Chapter Three: Motion.
Graue Wolke- Beacon: Dining Hall – 01:15 PM
After the initial excitement of the day, the first lesson turned out to be the most boring thing I have had to sit through in a long time, an arduous experience where the professor droned on about his adventures, adding a more than subtle layer of hyperbole to spice up an otherwise dull tale. It didn't work.
His class was but one of three I have just experienced, one involved mixing some less than savoury chemicals together to create a miserable smelling concoction, which the professor, Dr. Mustard was a kind enough man, however he was covered in blisters and red marks from his experiments.
But it was my third lesson, The History of Remnant, which (to my immense surprise) was the most strange of the three I have experienced. It is taught by an odd, quirky basil haired man, whose strong penchant for coffee seems to have driven him into overdrive. With the speeds he was reaching going around the classroom, there was not a chance that Doctor Oobleck drank any normal type of coffee.
It was only around the time when lunch is served that I finally had time to process the goings on of the school, it seems that lunches were complimentary of the school, which I'm sure is one of the many benefits students of a government funded Hunter's Academy can enjoy. The meals on offer were not what I was used to, these were actual meals, with flavour- something I could no longer stomach after my time... absent. Therefore, when it was my turn to receive my meal, the cooks weren't all too happy with my request.
"Do you have any porridge?" Little did I know that these five words caused calamity in the kitchen and that's how after five minutes of waiting, I received a bowl of steaming porridge and a valiant promise of future porridge. Only after that disaster had ceased could I move on to another problem, where to sit. Frankly, I had no idea; that was until I heard someone stood next to me speak.
"Need somewhere to sit? Come sit with me and my team." This came from a boy of similar age to myself, with cropped blond hair and dark blue eyes, after accepting we made our way to his table and as we reached the table he continued.
"The name's Jaune Arc and this is my team." He presented them all to me with a wave of his hand and settled down and offered the seat next to him for me.
"Hey Porridge Boy... can I have your desert?" This came from a orange haired girl with vibrant blue eyes, which glinted with something edging on madness. Not really wanting a desert anyway, I handed it over, but I had to ask.
"Is this a robbery?" I smirked with an eyebrow raised, these people I'm meeting there seems to be a fifty-fifty ratio on them being fairly normal to bizarre.
"I'm afraid we're not all that exciting, that's just Nora." Sighed a black haired boy, with a magenta stripe standing out.
"My name is Lie Ren, though everyone just seems to call me Ren." He spoke softly as he held out his hand, after a couple of seconds I took it; I've learnt that shaking hands is a great way to lose focus, as it's a sign of absolute trust.
The last member of the team was silent, perhaps because she knew she needed no introduction, the auburn regality of Pyrrha Nikos was unmistakable, even from a person with my predicament, I merely nodded at her in silent recognition, which she returned with a slightly sad smile.
"Quite the motley crew you have acquired Jaune Arc, though I must say everyone in this school is slightly mad!" I hid the real feeling of exasperation in my harmless jest.
"Yep this is a strange team, but Team JNPR is not mine, not alone anyway," He waves to his team again who smile.
"This team has been a joint effort, for my teammates and me. I can't begin to tell you how much these people have helped me progress, from what I was."
"Which was?"
"Nothing." Nothing? That makes no sense, nothing can't get you into a prestigious combat school. I had to ask.
"What do you mean by nothing?" Was there something I'm not getting, but the troubled look on Jaune's face implies otherwise. However, before he can start up again Pyrrha interrupts.
"Enough about that, what's your story Graue? You are the talk of the year." She's trying to hide something from me, something about Jaune Arc, but I like Jaune so perhaps it would be pertinent to do more... private investigation.
"Me? I'm a drifter; I've been on the move for over two years now and I somehow ended up here." I replied to Pyrrha with the truth, just not the full story.
"I wonder why the headmaster let you in, he must have a reason." Pyrrha spoke interrogatively.
"Well, that's something we're both looking forward to finding out." I spoke with a smirk, she was right though, I don't have the answers she wants and in fact I want to know them more than she ever will.
"Well one thing is for certain, you'll definitely bring something new to practice." Pyrrha finished off and went back to eating her lunch.
"That's actually a good point, do we have combat practice today?" I asked with a small scowl; needed to know, Ozpin gave me a timetable on my rented Scroll, however he seems to be hiding the lessons and unlocking them periodically to give me an element of surprise which was most unpleasant.
