Greetings once again fellow readers, it is I Farouk with another exciting chapter for Dancing in the Garden….. Alright that sounded as dumb as I thought it would, I honestly don't have much to say at the moment. Now then, lets answer some reviewers questions.

Protector of Toaster: As I already told you the plan is for no Ad Mech, however that doesn't mean I won't have a few mad scientists around.

Guest(chapter 7): No beastmen, we have the White Fang for that. As for Vampire Coast… who the hell am I kidding, I'll find a spot for them. The Tribes will be filled out next chapter.

Dragonborne 5: Ask and ye shall receive… Next chapter

Chap 7: Honor is Everything!

Team KAAS' Dorm

Ilia had woken up covered in sweat, it was honestly a miracle she hadn't screamed. After looking around to remind herself where in Remnant she was, she looked at her new scroll(seriously what is the budget for this school?), and saw that she had a message from Korrigan from about thirteen minutes ago.

Korrigan: Hey y'all! Ruby and her sister invited me to lunch, do you want anything? P.S. Ozpin gave us the day off(essentially)!"

While the message was confusing, until Ilia looked up at the clock, she didn't think she could ever eat anything again. After stuffing herself before going to sleep last night(being hunted down by psychopaths tends to make you hungry), this was soon disproven by her very loud stomach. It was so loud it woke up the only other female in the room "I didn't take those library books I swear!" Alzirqa yelled, before coming to her senses and seeing that she wasn't alone. "Oh it's you." she said to Ilia, "Did that noise wake you up to?"

Trying to hide her embarrassment, Ilia nodded her head, "Yeah, it did." There was an awkward silence before the chameleon faunus cleared her throat "I don't think we properly introduced ourselves yesterday, My name is Ilia Amitola." Alzirqa thought about if for a minute before shrugging "Alshuelat Alzirqa. A pleasure to meet you." She then pointed to Septis' bunk "The walking health hazard is Septis "The Harvester", but I doubt we'll get his last name." She then pointed towards Korrigan's, slightly sunk in, bed "The big guy's is Korrigan de Fonce. In case you forgot about yesterday's battle he likes to play with dead things." This caused both girls to shiver at the memory of the zombies tearing into the flesh of the one marauder. Finally Alzirqa pointed to her brother "and this is my older brother, Alshuelat Ifrit." When Ilia saw that Alzirqa was pointing at the suit of armour that had been following her around yesterday, she became confused. "Why are you pointing at the suit of armour?" she asked "Is your brother in the shower or wandering around the school?".

Alzirqa's expression darkened "Forget it." she muttered, before she turned around and began to clean up her desk from the night before. The tension and silence in the room became so thick, one could have cut through it with a knife. Suddenly there came a sound of something scratching at the window. Said window was then shattered by a swarm of flies! Their wings filling the room with an oppressive droning as they flew towards Septis, flying directly into his mouth(much to the disgust of the other two members of the team present). The plagued boy suddenly awoke with a gasp, his one eye whirling about in it's socket. He noticed he had an audience "How are you all?" Ilia was the first to snap out of her daze "How are we?! You just had a swarm of flies….fly into you and you ask how we're doing?!" she yelled. Septis looked confuse for second, and then said "Well, yes."

Before anyone else could say anything, Korrigan came into the room, he looked angry beyond mortal understanding. He saw Septis and simply said "You're awake."

"I'm awake."

"Where did you go?"

"Around, checked up on some things."

"...Well alright den." and with that Korrigan collapsed onto his already heavily damaged bed, and stared at the ceiling. Clearly something was bothering the rather large gator, but no one had the courage to ask what. That is until Alzirqa spoke "How'd lunch go?" This caused Korrigan to launch into a tirade of cursing, first in Quor-gar, then in Nekeharan, then in sylvanian, then in one language everyone but Septis didn't understand, then finally he reached english "I don't care if you was on fire Rouge! I wouldn't piss on your robe to put it out!" The three other people in the room were left speechless. Septi was the first one to ask a question "I take it that team RWBY has done something to piss you off?" Korrigan nodded "Dey asked me if I ate human, den dey bout the cost, and den dey had de so called "decency' to look at me wit pity."

