(Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or Harry Potter. RWBY is owned by Roosterteeth and Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling.)
Nothing Left
Chapter 4: Meeting the students
The scenery flew by as Harry watched outside of the plate glass windows. He could see the entire city and beyond from where he was standing. Everything would have been perfect if it was not for a small fact.
Harry was getting motion sick. Harry Potter-Black, the youngest seeker in history, was getting motion sick inside of a slow moving plane. The man who could fly a broom faster and more death defying than almost anyone in the world could not help, but feel nauseous from the plane's lethargic movements. It was ridiculous! If anyone from his old world had found out about this, he would never live it down. If Neville was still alive to see him, he would bet his entire fortune that Neville would scrounge up the money for a pensieve solely just to watch the memory over and over again. He may have been a shy and quiet boy back when he was a child, but he took after his father a lot more than people thought. There was a reason that Frank Longbottom was best friends with James.
The motion sick seeker* tried to distract himself in multiple different ways. He tried to read some of the multitude of books he brought along, to take his mind off of the motions of the plane, but that did not help in the least. In fact it made him feel worse and he had to suppress the urge to expel his lunch.
After that failed attempt, he tried to meditate and camp out in his mindscape for the rest of the trip, maybe sort through his memories a bit to better organize his mind. He decided to keep away from the door that contained the energy of the grimms for now. He wandered around the house for a bit, and put his recent memories on his mental bookshelves and looked back through some of his old ones. It was a very useful ability to be able to remember anything by looking through one's mindscape. He wished that he had discovered that particular element of occlumency earlier, it would have been a life saver during the N.E.W.T tests. However escaping into his mind did not work either because after finishing what seemed to be hours of work and review, it turned out to be only a half an hour in real time and he still had at least an hour more to go before he could get off the flying metal death trap.
The best thing he found to take his mind off of the motion sickness was to watch the other people on the plane and fall into his old instincts of observing people and figuring them out. It was a trick from his childhood that let him know when to keep away from people that might threaten or hurt him. It saved him from many beatings and punishments when he was able to tell if Vernon or Petunia was in a bad mood.
There were over four dozen people in the plane that he could see at the moment. Many of them looked like they had attended the previous year or more. They stood differently than the new arrivals. They lacked the tension and anxiety that the hopefuls had and were already separated into their own little cliques.
The hopefuls on the other hand were the opposite. They were all quietly talking amongst themselves and impatiently waiting to get to the school, or some were bouncing around in excitement. Harry took the time to observe the classmates that he may have to share the year with. Many of them were unassuming and there were only a few who really caught his eye.
One of which was a teenager in red. Really the only thing that drew his eye in the first place was that she was one of the only people that were shorter than him, which was quite an rarity in his life.
Back in Hogwarts he was always the shortest one in the year and that trend continued for years. He thought that it was because of the malnutrition, but it was not. He found that even after correcting his malnutrition using a combination of the life stealing curse and intense training was that most of his height issue was actually due to the genes he had got from his mother, who he found out was notoriously short. It seemed like it was not just his eyes that he got from his mother.
The vertically challenged teen used to think that his height was a curse. He was smaller than everyone that he fought and felt that he would be at a disadvantage in all his fights until Himura beat that out of him. One day he complained about it to the redhead and the following training session was one of the most torturous one ever. Himura had pitted him against taller targets for half the session. They kicked his ass with their heavier blows brought about by longer swings and more muscles, but once he learned to how to use his height to his advantage, he found that it was easy to get into the taller enemies guard and defeat them. Their long arms were useless if they could not use them. However Himura's sadistic streak reared its ugly head and began to make all of his targets shorter than him. The small dummies moved around very quickly and when Harry was close to striking them, Himura would throw in a twist. Whether it was a rock chucked at his head to distract him or he would have the dummies pull a tricky maneuver off to dodge all the slashes. It was almost impossible to hit through little buggers and by the end of the exercise, he was a mess of black and blue skin along with a very bruised ego.
The lesson in the training did not go over Harry's head though. Being short was not always a bad thing. It made you a smaller and quicker target. After all which is better, being able to hit someone hard enough to kill them in one strike, but move slow enough that even a man like Vernon could get out of the way with enough time to spare, or being small and faster than anyone else, but needing to use multiple strikes to take out one's opponent. .
