Chapter 3 – A Big Slumber Party

Raalm Neeth

As Raalm entered the school building, he found that he was standing in a large, circular Amphitheatre made of light and dark grey stone. A stage sat opposite the doors, made of the same light grey stone, easily large enough to accommodate a hundred people, but currently only microphone stood there; a slight slope of dark grey stone ran off the edge of the stage and was lined with bright blue lights. The rest of the room was rather empty but still spacious enough to allow for a couple of hundred people to stand together. Above the room was a roof made entirely of glass and a few rows of raised benches that lined the wall and allowed guests to sit and watch performances. Two doors stood on either side of the stage, Raalm assumed these doors led into the school itself as they were the only other doors in the room. Students surrounded the stage, talking excitedly and looking to the distant corners for any sign of the microphones owner.

Raalm took his place behind all the students and stood patiently waiting for someone to come out and speak to them. Looking around, he saw that all of the students were first years, still clad in their heavy armor and holding their weapons and his eyes fell on to a familiar face. Opal, sitting on one of the raised benches that lined the wall with a look of boredom on her face, her choice of position did not shock Raalm though as her antics in the trees and her weapon clearly showed that she liked higher places where she could see everything around her. Noticing him, she gave a quick wave of her hand which Raalm returned, and quickly went back to watching the stage; Fortunately, they no longer had to wait. A woman with blonde hair and wearing a white shirt, purple cape and black skirt walked onto the stage and stepped up to the microphone.

"Quiet everyone," the woman spoke, her voice carrying to every part of the room and casting a silence over every other voice that had been speaking. "My name is Glynda Goodwitch and I am sure that you are all anxious to get to bed as night is nearly upon us but before that our headmaster, Professor Ospin, would like to say a few words."

As she finished speaking, another person walked onto the stage, this time it was a man wearing a button down a green suit that almost looked black and a black suit jacket. A lighter green scarf was wrapped around his neck and small tinted glasses rested on his nose. Judging from the grey hair, Raalm guessed that the man was older than he looked but still young enough to take on every student here, and have enough energy left to tell each of them everything they done wrong during the fight. He carried a cup emblazoned with Vales symbol, two axes in a circle of wheat, in one hand and a black cane with a white handle in the other, though he did not seem to have any problems with his legs. As he walked to the microphone, Glynda gave him a quick smile and stepped away, but still remained close by.

"First of all I would like to congratulate each and every one of you for making it this far," Ozpin said, pausing for a brief moment to allow the clapping to die down. "Whether you have come from inside Vale or outside of the kingdom you have all done extremely well to earn a place here; but if you believe that the difficult part is over then you could not be more mistaken. You are here to become huntsman and huntresses, a job that will require one hundred percent of your conviction and if you feel that you are unable to give that, then I suggest you leave now."

Professor Ozpin paused again for a moment, waiting to see if anyone would leave but no one did.

"Good, now I want to make it very clear that as this school we will not be treating you as children, at this school you will be treated as warriors. You will be expected to train, study and to achieve the very best you can," Ozpin continued. "It is our job to make sure that by the time you leave this school, you are capable of handling whatever the outside world throws at you. I would also like you to keep in mind that while we can teach you as much as possible here at Beacon Academy, there are still many things that you will have to learn for yourself; as such, do not expect to stop learning once you leave this place."

With those final words he stepped to the side a began a slow walk off the back of the stage and Glynda took her place at the microphone.

"In a few moments you will all follow me to the dorm, where you will be staying for the night," Glynda said. "Tomorrow will be your initiation; so I advise you to get plenty of rest."

After several moments passed, Glynda called for everyone to follow her and began to head through the door to the left of the stage. Raalm and the other students followed Glynda into a hallway with four doors, each with a sign.

"These are the locker rooms, and this one belongs to the first years," Glynda said, walking through the door and into a room filled with lockers and benches. "This is where you will store you weapon while you are in class, now if everyone would mind finding a locker and putting your weapon away then we can finally get moving to the dorm.

Raalm approached the closest locker he could find and pulled the chain from his arm and wound it around his backpack before putting it into the locker and closing the door, entering a four-digit code to make sure it was locked.

"Now it is it is important to note that each locker is rocket propelled and can be sent to any location by entering a six-digit code into your scroll, also the locker room is available twenty-four hours a day," Glynda added, walking back toward the door.

Everyone one followed as Glynda left and led them to another door that led back outside and just a few meters away stood a large four story building made of brown stone. Multiple windows lined the face of the building and a pair of wooden doors stood in the middle, not quite as grand as the door at Beacons entrance but still finely crafted out of dark oak. As Glynda strode towards the building she began to speak again.

"For tonight you will all be sleeping in the communal area on the ground floor, the upper floors are off limits. After initiation is over and you all have your teams, each team will be given their own room. That room will be your space for the next year of your life and you are free to do whatever you want with it," she said, clearly having given this speech many times before. "Anything within reason that is," she quickly added.

Glynda pushed open the doors open to reveal a room roughly the size of house, Raalm guessed that the room would have usually been filled with tables and chairs for studying and maybe a few more comfortable chairs would have sat beside the fireplace at the far end of the room; but for now, all that filled the room was sleeping bags.

"Girls on the left and boys on the right, other than that, feel free to sleep where ever you like in the room," Glynda continued. "The bathrooms are on the right, you can all get changed into your night clothes in there," she added, as she exited the dorm room.