"We do indeed, do you not like fighting?" Chirped a now rather subdued Nora after attaining my desert.
"We have it last, after Survival Practice, oh it's so much fun!" She didn't give me any chance to reply to her not-so rhetorical question.
"Fun for you at least..." Muttered Jaune under his breath beside me, he looked sullen and downtrodden even though being rather happy whilst talking about his team, it seems talking about practice gets him in this position. He notices my concerned look and puts on a smile and waves me off. At least I'm not the only one that despises combat practice, although it's highly unlikely for a similar reason to my own.
After that, a relaxing period of nonchalant inane chatter ensued and I truly believed I had found the first people in this school who I could relax around. They weren't friends though, friends get you killed.
The bell rings.
Graue Wolke- Beacon: Survival Arena – 01:50 PM
The class arranged themselves outside the imposingly named 'Survival Arena' and were chatting casually. The Survival Arena sounds all too familiar. The class was told to change before the lesson began and so we all turned up in our regular wear. I personally was merely dressed in a simple black t-shirt and jeans.
"Come in!" Boomed a deep, but clearly female voice from the other side of the door and the students spearheading the group sighed and moved in first. I was among the last to make my way inside and what I saw was a surprising sight for a school building: it was as if I had walked into a forest, it was a very wide area, with various trees and plants scattered around, gnarled roots coming up from the ground; it felt all too false, I've been fighting in places like this for years.
The most astonishing sight was the teacher: a small (very small) but stocky and well-built woman of middle age. She was the strangest character I have seen yet, with her indigo hair tied into a bun behind her head, a scowl plastered on her face as she peered down at us... from a six-foot pedestal.
"Oh, you again." She began, the class was silent.
"I had about enough of you yesterday; young hunters are the most impetuous creatures I've ever had to deal with." Her eyes were small black beads as she stared down the entire group and whilst I obviously wasn't subject to her verbal smackdown, it was still intimidating nonetheless. That was when she stared at me and paused there and so we were locked in a war of the eyes, my time away had taught me that you couldn't look away if were being looked at, or else there would be severe punishment.
"Ah... yes you, Graue Wolke I believe." She spoke slowly, seemingly at the end of her patience. I merely nodded in response, not willing to draw her ire.
"So you are the boy that Ozpin told us about, I am Professor Kore and just know that you will get no special treatment from me, you are from this moment as worthless as the rest of these... trainees." I decided to speak up.
"May I ask: what have these students done to annoy you so?" This, as I feared, deepened her scowl.
"These students have been a pain since their first day and you will be no different, I can tell that already... to get you to understand how I run things, you can join Miss Long in her detention in two days time." With this my eyes widened, what sort of teacher puts a student in detention for nothing!
"You will work with Miss Long today also, I've heard from Mr Port that you have decent manners, do try and teach them to this animal for me." She gestured to the buxom blonde that I had judged earlier in Professor Port's class, a member of team RWBY and I had nothing else to do but make my way towards her.
"Students, your task today is simple: build a shelter that could fit the pair of you, go." With that the students ran to claim one of many piles of sticks, leaves and rocks scattered around the room, it seemed my temporary partner had already claimed one and she waved me over.
"Come on new guy we don't have all day!" She smirked and toyed with her hair as she waited for me. Once I made my way through a throng of students I was at her side, a pile of basic materials at our feet. She was wearing a tan-brown vest, along with plain black shorts.
"So how are we going to go about this?" I decided to get right on task, the blonde had other ideas.
"Not going to ask a lady her name first?" She asked with a small pout, I could only sigh at this behaviour, deciding to play along to speed matters up I asked.
"What is thy name, fair Maiden?" I asked in monotone.
"Oh Maiden, I like that! The name's Yang, Yang Xiao Long, you?" The smirk returning to her face as she replied.
"Graue Wolke."
"You one of those quiet and mysterious types? I already know enough of those, the only thing I really know about you is that you caused a commotion at lunch time, what was that about?" She was toying with me and I fell right into her trap.
"I asked for some porridge when-" I was interrupted by her laughter and as she calmed down she began to tease me.
"You had porridge for lunch? Oh you are totally being called Porridge, that's a much better name than Graue." There it goes again, another porridge joke and another porridge nickname, blinking hard and pinching my nose I changed the topic.
"Let us get on this shelter, or we will never get it finished and please don't call me Porridge." I tried to make my point, but the girl started up again.