It was one of the most, if not the most important lesson that Harry had ever learned, he just hated how Kenshin went about it. Harry could swear that even years later he still had some of those bruises in places he did not want to think about.
But enough about his short sadistic teacher, and back to little red. She stood at around five feet tall. Other than her height, the most noticeable thing about her was her cloak she had wrapped around her body. It was attached to her blouse/skirt combo with silver crosses. She was jumping around like a hyperactive first year on a sugar high. Harry shivered at the memories that brought up. Never give anyone eleven years old candy, especially not children like Colin's brother, Dennis. He was a great kid, but he turned into a little hellion at the hint of sugar. The common room was never the same after the Twins gave him one of their more experimental candy, which was appropriately called the "Wake-up sticks". That was a day that Harry wished he could forget, the only silverlining was that, that incident was the last time those "Wake-up Sticks" ever made an appearance.
Other than bouncing around, he noticed that she was slightly younger than everyone in the plane. Harry remembered Oz saying that the school only accepted teens, 17 and older. Maybe she was a special case.
Next to the hyper little girl was a strikingly beautiful young woman. She looked around his age. Yellow, as he deemed her because of her bright wavy blonde hair that fell past her waist was withstanding red's excited prattle with practiced ease. 'Siblings? or old friends?' he thought. Yellow was wearing a brown vest with a yellow top that showed off her rather well endowed chest. A leather skirt covered her thighs, but opened in the front and underneath was a rather tight pair of short shorts. A orange scarf circled her throat finished the image. The only thing that looked out of place was the bulky bracelets that were attached to her wrist. After a few seconds in thought Harry recalled things called mechashift weapons or something. That must be what they were.
Harry remembered back to the day that he went to the library in Vale to learn about his new dimension.
*Flashback start*
The nurses had kicked Harry out of the hospital the day after Oz had been there to visit him a second time. Which was rather rude considering that it was just a minor prank.
Eye-watering pink scrubs was not the worst thing that he could have done. Harry still did not know why the prank was pinned on him though, probably because he was the only one laughing his ass off about it. They were just so serious about everything, and Harry just thought they needed to have a good laugh.
The marauder from another dimension shrugged his shoulders at the memory and started walking down the streets of vale. His weapons holstered and hidden within his longcoat. Harry had always been a prankster at heart. It ran in the family, don't you know? He just never got to express it, what with the constant pressures of school work and impending doom. Now that he was in a new world, he could finally act on his impulses, whether that was a good thing or a bad thing would be determined in time.
The wolf faunus was heading for the library, after all it would not due to look clueless when one did not have to be. Harry asked some people passing by for directions, but for some reason they took one look at him, saw his ears then turned their noses up at him. It did not bother him all that much, actually it was a refreshing change from the almost hero worship that he had to deal with in Britain, however it did hinder his ability to find his way around the city.
Eventually he found someone that would talk to him and give him directions. It was a man wearing a black vest with a white shirt underneath. On his face was a pair of red tinted sunglasses. He looked kind of like a stereotypical bartender one would find in any city in the world.
Harry walked up to the man. "Hello, would you please help me with something." He looked up at the towering figure. The shorter of the two was surprised at just how tall the man was, he did not look all that much from where he had spotted the man. The man was at least seven feet tall.
The man glanced down at him. He gave a little smirk. He opened his mouth and a deep rumble came out of it. "Are you lost little wolf?" Harry was thrown by the comment until he remembered his new parts. It still had not sunken in, that he was part canine.
"Well I would not say lost per say..." Harry said to the taller man. "I am rather new to the city and I'm looking for the library." The man let out a low rumble which Harry interpreted as a chuckle.
"So the little wolfie is a little bookworm too," he said. Harry could not tell if he was being insulted or not so he just smiled and nodded. "The library is down the street about a mile then, on the right." He told him.