"She didn't even read us a bedtime story," a bear Faunus quipped, earning a couple of laughs from the students as they made their way to the toilets.

An hour later and everyone was had changed into their night clothes.

Not feeling to tired himself, Raalm decided to take a look at some books that were on a tall, bulky bookcase in the corner of the room; Fortunately, he found one of his favorites and settled into the corner of the room to read in peace. However, after a couple of minutes of trying to read, it became very apparent that peace was not something he would get. Everyone was so busy talking about Professor Ozpins speech or how the teams would be chosen, that the room was practically buzzing like a hive of wasps, making it impossible to concentrate on the book. Putting the book back on the shelf, Raalm got up and began to walk around to take a look at all the students now that they no longer had their thick armor on, most of the guys were no bigger than he was but some among them were just as intimidating as when they had their armor on. Most notable of which was the dark skinned bear Faunus that had made the joke earlier, Raalm guessed that must have been at least six and a half feet tall and built like a truck. Muscles protruded from every part of his body and silver hair fell down to his fell down ears while another pair of round ears protruded from the top of his head covered in small silver hairs. Currently he was surrounded by people that seemed to be laughing at his jokes, though Raalm doubted that if the man was not so well built then the people wouldn't have been so kind to him. Raalm had no problems the Faunus, but there was an undeniable tension in the world between humans and Faunus that had caused multiple wars between the two and still to this day, both Faunus and human fighting each other was not uncommon. Though Raalm did have to agree that most of the blame fell on the humans, as it had only been in recent years that Faunus had been accepted as people and not animals. Despite this, many people were still racially bias against Faunus kind and many shops still refused to pay them properly for their work or even serve them. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be behaving themselves and having a good time.

Raalm moved on, continuing to observe the crowd and suddenly found himself face to face with Opal, who still looked rather bored.

"Hey there," Raalm said, taking a quick note of how bored she looked. "Looking for somewhere high up?"

"I wish there was, I can never really get much sleep on the when I'm on the ground," she replied.

Raalm took a quick look around and saw that she was right but also saw a solution to that problem. "Come with me," he said walking towards the heavily muscled Faunus.

The boy's ears twitched as he saw them approaching, he was definitely more cautious than he appeared but he wore a smile on his face nonetheless as he greeted them.

"Hello," he said in a cheerful voice. "Come to join our little party?

Move over a little Arnold, make some room for the lovely couple."

"Umm… We're not a couple, he's not really my type," replied Opal, not flustered one bit by the presumption. "No offense," she quickly added to Raalm.

"None taken," Raalm smiled back, turning to talk to the Faunus. "I was actually wondering if you could give me a hand moving something, I would do it myself but it's far too heavy."

"OH, so you think that since I'm part bear that I would be able to lift heavy things do you?" the boy responded, starting to looking a little angry.

Raalm starts to back away but the boys glare quickly turn to a smile.

"Relax, I'm just messing with you," he laughed at them. "I'm happy to help. What do you need moving?"

"Wow, thought I had annoyed you," Raalm breathed back, allowing a little smile to form. "Just one of those bookcases if you can."

"No problem buddy, I'm Garrick Cane by the way," he says standing up and holding out his hand.

"Raalm Neeth," Raalm replied, taking Garrick's hand in a firm handshake.

"Opal Drake" Opal said, now looking a little interested in Raalm's plan.

While walking over to the bookcase Raalm had been sitting next to moments ago, Garrick apologized for his little stunt saying that he just couldn't pass up the opportunity. Raalm had to admit that Garrick had fooled him and they both quickly laughed it off.

"So where do you want it," Garrick said as they arrived at the bookcase.

"Uh… just over there on the girls' side, right up against the other one," Raalm replied, pointing to a similar bookcase on the left side of the room. "Give me a minute and I'll take all the books…" Raalm began to say, before hearing a loud grunt behind him followed by some rattling that causes him to turn around and see Garrick holding the bookcase in both hands. "Never mind then."

People saw what was happening and quickly moved out of Garrick's way, giving him room to walk. A small bead of sweat began to form on his forehead as he got halfway across the room but he still continued, refusing to stop for a single moment. Finally, they reached the other bookcase and Garrick placed the one he was carrying on the ground and started pushing it up against the other, making sure there was no room between them.

"Phew, that was heavier than it looked," he managed to say through heavy breaths. "What's this for anyway," he added, looking a little confused.

"Opal said she has trouble sleeping on low ground so I just wanted to help her out a little," Raalm explained "Thanks a lot for the help too, I owe you one."

"It's no trouble, better to make sure everyone is rested for tomorrow," Garrick smiled and turned to Opal. "Need a lift up?"

"No thank you, I'll be fine," Opal replied nimbly running up the side of the bookcase and grabbing the edges, pulling herself up. "That's much better, thank you both for your help, you really didn't have to." She says looking down from her new perch.

"It's cool, I'm always happy to help those in need," he laughs up at her, as Raalm throw her a sleeping bag and a pillow. "I guess we should both be getting to sleep now anyway; we have a big day ahead of us."

"I suppose your right," Raalm agreed. "Goodnight both of you," he added as he walked away.

"Goodnight," both Opal and Garrick replied.

As he walked back to his sleeping bag, Raalm took a look and the clock on the wall. Almost an hour had passed since he had stopped reading his book and a sudden fatigue began to overtake his body. Laying down, Raalm thought on all that had happened today and smiled.

Today was a good day, he thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep.