"I'm so excited!" I basically scream as I run into the shop. I just got back from walking around when I saw the decorations again for the Vytal Festival. Jacob sighed as he walked from around the counter to greet me.
"Let me guess, you're excited for the Vytal Festival?" he says sarcastically.
"Yea, how'd you know?" I ask, a little confused.
"Because," he replies, "You've been shouting about it all the time since we put up the decorations last weekend. You've been screaming about it since Friday and it's now Monday!"
"Oh… Sorry." I reply, a little embarrassed. "But today is special because tomorrow is the registration for the tournament!"
"Wasn't it supposed to be today?" He asks.
"Yea, but it was delayed because of the thing at the shipyard yesterday. That was stupid. So what a few crates and dustplanes blew up, that doesn't mean they have to delay the registration!" I pout. Jacob chuckles at my pouted face. I stop pouting as I say, "Oh yea. Jacob, I need to buy some more dust for the registration tomorrow. I'm running low because I've been practicing. I'm assuming the normal employee discount?"
"Of course!" He says as he smiles. Since I work here, I get to buy dust from here for next to nothing. I smile as I load up my dust containers that I keep on my belt. I pay Jacob and say thank you. "So what are you going to do for the rest of the day?" He asks me.
"I'm just going to hang out in my room. See you later, Jacob." I say as I hop up the stairs and walk into my room. Since I've been living here for a few months, I've had some chances to personalize it. There was a bed in the right corner of the room, parallel to the window that's on the back wall. The bedside table was still there, but the curtains were removed to let in sunlight. I added a desk with a computer that was facing the wall opposite of the bed. I also added a few posters of some shows and bands that I like.
I kept thinking about the tournament, and what people I was going to have to fight. I hope I do alright. I mean I hear about these people that have these cool weapons that can mechashift into other weapons. Like Pyrhha Nikos, the girl with the most consecutive wins for the Mistral Regional Tournament, she has a spear that can mechashift into a rifle! All I have is a katana that can't even use dust. I have to use the dust spell by channeling my aura into the dust and using my left hand (Since I hold Silent Wolf with my right). I know I shouldn't be complaining about the sword my uncle gave me, but there are other weapons out there that are soooo cool! I sigh as I lay on my bed and decide to stop thinking about it. I instead started to think about good things. I heard that some headmasters for combat schools will be there, watching. I hope they're looking to recruit. Combat school would be so much fun! And it'd be a good place to sharpen my skills. The thought of being a hunter has never particularly excited me. But going to combat school has always been on my agenda. It sounds fun, and if I find normal jobs boring, I'd have the degree to be a hunter. I even heard a rumor that Professor Ozpin would be there, from Beacon Academy. I hope he is. And I hope he's at least a little impressed by me. Maybe if he is, he'll ask me to go to Beacon as a student. And then I can have cool combat classes and have a dorm!
I continued living my fantasy of Beacon until Jacob called me down for dinner. I came downstairs, and him and I ate dinner while occasionally chatting. He asked me some questions about the tournament too. He asked how many people would be allowed to actually fight in the tournament. I answered that since a lot of people would be trying to enter from all around Remnant. So they'd be having the tournament in different categories: Hunters, and Non-Hunters. Basically everyone who has a Hunter Degree would fight in the Hunters Tournament, and anyone who is a combat school student or who's not a student but just has some weapon skill will fight in the Non-hunters Tournament. Each Tournament will accept the top twenty fighters in the registration to fight in the tournament. I really hope I at least make it to the tournament.
After dinner, Jacob and I cleaned up and I went back up to my room. I had nothing else to do so I got on my laptop and surfed the Internet. I just watched some videos and played some random games until I noticed I had a message. I check my inbox and saw that I had a message from Velvet. Velvet Scarlatina was this rabbit faunus girl that I met online. I was bored and saw her on a random social media site, saw she was also a faunus, and decided to send her a message. This was about a couple weeks after I moved in with Jacob so we've been messaging pretty regularly now. She was pretty cool. She was a little shy but she liked some of the bands and shows I liked as well so we'd chat about those. I also told her that I was also a faunus when I first messaged her because she's a random girl on the Internet. It's not like she can tell anyone that knows me. She looked pretty cute in her profile pic though.
Anyway, she messaged me that she'd be at the Vytal Festival. I messaged back cool and hopefully I'd see her there. We sent messages back and forth, chatting about random stuff before I said goodnight to her and went to bed. I just laid in my bed, in the dark, for a little while just thinking about the registration tomorrow. I wonder what I'll have to do… Whatever, I'll find out tomorrow. I then allowed myself to close my eyes and fall sleep.
I woke up in the morning a little after 7:30 AM. The registration started at 9 and I wanted to be early, so I quickly got up, took a shower, got dressed, ate breakfast, and finally checked my weapons before running out the door, shouting a quick goodbye to Jacob. By the time I left it was about 8:15. I was basically skipping to the registration stand I was so excited. When I got there, I was really surprised. I've never signed up for a tournament, so I was surprised to see between 100-200 people and the only set up was a booth to sign your name, and a tent so the judges could evaluate you. There was a huge line for the one booth to sign your name though! But I decide that there's no use waiting for the line to go down, so I get in. So I'm just here waiting in line… Barely moving… So boring. I move about five feet before I check my watch and I see it's 9:15. 9:15! I've been here an hour and barely moved 5 feet! Ok I may be exaggerating a little about the 5 feet part. It was more about 15 but STILL I'VE BEEN HERE AN HOUR ALREADY! I sigh kind of loud before saying, "Ugh! It's so boring waiting in line!"
