spun around in a daze as Yang rushed off. "I think the auditorium... Is… This way…" Finally stopping herself, she noticed the figure in armor talking with another pair of students.
"Oh… I don't know what I'm doing…" She groaned, falling backwards into a pile of suitcases she was sure hadn't been there a minute ago.
"What are you doing?!"
Nora was used to dealing with a lot of things. It came with the territory, really. As General of the Minutemen and Director of the Institute, you learned to roll with the weird stuff. A synthetic man with the memories of a pre-war detective? Fine. Your son's the reason why the entire Commonwealth is living in fear of being snatched in the night? All in a day's work. But this… Girl was unlike anything she had ever dealt with before.
"Ooh! Ren! Look at this guy's armor! I bet he's super strong!" Some hyperactive girl in pink seemed to be literally zipping around, examining every inch of the armor. Ozpin had asked her to 'chaperone' the arriving first year students. Maybe he wanted her to try to get to know the kids a bit better, so that she didn't scare anyone off. Fat lot of good that did, all the armor did was attract stares.
Maybe the plan was to scare kids into behaving. Clever bastard.
"Easy there, kid," Nora attempted to subdue the hyperactive teen, failing to catch her before she zipped back to the boy accompanying her. In contrast to her nearly limitless energy, the boy seemed much more sedate.
"Nora, maybe you should introduce yourself first." He commented.
"Right! Sorry Ren," The girl apologized, "My name's Nora! Nora Valkyrie! And this is my bestest-friend-forever, Lie Ren." She leaned in, as if sharing classified information, "He prefers to go by Ren."
The Sole Survivor just chuckled, glad to see that the girl was mostly harmless, if a little eccentric.
"Really? My name's Nora too," She replied, removing the helmet, "Nora Taylor."
The pink girl, Nora, gasped.
"Ren! Her name's Nora too!" She turned back to the Sole Survivor, "I bet we're gonna be great friends! All three of us!" She paused for a moment, before turning back to 'Ren'. "Do you think we've got anything else in common? I wonder if she uses hammers too?"
"Actually," Nora interrupted, unslinging 'Atom's Judgement' from her back, "I do have this super sledge…"
There was a moment of silence, and the Sole Survivor could swear she heard Ren mutter an "Oh no…" as Smaller Nora gasped.
"That's. So. COOL!" She jabbered. "Ren, Ren, look! Her name's Nora and she uses a hammer just like me! Oh we're going to be the bestest friends ever!" She paused, thinking, "Well, me and Ren are already best friends for life… I got it! We'll be Hammer Buddies!"
The Sole Survivor could only grimace slightly. So much for trying to get to know the kids. Nora's hyperactivity seemed to have driven off just about everyone else. Most of the kids were giving her a wide berth, and more than a few were openly staring.
"Is she…?" The Sole Survivor began.
"Yes." The boy, Ren, finished, the younger Nora seemingly oblivious to their conversation.
"I'm so sorry."
"You get used to it after a while. As… excitable as she can be, there's no one I trust more."
The boy really did seem to be her polar opposite. In a way, he almost reminded her of 'Father', or maybe Ozpin, in a way. They both had a sort of aura of infinite patience. As if nothing could break the calm facade. It was- "FUCK!"
Nora cursed as she felt a shockwave slam into her. It wasn't a big one; pretty similar to a frag grenade, actually. Just without the telltale pattering of metal shrapnel slamming into her armor.
"Aw hell," She muttered, realizing the implications of a grenade going off in the middle of a crowd of unarmored kids. It'd be a goddamn bloodbath. Pulling out a Stimpak, she turned back to Ren and Nora.
"You kids alright?"
They both nodded, a lot less scared than Nora would have expected from someone in such close proximity to a bomb. She had seen grown men crapping their pants from less, and yet these kids were barely phased.
Granted one of those grown men happened to be Jun Long, but that was neither here nor there.
"Alright, why don't you head on inside. First years are meeting in the auditorium. I'm gonna go… 'investigate' that explosion..."
"Alright! See ya, Hammer Buddy!" Nora exclaimed, grabbing her friend as she ran off, "C'mon Ren! We gotta go see the rest of the school! Do you think the cafeteria has pancakes?"
As her voice faded, Nora turned back to the cloud of dust the explosion had thrown up.