"I'll think up something else for ya' later, but for now Porridge we must get to know each other better." As she said this she leant over slightly and winked, revealing two... points of interest that were only further pronounced by a cropped yellow top. Damn she is stunning.
"I would just love to learn more about you Miss Xiao Long, but I'm sure we can complete the task at the same time." I forced myself to focus, plenty of girls I have known have used their bodies to their advantage, sometimes in the middle of battle.
"Well aren't you fun! You're actually more formal than our resident Snowflake." Her sarcasm was blatant and cutting, but we finally began the task.
"Say Miss Xiao... Yang?" My correction elicited a chuckle from the tall blonde, but I had a hunch.
"Yes Breakfast?" That wasn't even funny.
"... Do you have any family in this school?" I looked up and I saw a proud smile.
"Only the youngest leader in the history of this school, my little sister leads our team."
"I thought so." My guess was right it seems, realted to Ruby Rose.
"How'd you guess?"
"You're both as annoying as each other." I spoke, finally with a smirk of my own.
"Hey!"Of course that is not the real reason, they both had the same sort of drive and boldness which seemed to be a family trait.
This sort of back and forth banter carried on as we both struggled to create the shelter with many components having to be put on simultaneously. As I looked around the room again, I could finally appreciate the strangeness of it: different tress around the room swayed in the non-existent breeze, absent birds chirped, gnarled roots thrust themselves seemingly out of nowhere threatening to trip unwary eyes and the air smelled of nature. There were no imperfections to the room, no reason to doubt its reality, but that is why it was flawed, nothing in life is perfect. Yang herself asked a question that stopped my inspection of the room.
"So Porridge, how did you get that nasty scar of yours?" She pointed to the large scar running from my left eye to my mouth, a touchy subject delving into a past I don't want to revisit.
"Grimm." I spoke quickly, using a regular excuse, but she noticed something was off and frowned.
"No Grimm makes that cut." She was more perceptive than I had thought, but the truth was much more dreadful than some Grimm, a monster did make that scar, but it wasn't the Grimm. I stayed in silence, now stuck in thought about how I attained it and the events that followed.
"You know what? Forget I said it, sorry." She snapped me out of my recollections and as I looked at her, she gave me an apologetic smile. I decided just to change the topic.
"Say, can you bang that stick in?"
"How about I Yang that stick in... ayy?"
"..."
After the shelters completion, ours being barebones to accommodate for our tall frames and Yang's veritable mane of hair. Professor Kore moved from shelter to shelter and finally settled on ours.
"Barebones, simple... but a commendable effort Mr Wolke, as you did have Miss Long to deal with also." This earned a scowl from Yang and a small chuckle from the rest of the class.
"This seemed to work out well, you will work with Miss Long from now on and remember, your detention is in two days." She finished as the bell went off; our time in this strange place had come to an end, but the real trial begins now.
Graue Wolke- Beacon: Amphitheatre – 02:45 PM
It seems the time has come, my first session of combat practice is here and people around me are abuzz with anticipation. As we settled down into the tiered seats around the circular arena, the excitement escalated until boiling over when Glynda Goodwitch herself stepped out, at that point many people were raring to go. I looked around and spied teams RWBY and JNPR sat next to each other, seeming on friendly terms, however their leader's moods were the antithesis of one another. Jaune Arc's sullen expression with his chin on his hand was contrasting with Ruby's bouncy eagerness with a wide grin.
The session began quite tamely with Glynda iterating the rules for the session.
"As most of you know, these practice matches are under extreme supervision and are under tournament rules, once your aura reaches the red you are out, is that clear?" As she says that she makes a meaningful look at Jaune who averts his eyes and hangs his head, eliciting a chuckle across the room, a large burley boy with dark orange hair.
"What is so funny Mr. Winchester, perhaps you want to spar first today? Alright, you will spar with Miss Belladonna." With this the muscular boy gulped and silently nodded and moved off to prepare, whilst the silent Miss Belladonna let out a small sigh and also left. With this I moved towards the two teams and went to sit next to Yang where Blake was moments before, the blonde waved her approval and I sat.
"So, who is going to win this match, I'm afraid I don't know much about Beacon's students." I started; saying I knew little was an overstatement, I knew nothing. So I was not surprised when this elicited a small chuckle from Yang.