I then hear a voice behind me say "Yea, tell me about it." I turn around to see a boy about my age, my height, with blonde hair, blue eyes, with a black sweatshirt, blue jeans, and some armor on his torso and upper arms. I see him smiling at me and he holds out a hand to shake. "I'm Jaune by the way. Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, ladies love it." I chuckle at his introduction and shake his hand.
"I'm Gray," I say back, "Gray Hartraft."
"Are you a student anywhere?" He asks curious as we move a little in line.
"Nah. I'm just good with a sword and dust." I say as I motion to my dust belt and katana.
"Dust and sword, huh? Reminds me of some white heiress," he says as he giggles to himself. I don't get his joke, but I don't question it. "I go to Beacon Academy," he continues, "I'm just holding a spot in line for my friends while they got some breakfast. They told me they'd bring some back." I reply with a quick cool as we move again in line a little. We just chat for a little while about random stuff before I see a group of 7 people walk towards him. Wow, when he said friends, I thought he meant 1 to 2 people. There was a girl in a black and red dress with black hair (though it could be really dark red), another girl with a white dress and white hair, yet another girl with black hair and a black bow, a girl with yellow hair and a brown jacket (That showed a lot of cleavage), a guy dressed in green with black hair with a pink streak down the side, a girl with red hair with a pink skirt and a heart in the middle of her chest, and HOLY CRAP IT'S PYRRHA NIKOS! This guy is friends with Pyrrha?! Wow… I kinda wanted to fanboy over Pyrrha because she won all those tournaments but I restrained myself.
"Hey Jaune. Who's your friend?" The girl in the red and black dress asks.
"Oh hey guys," he says, "This is Gray. Gray, This is Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Ren, Nora, and Pyrrha." He motions to each person as he says his or her name.
"Hi," I say, "Jaune and I just started chatting in line as he waited for you guys to come back.
Jaune chuckles and rubs the back of his head, "Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet, right?" He stops rubbing his head and suddenly says, "Hey do you have my food?"
"Yea, I have it. I had to keep Nora from eating it," Ruby says as she passes a bag to Jaune.
"I got hungry on the way." Nor says with a smile.
Jaune's group and I just chat as Jaune eats his breakfast burrito while we move up. We finally get to the front of the line and the person behind the booth asks me my name, age, what my weapons are, and if/where I went to school. I respectfully answer each question and then the person tells me to go into the tent fro judging. As I walk in, I see there are three judges. They don't ask anything too much of me. They just ask to inspect my weapon and dustbelt before asking me to demonstrate my skill using them. I show them my form with using my sword and then show them some dust spells, like some elemental spells, air step spells, and some bolt spells. They tell me that they have evaluated me and will post tomorrow who got in and who will be fighting whom. I leave and wait for Jaune and his friends to finish being judged so I can hang out with them. I have nothing else to do today. They eventually all finish and I join them.
"So how'd you guys do?" I ask, wondering.
Everyone says they think they did fine. "I think they were a little disappointed by my shield and sword though," Jaune says. "But at least my skills weren't bad. Defiantly better than a few months ago."
"So what should we do now?" Ruby asks. We all looked as we were about to say something, then stopped to think. What was there to do around here? We all just stood silent, thinking.
This went on for about two minutes before Yang simply said, "Movie?"
We all thought about it before Blake said, monotone, "Not a bad idea." Everyone else voiced his or her agreement, while I just nodded. I wasn't against a movie.
As we walk to the theatre, Ruby says to no one in particular, "I hope Penny made it to registration. She really wanted to fight in the tournament," kinda sadly.
"Don't worry, sis," Yang says, "I'm sure she did." The conversation kinda stopped there. We get to the theatre and stop outside, trying to figure out what movie to watch. I suggest the new Doctor When movie. But as soon as those words left my mouth, I saw Ruby right in front of me staring at me.
"You like Doctor When too?!" She basically shouts.
"Y-yea. I really like sci-fi," I say, wincing from my burst eardrum.
She squealed and ran over to Yang. "Yang! Yang Yang! Can we plleeaassee see the new Doctor When movie?! Please!" She begs.
"Absolutely not!" Weiss inputs before Yang could say anything. "The story is confusing, the special effects are garbage, and only geeks like it!" I felt a little hurt when she said only geeks liked it. I'm like it, and I'm not a geek… am I? Ruby looked a little hurt and sad at Weiss' comment.
"Come on Weiss," Yang says, "It can't be that bad. The Doctor is kinda hot. And Ruby really wants to see it. And no one else seems against it."
"It does seem interesting," Blake said simply. Everyone else nodded in agreement.
"Fine!" Weiss says. "I will watch it because I don't want to watch a movie alone. But I won't enjoy it!" That was a complete lie though. Throughout the movie I saw Weiss smile and even giggle at some of the jokes. Also, throughout the movie I saw Ruby and Jaune make quiet comments about the movie. They'd make a cute couple I think to myself. When the movie ends and we walk out, it's pretty late.
"I got to go home guys. I'll see you tomorrow!" I say as I wave goodbye and walk home. When I get home, I tell Jacob about my day and about my new friends. I ate some Linner (Since I missed lunch). After Linner I went upstairs to my room and hung out and finally went to bed. I hope I made the tournament.
A/N: Thank you to Bondman0070 and Guest for reviewing! And yes, I am parodying Doctor Who with Doctor When. I really hope you guys enjoy this story. Keep being awesome!