"Aw hell, Ozpin's gonna kill me..."
Moving as fast as the power armor would allow, she sprinted into the rapidly clearing cloud of smoke, scanning for any injured students. She even had to activate the spotlights built into the helmet to cut through the clouds of dust the explosion kicked up.
She saw two kids, probably at the center of the blast. One of them looked fine. About to blow a fuse, maybe, but physically uninjured. The other one, however.
"Oh fuck…"
Nora saw red; a lot of red.
This whole day had been one huge mess.
First Yang had run off, then Ruby had tripped over some crabby girl's luggage, and then she had exploded! There was no way the day could get worse.
Then the woman in armor showed up. As the dust cloud cleared, Ruby could see her charging towards her, eyes blazing red, with some sort of wicked looking device in her hand. Ruby couldn't help but flinch away as the stranger came to a stop in front them, staring right at her. In that moment, they looked less like a heroic armored guardian, and more like some sort of demon, attracted to her misfortune like some kind of Grimm. Ruby vaguely heard them saying something, but she could only make out the tail end of it.
"...-alright?"
Ruby, terrified, ears still ringing from the blast, and blinded by the glare from the stranger's 'eyes', called upon her deepest and most esoteric knowledge of proper etiquette, and answered.
"Huh?"
The stranger waved a couple fingers in front of her, which Ruby obligingly tracked,
"I asked if you were hurt anywhere. You alright kid?" The stranger restated, Ruby finally having regained enough sense to make out the stranger's voice. She had that strange syringe thing ready and pointed right at her.
"No! I mean- Yes! I'm fine! Just… fine." Ruby quickly assured her.
"You sure? That was a nasty sounding blast. Any dizziness? Ringing in the ears? Might be something internal."
"I'm alright," Ruby said quickly, standing up and brushing off her skirt, "I think my aura took most of it, I'm just a little, uh… out of my element, I guess." The armored woman seemed to calm down at that.
"Oh yeah, aura… Forgot about that…" She mumbled. That struck Ruby as odd. Whoever this woman was, she must be a veteran huntress if she was here at Beacon; she wouldn't just 'forget' about aura. "Right, well, you kids should head over to the auditorium. That's where all the first years are supposed to gather."
Ruby glanced at the crabby girl, White, or whatever her name was. The girl just looked confused. She wasn't eager to be on the receiving end of another spiel about the 'Schnee Dust Company'. No thanks. Also, she didn't know where the auditorium was.
"Uhm, excuse me?" Ruby tried to grab the armored woman's attention, trailing behind as she walked away, "Where is the auditorium? Can you maybe show me the way?" Yang did say she wanted Ruby to meet new people, didn't she? Suddenly, the woman stopped and Ruby managed to run right into her.
Smooth.
"It's inside, that way," The armored stranger pointed over to a large building at the end of the courtyard, "Ozpin asked me to keep watch out here. Sorry." Ruby tried to brush off the dismissal, waving as the woman walked away,
"It's okay, I get it," She continued to wave, only stopping once she was out of hearing range, "Welcome to Beacon…" She sighed dejectedly, collapsing to the ground.
"Uh, hey, you alright?"
"Really wishing I brought a few magazines with me right now…" Nora muttered, scanning the ballroom. Ozpin had 'requested' that she watch over the students for the night as repayment for all the supplies she had asked for.
It wasn't her fault that she needed all that junk. He was the one who asked her to teach, not the other way around.
Well, she still had those holotape games with her, at least. Never had much time or reason to play them back in the Commonwealth, but now was as good a time as any. She popped "Atomic Command" into the holotape player, and as her Pip-boy loaded up the game, she took a moment to survey the ballroom again. Those two girls she had… encountered that morning seemed to be having some sort of… disagreement, again, and Nora was about to go break them up, until the girl in white walked off.
Problem solved.
Nora turned back to the Pip-boy, the game having finally loaded, before being interrupted once again by the girl in red, another blonde student seemingly tagging along with her. Or maybe the other way around, given the way the smaller girl seemed to be hiding behind her.
"Just go and talk to her, sis, I'm sure she's nice, once you get to know her."
"Well, if it isn't the amazing exploding girl," Nora quipped, lowering the Pip-boy. The smaller girl gasped.
"You saw that!?" She shout-whispered.