"Well Porridge you'll have to wait and see, I don't want to ruin anything for you on your first day!" I could only reply with a sigh to her coyness and settled my eyes onto the stage. After a couple of minutes, the two were both on the stage, weapons drawn. Cardin Winchester wielded a large mace, weapon of pure strength complimenting the wielder; Blake's weapon was a little more unorthodox, it being a small blade with a small handgun not unlike my own embedded into the hilt, however the strange nature of the weapon was what came along with the gun-blade, a jet black ribbon was wrapped around the weapon and her arm, meaning that the weapon could be used when swung, increasing the effective range. She also wielded the scabbard of the weapon in her left hand as a parrying tool: he was brute strength, whilst she was pure dexterity.
No words were needed as all eyes were glued to the stage.
It began all too quickly, with Cardin going in for a swift strike, swinging his mace in a wide arc as to catch her; she merely leapt back and began her own assault. She began firing off shots as she ran back towards and in one last shot, threw her weapon at the boy, propelling it at unfathomable speeds towards him; he could barely bat it away and as he recovered and as he did, Blake moved in.
Releasing a flurry of blows in a blur as she advanced on him, swinging her blade wildly in wide swift arcs as he staggered further and further back, this went on for a minute until Winchester (now backed up to the wall) went for one last desperate attempt and abandoning all personal safety he charged, jumped and brought his mace down with a roar, Blake nimbly dodged the blow, but the blast generated from the dust within the mace caught her off guard and knocked her away.
Nevertheless, as they both stood up Winchester was struggling to stand and leant on his mace slightly as if to steady him, Blake on the other hand was raring to go. One last dash towards him was all it took, with Cardin making a lazy swing of his mace which was deftly parried by Blake with her scabbard as she moved under his guard and tripped him, downing the warrior. It was then that Miss Goodwitch spoke up.
"Cardin Winchester's aura has hit the red; the winner of the fight is Blake Belladonna." She spoke deftly and quickly.
"Mr. Winchester, do try and work on your defence, as soon as you get onto the back foot you lose the fight." She spoke to Cardin scathingly as he got up, Blake didn't help him as she walked away to change. I piped up after the fight, very impressed.
"Your friend put up an impressive display, she barely got hit." Yang nodded, but seemed a little concerned.
"It was never going to end any other way, but Blake didn't do it as quickly as she could have." It seemed almost incredible to ask more of her than that performance, but there were moments in the fight where she could have done much more than what she did do: parried faster, been more aggressive and she could have fully dodged that explosion.
By the time Blake had returned a whole different type of fight had started as we had moved onto less serious analysis. Music. Yang was very vocal about her choices.
"I'm just saying The Achieve Men are clearly the best band around, they may have lost one of their lead singers, but even without Ray they are so good!" This girl just didn't get good music.
"You have it all wrong, The House of Fun are the best band, they just have better chemistry, what isn't there to get?" The House of Fun was a recently established band which hasn't yet had the commercial success of The Achieve Men, but it's quickly growing. That is when I saw Blake; she was walking over to the seats near two of us. I got her attention and offered her the seat (it was hers originally after all), but she just shakes her head and settles down and settles into a seat behind Yang.
"You okay Blakey?" Yang spoke with concern, her brow slightly furrowed; it was clear why she had these inhibitions, Blake's eyes had dark rings underneath them and she clearly hadn't been sleeping well.
"I'm fine, Yang." The ebony-haired girl huffed. Liar.
Yang too seemed suspicious and narrowed her eyes, but seemed to accept that not only was the girl a liar, but that she was stubborn enough to deny that lie until the end of time. She turned around and after a brief silence between us the conversation continued. The actual fight going on in the arena was less heated than this one right now, because it seemed that music wasn't the only thing we didn't agree on.
"You like homework!" Yang basically screeched at me, it seems she doesn't listen either, I could only sigh.
"All I'm saying is that there is something to be said for extended learning, I appreciate its purpose, that's all." I tried to stop her, but she was too far gone and so it was only after a short fit that she calmed herself down, took a few long breaths and carried on.
"The purpose of homework is to be evil Porridge." That nickname is going to get grating quickly. Little did we know the fight was over and Miss Goodwitch was going over the crowd looking for the next match, her eyes settled on us.
"Mr. Wolke, Miss Xiao Long are you quite done?" She spoke firmly and we both froze in our places.
"You both have five minutes to prepare, then you enter the arena."
Shit.
These do tend to be a slog to write, turns out creating things is much harder than stealing them... who would have guessed? I'm trying to keep many of the details from the series the same in this work, the process of looking over details does tend to take a long time.
I also have no idea how my fight-scene writing is going to feel to you guys, but guy can only do his best.