Ilia looked like she was about to ask about the so called "cost", but when she saw the looks on her two teammates she decided not to. Said teammates had looks of pure disgust at the mention of pity, why shouldn't they? It is their choice to devote themselves to their deities, their choice to risk everything for the vast powers offered to the worshippers of The True Brothers, The Undying King, The Great Gator, The Twin Headed Gods and their Menagerie , or even The Desert Pantheon. They all demanded a price and most were willing to pay. The three worshippers were quiet for a moment, before Ilia asked "So~ what are you guys going to do?" Septis immediately answered "I say we go over to their room and demand an honorable duel to the death, losing side makes amends." Alzirqa snorted "We aren't out in the Grimmlands. They don't allow duels to the death here." The diseased knight looked displeased by this, and turned towards Ilia "Is that true?" she nodded her head "Damn." It was at that moment that Korrigan spoke "However, honor duels are allowed, and I checked our schedule, and our first class tomorrow is Combat Studies," At this the rest of team KAAS looked up towards the bokor "Now I don't know bout y'all," he drawled, "but dat sounds like a fine place to settle some grudges."

The Next Day: Combat Studies

To say that the atmosphere in class was thick with strife would have been the understatement of the century, perhaps even of the millenia. The main source of said strife came from two teams: JNPR and RWBY. Of the eight teens, two in particular looked extremely downcast, but for entirely different reasons. Ruby was down because of the look she had received from Korrigan after he had told them about how he and all those like him were able to perform "magic". When she heard about what he was doing to himself on a regular basis she couldn't help but feel something. This was apparently the wrong thing to do and now she had probably lost one of her few friends in all of Beacon.

Yang on the other hand, was depressed because her sister was depressed. She knew that, despite all of the books and movies, painting the warriors of chaos, the necromancers and the tribes of destruction were very much a force to be reckoned with. She had been old enough to see when her father and uncle had come home from stopping one of the WAAAGHS! They had been covered in bruises and broken bones. She couldn't trust them, not with her sister, even if it meant that Ruby would lose some of her new friends.

Before anyone could say a word, team KAAS walked into the classroom. First into the room was Septis, the only thing left of his usual clothes was his gas mask and tank, exposing the whole class to the ragged wound which was his eye socket. The bony growths of his back had ripped both the shirt and suit of the school uniform, and from them a pale green smoke emerged. Next came Alzirqa, her eyes glowing a pale blue. She was followed by her "brother" who bore twin khopeshes in his hands, both weapons vibrating. Then came Ilia, who seemed to be shy, nervous even at all the eyes following her. She took a moment to look at Blake, whose face was filled with worry, and smiled; they would talk soon, but for now they could wait. Finally Korrigan walked in, quiet as the grave. He looked towards Ruby and Jaune and gave each a nod of respect.

Five minutes later, Pr. Goodwitch came in and gave a basic introduction to the course, as well as explaining how sparring sessions would be regulated (much to the displeasure of one or two people. It was til aura drop, not first blood). Finally she asked for volunteers, and Korrigan' hand was the first one up. "Ah Mr. De Fonce," she said "and who would you like to be your opponent?" Korrigan answered almost immediately "Ruby Rose." his voice dropping to a growl.

A few minutes later

'Oh what do I do what do I do?' the red reaper thought to herself as she entered the ring, 'If I don't fight to the best of my abilities my team grade might suffer and everyone will laugh at me, but if I go all out Korrigan might cast magic and cause himself even more pain!' Korrigan meanwhile was just standing there, Soul Catcher in hand, and a cold dead look in his eyes. "Fighters ready?" asked, receiving nods from both students, she then rung the starting bell.

Play song: Bloodrocuted by DethKlok

Immediately Korrigan went on the offensive, priming his harpoon while at the same time calling upon the spirits of the dead. Ruby meanwhile, had decided to use a strategy of hit and run, using a mixture of fire and lighting dust in order to quickly drain Korrigans aura to quickly end the fight. Korrigan noticed this and decided to put a stop to it, firing his harpoon at the wall behind Ruby he turned on the winch, using it as a quick means to close the gap. The red reaper let out a quick "eep!" as the colossal gator came barreling at her, and quickly used her semblance to dash away! Turning to face her opponent, Ruby saw that Korrigan had a wicked smile on his face and was running his harpoon's jagged tip on the palm of his hand, creating a deep gash spilling crimson onto the floor. When Ruby turned around to try to fire on him he spat out a few words and bolts of magic arced after her! They did little damage individually, but combined the bolts brought down her aura by ten percent! She began to run to the side, switching her weapon into its sniper form, this time she managed to hit Korrigan while he was reloading his harpoon. He just grinned and continued to attach a new harpoon to Soul Catcher's winch.

In The Bleachers

Yang watched the ongoing spar with a mixture of fear and pride for her sister, that is until Korrigan stopped moving and decided to cut himself. "What's he doing?" she hissed, low enough for only those close to her to hear, but they all knew who she was talking to. "Why isn't it obvious?" Septis answered with a question, a cruel grin on his face "Korrigan' simply settling a matter of honor." This had teams RWBY and JNPR looking like fish out of water, that is to say confused. Sighing, Septis went into more detail "After someone( everybody looked at Yang) decided to scare their teammates with the fact that Korrigan has eaten a bitumen, you all decided to ask him why he did. When you found out, one of you seemed to take pity on him." The harvester then turned to face each and last member "And that is an insult one should never suffer."