"Thanks man, your the only person that I have asked today that would tell me the time of day." Harry said. Harry offered his hand to the man, being mindful of the claws that had replaced his fingernails. "My name is Harry,"
"Junior Xiong. I run a bar just up the street from here." He pointed over his shoulder at the building. It looked like it was in need of some serious repair, all the glass on the upper floor was broken out and some of the concrete around the window was cracked and scorched like a fire had billowed out of it. "Yeah, people just do not respect faunus as much as they should. Animosity from the war most likely. The entire thing left a bad taste in everyone's mouth that is hard to wash out." He said and grabbed Harry's hand with a vice grip. When he removed his hand, a business card remained. "I'll see you around little wolf. If you ever need a drink, my bar is always open. Well it will be after I get it cleaned up after that goddamn blonde harlot came and wrecked the place" He muttered to himself as continued on his way down the street and joined up with a pair of twins as they went into the club.
The talk with the man was quite informational and not just for the directions to the library. He learned of the apparent racism of faunus, of which he was now one, and the war that caused it. It just led to more books that he would have to check out.
The trip to the library was a relatively boring one. He looked inside all the windows of the stores he passed and found that many of them were the same or similar to the ones that he had seen in london and diagon alley. The only new thing he saw was a store selling crystals and vials of powder called dust. It was just another thing that he would need to study.
After almost an hour of wandering down the road and it's branching paths while following the vague directions to his destination, he found it. The library was an unassuming and easily missed building. It looked just like any other store on the street that it shared other than the sign that had a book on it. That was the only indicator that it was a library.
Harry entered through the front door which made a bell ring, alerting the clerk. The sounds of heels clicking on the floor preluded to the old woman that rounded the corner. She had a beak nose and lips pressed into a thin line like a much older, more bitter Mcgonagall.
When she saw Harry standing there waiting for her, the woman's eyes narrowed with hate. "We do not serve your kind here!" She crowed out in a raspy voice from the hall. "Leave now or I will have the police arrest you for trespassing!"
Harry was actually shocked. He understood the turning up of noses at him, that was common back in the wizarding world. However that was a far cry from openly displaying hate and shouting threats and racial slurs.
"This is a public building," Harry shot back at the woman.
A sneer graced it's ugly presence on her face, "Public to anyone that is human, demon!" She spat out, "I am going to go call the police," She was going for the phone that was on the counter, but a quick compulsion charm solved the problem. Harry did not want to have to deal with law enforcement after only being in the dimension for only a few days. That would have to be a record or something. The woman's face went slack in an instant. "You will not make a fuss about me being here because you invited me." He stated clearly, that was one of the things a compulsion charm needed, a clearly spoken suggestion. If one did not do that, then the charm would not stick that well. "You will ignore my presence for as long as I am here and say nothing about my presence." After he finished giving his order, she nodded her head and dropped the phone in her hand back down to the receiver. She turned around and went back down the hall to what she was doing before he came in.
A lot of people underestimated the charm. It was a first year spell, but in the right hands, it could be one of the most useful spells in one's arsenal. People overlooked it because it was taught in first year, thus thought to be useless, but it could be used for so many things. It could get rid of witnesses in such a way that there was no check that could be done beyond invading the victim's mind with leglimency. Whereas the obliviation charm left signs of being used, the compulsion charm did not. It just planted the idea of something in another's head and had them follow the thought. The thing about the charm was that it could not go against certain morals. However Harry learned that with enough magic and willpower, it could be a low powered substitute for the imperius curse and convince someone to do minor illegal acts or listen to a command that was not too obtrusive. Ignoring a quiet patron would count as the later.
Harry brushed right by her straight into the library. It was not as impressive as the one in Hogwarts, but it would do. He grabbed a few random books and began to read. Thanks to his occlumency exercises it took only one time through each book to get all the information in it's pages, encoded into his memories.
He read throughout the day, and night with the old woman never caring that he was there.
He learned several things about the world which he never would have thought of. Apparently the current world's history was relatively new compared to Harry's. Remnant, the world's name, had only a couple hundred years of history, as opposed to earth's millenniums of history. It even was still separated into kingdoms and city states rather than countries. The separate kingdoms had some skirmishes and one or two wars with each other a couple of hundred years ago, but other then that. The kingdoms co-existed somewhat peacefully. This was mostly because of the monsters called grimms. Harry found that there were not many books on grimms because the government regulate them almost as strictly as they did books on aura. People were in a constant state of war against grimms and that focused people's hostile tendencies towards them rather than each other. That was not to say that the people of the kingdoms coexisted peacefully. Humans and Faunus had been arguing and protesting for years over the segregation between the two race until it broke down into the Faunus wars a hundred or so years ago.