"Saw it? I felt it. You might remember me better as 'Tall, dark, and metal', though," She grinned. The girl gasped even louder.
"That was you?"
"Indeed it was. Nora Taylor, the new teacher of 'Wasteland Survivalism 101' at your service; though you may refer to me as Lady Taylor of Fah Hahbah, if you so desire." Nora made as exaggerated a bow as she could from a sitting position, tipping her hat for good measure.
"My name's Ruby," The girl said, giggling, "This is my sister, Yang." Immediately, her focus shifted. "So that was your armor? That's so cool! I've read about Atlas developing mech suits before, but nothing like that," Ruby started rambling so quickly that Nora had trouble keeping up, "Where did you get it? Can I get one? What about that thing on your wrist?"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down there kid. Any faster and I'll have to start calling you the human bullet as well." Ruby quieted, blushing.
"Sorry, I'm just really into weapons…"
"Really into weapons seems like kind of an understatement."
"Heh, yeah," Ruby rubbed the back of her neck, "Anyway, where did you get that armor? I've never seen anything like it before." Shit. Nora had hoped she could deflect any questions regarding her origins.
Ozpin mentioned something about Atlas before. Remember your cover story.
"It's a, uh, prototype," She replied, "From Atlas. I've been… testing it for them. You know, top secret. Very hush-hush." She fibbed. Hopefully that would be enough to stop any further questioning.
"Oh, neat. What about that thing on your wrist, though?" Ruby peered at the Pip-boy's screen. Double shit.
"Same thing. Prototype. For testing." Nora answered a little quickly.
"What does it do, though?"
"It's a Pip-boy," Nora explained, relieved to at least have something she didn't have to lie about, "It keeps an eye on my vitals and keeps track of information, like maps." She scrolled through the various screens to prove her point.
"Cool! So it's kinda like a scroll?" Ruby asked,
"Uh, yeah," Nora desperately tried to remember what a scroll was in this world. Ozpin had mentioned them when she first showed up. They were like phones and terminals all in one, right? Something like that.
"Man, that's so cool," Ruby whispered, "It was nice to meet you, uh, Professor…"
"You too, Ruby."
As the brunette walked off, the blonde, her sister, inched closer.
"Uh, hey," She started, "I'm Ruby's sister, Yang. Thanks for uh, indulging her there. She's a nice girl, she's just kind of… shy when it comes to anything that isn't mechanical."
"I was wondering about that," Nora smirked, "Don't worry. I'm sure she'll enjoy the class much more then. She strikes as the kind of kid who already knows the technical half of what I'll be teaching."
"Yeah, you mentioned a Wasteland. Where's that? Somewhere in Vacuo?"
"Uh, yeah, pretty much." Nora tried to recall what she could of the cover story Ozpin had established for her. "The Wasteland is what we call a particularly dangerous part of the desert that I pretty much live in. I come back in to Vale every once in awhile to resupply, and the way back is uh… blocked, for the foreseeable future. The headmaster was nice enough to offer me a position here until then, so here I am."
"So you'll be teaching us how to live in bunker or what?" Yang joked.
"Eh, I was living in one for a few years," Nora shot back. More like two-hundred years. "It's more like field medicine, how to scrounge up food, that sort of thing."
"Oh, that sounds pretty useful. It was nice meeting you, professor; I gotta go keep an eye on Ruby and make sure she doesn't explode again."
"You too, Yang."
As the two sisters walked off, already deep in conversation, Nora took another look around. She seemed to have attracted more than a few stares. She saw Nora and Ren over by the wall, waving.
"Well, who knows," She mused, "Maybe teaching a bunch of kids won't be so bad after all…"
Alright, another chapter down, only a month behind schedule. A little shorter than I'd like too.
Weh.
In my defense, I was getting slammed with extra shifts at work for about two weeks during that time.
Then there was the Steam sale. I bought XCOM 2. (Can't wait for War of the Chosen.)
So I beat that. Then I got back into Rainbow Six Siege.
Admittedly though, this has been sitting finished and waiting to be edited for like, a week. Most of it was spent trying to prevent myself from starting YET ANOTHER story.
tfw You've got a ton of great ideas for writing, but none of them are for the stories you're actually writing.
I'll get there one day. Maybe it's time for me to start networking, find some like minded individuals to bounce ideas off of.
Maybe I should start a blog.