In The Arena

Ruby knew that her plan was failing, epicly it seemed. Despite her best efforts she had only managed to Use Crescent Rose' sniper form take pot shots at Korrigan, who seemed to be muttering something under his breath. the gash on his palm still bleeding, along with scores of other cuts he had inflicted upon himself as he had unleashed even more violent spells and curses; he had thrown skulls made of flames, summoned spectral hands to grasp her feet, and at one point had animated two little alligator skeletons that snapped at her. All the while his blood . 'Why are they still bleeding?' she asked herself, aura was supposed to heal most minor wounds completely, and even partially fix major ones like broken bones if it was allowed….. Suddenly an idea came to her that was horrifying 'He's allowing himself to bleed like that' but why? What could he possibly gain from it? Suddenly he looked directly at her, his eyes glowing with the power. "Do you still pity me?" he asked, Ruby was confused for a moment, "why do you think I-" before she could finish her sentence an eerie greenish yellow fog began to cover the floor, "bout damn time" Korrigan muttered.

The fog began to coalesce, forming a roughly four foot cloud. This cloud began to writhe and contort, forming a pair of arms, this was followed by the long fang filled skull of a gator, opening and closing as if it was trying to eat the very air around it. Once it was formed the spirit looked towards Korrigan' bloody palm, an intense hunger in it's eyes "Oh you'll get your payment," the bokor said, "But first get her!" he pointed at Ruby and the spirit flew at her! Once again Ruby found herself on the defensive, her bullets did nothing against the ghost(obviously), the two raced around the edge of the ring until Ruby dashed into the center, deciding to focus on Korrigan instead. Scythe met spear with a clash as the two collided, Ruby's speed granting her enough momentum to push Korrigan back. As the two stood locked together Korrigan whispered "Answer de question: Do you still pity me?" the red reaper looked into the glowing eyes of her opponent, and responded in as confidently as she could "No, I was confused, scared, and a little bit worried because you're my friend and you said you were hurting yourself, but I do not pity you." Korrigan stared into her silver eyes, looking for a hint of dishonesty and found none. He suddenly broke out into a smile "merci petite rouge, most people wouldn't have apologized." he suddenly broke away from her throwing Ruby off balance "However, I win." with that sentence Korrigan tossed an aura infused lightning dust crystal at Ruby's feet, which she now realized were in a puddle of his blood. 'Oh shoot' was the only thing that went through her head as the dust made contact with the blood, pain flew through her body as her nerves were fried. The last thing she heard before blacking out were the buzzer ringing and Yang calling her name.

The next thing Ruby knew she was staring at a white ceiling, groaning she looked around and saw that the only other person in the room was Korrigan, who had an iv drip connected to some blood packets running through his arm. "Heeeeeyyy" she said, unsure of what to say after their spar. "Hello Ruby, glad to see you're awake." Korrigan answered, who had seemingly pulled a 180 in the time she had been unconscious. "Glad...to be awake," she admitted then asked "how long have I be-"

"About ten minutes." Korrigan answered, " I tried to leave, figured you didn't wanna see de guy who bloodrocuted ya. But den I felt a bit woozy from de blood and they put a damn tube in me." he waved his arm around to prove it, getting an awkward chuckle for it. "No,no, it's fine but," Ruby paused "What's with the pity thing? I know it's not something people want to feel all the time but why did you get so mad?" Korrigan had the decency to look ashamed and embarrassed "Honestly it wasn't when y'all found out I've eaten human, truth be told I feel the round some purses and human is the second worse meat I've ever eaten, it was when I mentioned I used necromancy in Kossk name." Kossk, the name was unfamiliar to Ruby "Who's that?" Korrigan looked like he'd been slapped "*Sighs* zactly, most people here de word "Necromancy" dey fink of Nagash, "The Undying King" pah! He wasn't de first god of de dead, just de most powerful." He suddenly grew very quiet "He was just de one who was willing to test de limits of "immortality."" This concerned Ruby "Wait are you saying that this Nagash guy killed a g-" The door to the office suddenly flew open, and in came Pr. Goodwitch, with a knocked out Yang and an armless Septis behind her "Hey Korrigan!" the boy yelled, sounding very happy despite being armless "How good are ya with a needle and thread?"

Done, man this took way~ longer than I both expected and wanted, but that's what happens when your grades plummet down into the C's. as promised I'll go into the tribes and organization of them next time, til then may the dice gods be courteous.