The faunus fought to keep their homes and families safe from harm. The humans fought to round up all of the faunus and send them to an island called the Menagerie. It was not a very long war, lasting only four years. However just because it was short did not mean it was bloodless. A couple thousand people lost their lives fighting to protect their rights and families or for trying to take the homes away from people who were different then them. It was still amazing how humans will kill and steal from anything that does not fit their definition of normal no matter the dimension.
Harry continued reading and researching for several days. He finished the history section quickly and spent the rest of the time reading books on technology,novels and fantasy stories. Reading new material that he had never heard of was a lot more refreshing than Harry thought it would be. The green-eyed teen had read only books and tomes on combat or other forms of warfare for the last couple years and they eventually got boring and repetitive. After a certain point, he was rereading the same thing over and over just for any new information. He kept reading the books as a way to pass the time and learn about the world until he had to meet up with the escort that Oz sent him to get him to the airport for the dust plane.
*Flashback end*
After his brief trip down memory lane, the wolven young man continued to gaze at the people around the room from his spot in the corner. Suddenly the plane started to shudder and slow down. It was finally stopping and Harry quickly moved towards the doors so that he would be one of the first ones off the plane.
The doors hissed open and he disappeared through them before it could fully finish. He took deep breaths to calm his stomach. "Oh thank god that is finally over!" Harry muttered to himself. "A Cleansweep one is better than that!" Suddenly a hand smacked him in the back. Harry's hand shot to his hidden weapons, but he stopped his hand when he turned to see who was behind him, it would not do him good to have the first thing he does upon his arrival would be to draw his weapon on a student.
Yellow had been behind him and heard everything that he said. "Well 'soul' it looks like vomit boy has a friend." she said loudly. It was only then that he noticed a blonde boy regurgitating everything from his stomach into a trash bin next to the plane. She walked passed him with little red trailing behind her like a lost puppy.
Harry watched as the younger girl started to get stars in her eyes at the sight of the mass of different weapons that everyone was carrying. Harry unconsciously shifted his weapons out of sight, afraid that she might molest his sword if she saw it. She said something about weapons being like people and suddenly the little package that she had hanging from her waist was brought up and unfolded into a massive scythe that looked to weigh about fifty pounds. He was surprised that such a small girl was able to wield something that large and not fall around with it. Yellow left her little friend after a little pep talk about meeting new people, to go meet up with some of her friends. He watched as little red grew confused at what she was supposed to do. It was not long until he saw her run into a luggage cart for a girl that seemed to have a thing for the color white. The boxes and cases opened and spilled out some of that dust stuff Harry had heard about all over the ground. Harry found mention of it and knew the basics of it, it could be used to enhance weapons and combat abilities. Some could even mold it into 'spells' that could be used for attacking and defending. He had his magic for that so did not go too in depth with it.
As he was thinking about this, he watched as the girl in white went on a tirade about her family's company and the importance of dust, that is until red sneezed and blew herself and the condescending girl up. Odd. Harry had read in some of the books on dust, that aura or some other forms of ignition was required to activate dust. Sneezing was never brought up in any of the books. Glass and vials flew from the explosion as shrapnel. Harry put up a minor shield that stopped most of the glass from hitting him. He was glad that the crowd had dispersed already or there may have been some injuries. The little girl in red started apologizing over and over for blowing up the girl's supplies when another one of their observers went over.
"Hey, I said that I was sorry, princess." Little red said getting fed up with her attitude.
The other spectator to the drama appeared and said, "It's heiress actually." The new girl was quite the beauty. She had black hair that flowed down her back in waves. Her eyes were an interesting shade of amber and were tilted up to give her a feline appearance. She was wearing a white and black outfit with the design that looked vaguely like nightshade petals sewn into her stockings. Her most eye catching feature was the ribbon that she had tied around her head that looked like cat ears.
"Finally someone recognizes me. I am Weiss schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. One of the largest producers of energy propellant in the world!" She said with obvious pride and arrogance in her voice. Though he could detect some other emotion buried deep in her voice when she spoke about her family's company.
"The same company infamous for it's controversial labor forces and questionable business partners."
Weiss tried to stutter out a reply and when she couldn't she took her vial of dust back and walked away with her chin held high. Ruby called out after her with another apology and when she turned to find the black haired girl gone, she flopped down on the ground with a groan.
He was about to go over and help her when the blonde vomit boy came over to help her out. He shrugged his shoulders and consulted his map. All the new students had to go to the courtyard where the headmaster would make his speech. Harry followed the crowd and found himself in an enclosed area with a large stage. People were loitering around, introducing themselves to new people and conversing with ones they already knew.
It was not long until everyone had filled the room. Red and vomit boy arrived just in time for the headmaster to appear on stage. Ruby broke off from vomit boy and ran over to her sister. Ozpin stepped up to the mike and began his initiation speech to the freshmen.
"I'll keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills. When you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people." Oz said in a rather detached way. "But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step forward towards your goals." His speech was rather strange for the man, normally he was more relaxed when he talked. Harry suspected it was because he had to say the same thing year after year, to all the people trying to get into the academy and it just got tedious after awhile.
After Ozpin had walked off the stage, an attractive older blonde walked up to the mike. This must have been the Glynda that the headmaster had told him about. She reminded him of a younger Mcgonagall with blonde hair. After speaking about some of the rules that were expected to be followed, she finished her speech off with "Tomorrow, initiation will take place where we will see if you are worthy of being here. You are dismissed." The staff that surrounded the walls came out and started to shout for the students to follow them. Apparently everyone was going to share a room for the night. This was going to suck. He just hoped that it would not be worse than the time that he had to spend the night in the grandhall in third year.
He just had to jinx it, didn't he?. It was much, much worse than third year. Instead of frightened children who were afraid that Sirius would come and eat them in their sleep, the room was full of teenager. Hormonal teenagers at that, inside of a coed room with no teacher supervision. Harry hated to repeat himself, but it bears repeating. This was so, so much worse than third year.
The black haired faunus just wanted to get enough sleep so that he would be ready for the fights tomorrow, but in order to do so he needed to change into his sleepwear, which he was not comfortable doing around others. Even though he grew up in a dorm situation, he was always self-conscious about changing in front of other people and that trait stayed with him no matter how proud of his body he was.
Harry walked around the hall until he found a room that was sectioned off from the hall. Inside was a perfect place to change. He quickly stripped himself of his clothes and weapons before slipping into his black silken pajama bottoms, he liked comfort, sue him. He finished dressing by placing his belt full of goodies and weapons back into place around his hips. He kept Sudden Death and Blackfyre in place, old habits and all that. Harry had gotten the scar on his face in a surprise attack while he slept by not keeping his weapons in a place that he could instantly get to. From then on, he always slept near or with his weapons. It had saved his life more than once.
Harry rolled up his clothing and stuffed them into his bag of holding and left the room. When he stepped out of the room and over to the part of the wall, that he had taken from himself, he did not notice how everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and followed him with their eyes.
It was not until he settled himself down did he notice all the stares. He tried to figure out what they were staring for until he remembered all his scarring. It was extensive around his chest and arms. His legs also had their fair share, but those were hidden under his pajamas. He had a scar for everything, you name it and he probably had one somewhere on him. Burns from incendiary magic, holes from gouging curses, slashes from severing curses, covered his body. Harry never had problems with his scars. They were just proof that he had been stronger than whatever tried to kill him and wore them with pride.
The last Potter raised an eyebrow at the populace. "Do I have something on my face?" He said to politely alert them to their rudeness and waited for them to all turn back to what they were doing before. That is until he remembered why they were staring and had to keep himself from facepalming.
It was not long after that did they finished staring and started muttering to each other in hushed voices to keep him from hearing. Useless because of his enhanced senses, he can hear every word. Some of them were flattering while others were less than positive.
Eventually the Beacon hopefuls started talking about what they were before and acting like the teenagers they were.
From where Harry was sitting, he could see Yellow watching the boys in front of her flexing their muscles and showing off to get her attention. It was rather amusing to watch because none of them were all that ripped or impressive to look at. Then the blonde headed boy walked in front of them. Harry almost swallowed his tongue laughing when he saw the baby blue one piece pajamas the kid was wearing. Blondy even had the balls to wink to Yellow before he sauntered off to god knows where. Harry decided there and then that he needed to get to know the teen. Anyone who could do all that with a straight face was someone Harry would love to meet.
Eventually the monotony of watching teens be teens became too much and he decided to find something to do. The ravenette took out his sword and started to clean it. He regretted for not giving his partner as much attention as it deserved recently. He produced a handkerchief and some cleaning oil from his pouch and got to work polishing and removing the leftover blood that had dried into the nooks and crannies he could not reach through a basic wipe down.
The act of meticulously cleaning his black blade put him in a near meditative state and once he finished with blackfyre. He began to work with his sniper rifle, Sudden Death.
With practiced ease, he unloaded his rifle and began to take it down. Once it was broken into it's various parts, he started to clean and maintenance the weapon. His mind drifted to the man that had taught him how to shoot. He did not even know the man's name and the only thing he really knew was that he was a former sniper for her majesty's armed forces and was brought in by the order to help with the fighting. He showed Harry several techniques to long range shooting and how to properly shoot a rifle. Later that day he died in an assault on a death eater compound that was rigged with fiendfyre bombs. Through the next year, he had various teachers that had helped him with his shooting, showing him tips and tricks that would place his bullet where he needed it to go, but he would never forget that nameless face that set him on the path of a rifleman.
After he finished cleaning and lubricating the rifle, he put it back together and racked the rifle to test to see if it was in working order. When he looked up, he almost jumped in fright. Just a couple of inches away of him was Red with hearts in her eyes staring at his weapon.
When his heart rate had settled down he asked her, "Can I help you with something, Red?"
"My name is not red, it's Ruby!" the now named Ruby pouted adorably. Then her entire demeanor did a one eighty. "What kind of gun is that? Does it change into something else? What can it do? Where did you get it?" She rapidly fired questions at him. A hand clamped down on Ruby's shoulder which stopped her prattling. It was her big sister, Yellow.
"Sis, calm down and give him a chance to talk." Yellow said. Ruby drooped before she became her normally excited self and waited for Harry to answer with bated breath. "My name is Yang. Yang Xiao Long. What is your name hot stuff? I can't keep calling you 'soul'." Harry accepted her offered hand and shook it.
"Harry, Harry Potter-Black," He introduced himself. Turning from the older to the younger sister, Harry had the sudden urge to flee and hide his weapons where no one could get them.
Ruby was almost drooling over his rifle. He quickly started filling her in before she did something to it.
"Sudden Death is a semi automatic sniper rifle that fires a .50 BMG round. It was designed based on an popular assault rifle that we had in my country. How ever the original design was not enough so I had to make the entire thing from scratch, just to be able to withstand all the recoil generated from it. It can accurately hit someone from over two miles away. Sudden Death and Blackfyre are my pride and joy." Harry said wistfully, gazing at his rifle with a hand on his sword. Ruby and Yang looked at him confused for a couple seconds.
"What is a .50 BMG? Is it a kind of dust round?" Yang asked him. Harry had forgotten, the weapons used by this world's military all used crystallized dust as bullets. They had never needed to use a combustion based weapons before, when they had dust which was much safer.
"No, you see where I am from we use metal bullets rather than dust. Instead of having dust shoot a crystal out of the barrel, I use a miniature explosion that propels the bullet past the speed of sound. The .50 caliber tells the size of round that is fired out of the gun. For example, this one is half an inch diameter. BMG stands for Browning Machine Gun, which is a reference to the first gun to use this type of round." Harry explained as he picked up his magazine and pulled out one of the five and a half inch cartridges from it. He handed it to Ruby who examined it in awe. "It is one of the most powerful variants of ammunition that is made where I am from. Capable of punching straight through a concrete wall from over a mile away." That is without the upgrades he had made, but no reason to give out intimate details about his weapon.
"Wait, doesn't that mean that you can't mock fight people with it like we can with our dust rounds?" Yang asked as Ruby was silently tinkering with the bullet. Tilting it this way and that to see how it works. Harry even saw her sniff it once to see what it smelled like. Apparently she did not like the smell of gunpowder because she immediately pulled away from it with a disgusted look on her face.
"You guys can do that?" Harry asked her, shocked. "No, this can only be used to kill people...or grimms," He tacked on at the end. "I can't use this rifle in close combat, just medium or far ranges because it sacrifices rate of fire for range and power."
"What is in this thing?" Ruby cut in. Staring at the bullet with distaste. "It smells awful."
"It is made with a bunch of different chemicals that create a smokeless explosion. I actually enjoy the smell of gunpowder,"
They continued to mindlessly chatter about their weapons and how Vytal manufactured and designed their weaponry. Apparently they were still operating blacksmith forges, but instead of being a hammer/anvil production. It involved imbuing dust into the weapons, machining rounds to be fired, and a slew of other tasks that got Vytalian weapons ready for combat.
They started to wind down after debating the pros and cons to combustion based guns and dust based weapons. Ruby eventually wandered off after getting a promise from her new black haired friend that she would be able to examine Sudden Death one day and see how it fired. Yang went with her to keep her from doing something too childish. He watched as they went to the gorgeous black hair girl who was reading some novel by candlelight. The only part of the title that he could see was "Abnormal Study of Doctor Stevenson...". He did not need to see the rest because he recognized the title from his extended stint in the library while in Vale. It was basically a parallel to his world's classic. "Strange Case Of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Harry was happy to note that while some things had changed others had not. Giving him a sense of home in such a new place.
It was then that Ruby injected herself into her personal space and forced her to put away the book. They chatted a bit about Ruby's goals and aspirations in life, the princess in white appeared and started a fight.
It was not long after that did the ravenette blow the candles around her out and doused the room in darkness. Harry could see fine due to his new eyes and apparently so did the girl in black because he noticed her watching the blind trio stumble back to their sleeping bags with amused smile.
A quick privacy spell to ward off anyone from bothering him while he slept and he was out like a light.
Harry found himself waking up early which was odd. He loved to sleep and normally slept for as long as he could. It was not until he looked at the other students did he know why. The orange haired girl was trying to wake up her companion by chattering away at him and jumping around the room. Harry groaned and turned over, but there he soon realized that he would not be able to go back to sleep. Harry lethargically got up and began his morning routine.
He went off into the side room and changed into his normal clothes. A quick couple of hygiene spells and cleaning spells had his clothes looking like they had just came out of the washer and his hair as straight as it would go.
The faunus eventually finished up his morning routine and went to breakfast in the dining hall, where he partook in a delicious american breakfast, with pancakes and all.
Everyone eventually left to gather their weapon for initiation, but since Harry had kept his weapons with him, he went directly to where he was directed by the teachers the previous day during the introduction ceremony after Ozpin's speech. The walk to the cliff was rather calming, being surrounded by trees gave both his animagus side and human side a sense of calmness that he could not find anywhere else. The trees reminded him of the forbidden forest near Hogwarts where he had spent a long time hanging around in during his seventh year. Eventually his strolling led him to the cliffs where Ozpin and Goodwitch were standing talking about the new batch of students.
"...I have a lot of hope for this generation," Oz said as he walked into the clearing. "Especially Ruby and her sister."
"I have observed them for awhile. They seem too impulsive and childish." The blonde haired woman said. "Ms. Rose does not think before she does something and Ms. Xiao Long is violent and impulsive."
"That is what this school is for, to break them of such things." Oz replied then turned to face the new arrival. "Not everyone can be like Harry here."
Glynda's face showed no hint that she was surprised, but her now straighter back told a different story.
Harry raised a hand in greeting as he made his way over to the edge of the cliff with them. "Hey Oz, how have you been?" he turned to Goodwitch. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Ms. Goodwitch."
"Like wise Mr. Potter-Black." she politely returned.
"I've been good. A bit overrun with paperwork because of all the new arrivals." Oz said before sipping his tea. Harry winced in sympathy.
"Yeah, paperwork is never fun is it. I hope that my tea went to good use. I use it to wind down after a particular stressful day in the field." While Harry never directly told the headmaster about the war, he did say that he had field experience in combat.
"It did. The tea was wonderful, what was in it?" he said. "I have never tasted anything quite like it."
"It is from where I am from. It is a mix of several different flavourings and tea leaves. I have some more if you ever want some." and he did. Towards the middle of the war, tea became a commodity and Harry stored a large quantity of all kinds of tea in his bag of holding. Enough that he would never run out if he drank a gallon a day.
"I may have to take you up on that offer sometime." Ozpin said. "By the way, if you pass this test I will unlock your aura," Goodwitch looked lost as the conversation went along.
"How do you two know each other?" she asked them.
"He found me half dead in a forest after I was attacked by grimm." Harry answered. "Didn't Oz tell you?"
The black suited man started to sweat at the dust user's icy stare. "No he did not. He seemed to have left that out when he came back from the black forest."
"I have a good reason to why I did not tell you," the grey haired man sputtered out to his scary deputy headmistress. His normally calm front completely stripped away in front of the scary woman.
"Tea and flower pressing are not good reasons." She cut in with a growl. Which left Ozpin searching for something to say, but was saved when students started to trickle into the clearing. He quickly jumped onto the chance at escaping the scary woman.
"Hello students. Welcome to your initiation into Beacon. For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." he said to the crowd of students. Avoiding the stare from Glynda. Harry moved his way over from the two's side and into the crowd. He got a couple of odd looks, but everyone was too busy to comment on it.
"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of 'teams'." Glynda said to the wide eyed students. "Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates today."
"What!" Harry heard little Ruby from the other side of the crowd yell.
Oz picked up where she finished. "That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years. Should you not find a partner and still finish then you will be assigned to a team of my choosing."
"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path...or you will die." He warned them. The students shifted around at the thought that they might not make it through the day. "You will be monitored and graded through the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene should you find yourself in trouble. It is your responsibility to survive. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. You will guard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions? No? Good, take your positions and prepare your landing strategy."
Ozpin ignored the blonde boy until everyone was ready on a launch platform. Harry was standing at the end next to him.
"What do you mean landing strategy?" the blonde kid asked. "Do you hand out parachutes or something?"
"No..." The older man said to him. "You have to come up with your own."
Further down the line, people were starting to get launched into the forest, some flailing and others calm.
"What exactly is a landing strategy?" he asked. Ozpin looked at him and sipped his tea silently. Harry could see an amused glint in his eye.
"Hey kid, what's your name?" Harry asked him.
The boy looked at him like he was crazy. "I'm Jaune Arc. Ahhhhh!" he got launched with a scream to join the rest of the students.
Harry looked at the two teachers. The male in particular. "You're an ass, you know that right?" then the panel underneath his foot activated and the teen was off flying through the air.
Oz finished off the rest of his beverage and was about to leave when he heard. "So, Sir. Tell me, why was I not told about what happened in Black Forest?"
Ozpin nervously laughed and was about to run when the ground around him jetted up, trapping him in a square of earth. The only sounds that could be heard from the capsule of dirt was the pitiful sound of Ozpin's whimpers.
(A/N: and that is the end to a new chapter. Not much too this one. It was more exposition than anything. I need to get the background out of the way. Next chapter will have a lot more action in it.
The next chapter will have Harry meet the rest of the cast and get to know them.
Onto pairings. I am leaning towards a Harry/Blake or Harry/Yang pairing but I think I may go towards the former or maybe I will go with both of them. who knows? The other pairing will be Ozpin/Goodwitch (they are perfect for each other) Ruby/Weiss (yes yuri pairing. If you don't like it then sorry to hear it. I find the two of them together, adorable.) Nora/Ren and Pyrrha/Jaune.
Edit: I have decided the pairing for Harry, so their will be no poll. I will not announce it because where is the fun. the decision was made a week ago when I wrote the chapter. Sorry for the confusion.
Thank you to MutantRancor for some spelling and grammer corrections.
Thank you so much for reading. This is Dawnriser signing out.)