Chapter 5: The First Day
(Indigo's POV)
Indigo woke up with a smile on his face, he was the only one. As the blue haired team leader swung his legs out of bed stood and stretched, his teammates came wake with varying degrees of hostility, Diana looked like she'd immolate the first person to talk to her, her ratty sleep clothes, which Indigo realized for the first time consisted of an oversized gray shirt and hopefully, though he thankfully couldn't see for himself without a minimum effort he had no intention of ever making, underwear. Considering she'd be spending the next four years sleeping in the same room as three guys Indigo thought that the fact that she either hadn't thought about that fact or simply didn't care told quite a bit about her personality, the fact that her bed was messier than any of the guys' and that she didn't care in the least that she had drool on her left cheek and her hair was a disaster told him something else about her as she threw open the dorm's single closet and retrieved the lone female school uniform, which she then carried into the dorm's bathroom and slammed the door behind her, a few seconds later the shower started. Noctus just growled at Indigo and Obsidian, blinked bleary green eyes, grabbed a school uniform and walked out of the dorm.
Thirty minutes later Team INGO was showered, dressed, and heading to the dining hall for breakfast. Noctus had gone to the men's showers one floor down from their dorm earlier. Indigo saw him with a steaming mug of something Indigo assumed was coffee leaning against a tree in the courtyard, a faraway look in his eyes. The blue haired sniper separated from his team and sat alone with his plate of potatoes, eggs, sausages, and bacon.
Indigo walked into his Grimm Studies class behind his Team. Obsidian was leading the group in and his steps were jerky and eager as if he was experiencing a massive adrenaline rush just by entering the classroom. He, and everyone else in the class, were instantly disappointed in Professor Port, a fat elderly man in a maroon waistcoat and a glorious mustache that covered his entire mouth.
"Monsters! Deeemons! Prowlers of the Night!" Professor Port's booming voice echoed around the class with more theatrics behind them than even Indigo thought were strictly necessary. "Yes the Creatures of Grimm have many names! But I simply refer to them as prey!" The portly professor paused briefly, as if expecting the class to laugh at his poor attempt at humor, nobody did and he cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"Huntsmen! Huntresses!" He winked at Yang who was in the front row, and who let out an uncomfortable, creeped out laugh. Indigo himself rolled his eyes and tossed a crumpled piece of paper onto her desk as Port turned away to continue his speech, but Indigo had stopped listening, Yang opened the paper and snorted in laughter, it was a quick drawing of Yank standing next to a pile of ashes entitled "The Yang solution to creepy old men." In order to train his observational skills Indigo had taken up sketching things and the picture was a good one, for a rush job. The blonde brawler flashed him a conspiratorial smile over her shoulder, Indigo grinned back at her. The blue haired sniper figured that out of the friends he'd met since his arrival at Beacon Yang would be the most fun to be around. Unlike most guys who wanted to spend time with the fiery girl there was no attraction behind his interest. He was aware that she was gorgeous, it simply didn't matter to him, he just liked her sense of humor, and felt they would get along well.
Indigo turned his attention to the member of Team RWBY who was most definitely not in the friendzone, especially since they didn't even have the beginnings of a friendship. Weiss Schnee was currently grinding her perfect teeth in frustration at the antics of her leader, who was balancing a book and an apple on a pencil with one finger. It was an impressive feat, but the white haired heiress' steadily rising blood pressure was even more fun to watch. Ruby's head dropped to her desk and she began to snore audibly as Indigo blinked in surprize at her sudden about-face in behavior, Weiss just looked more annoyed, and Yang and Blake, seated on the other side of Ruby from Weiss, ignored the partners, when Ruby straightened and began picking her nose Weiss' face went from frustrated to murderous. Indigo tossed her a crumpled paper that bounced off of her forehead and onto her desk. Momentarily distracted, Weiss shot Indigo a glare, to which he responded with a grin, the white haired heiress opened the paper and goggled at the picture within, a perfect pencil sketch of Indigo's view of Jaune from the initiation, hanging from the stinger of the Deathstalker, he'd added a "hang in there!' under the sketch. Weiss' rage was broken up by sheer confusion and she looked back at him, he smiled and shrugged, Weiss rolled her eyes and turned back to the front of the class, the corner of her mouth quirked up a fraction of an inch, mission accomplished, explosion averted, but that kind of distraction tactic would only work once.
Obsidian's hand shot into the air, obviously in response to something the Professor had said. Since Indigo hadn't been paying the slightest attention to Port's ramblings other than to determine that he'd spent most of the class telling a long-winded story that had very little to do with the subject matter of the class, he was baffled as to what Obsidian seemed to be volunteering for, until he saw the covered cage Professor Port had dragged into the classroom, then it became clear, the class was about to be treated to a practical demonstration of Grimm fighting, and Obsidian, being who he was, had leapt at the chance.
Ten minutes later Obsidian Thanos stood in front of the class dressed in his combat clothes, red and black camo patterned cargo pants, combat boots, and a black tank top, his swords were sheathed. the long blade, called Phobos, hung down his back, and the short blade, Deimos, dangled from his belt, Professor Port had a covered cage standing next to him that rattled and shook. Obsidian was eyeing the cage with a hungry expression, his bicolored eyes burned with vicious hatred of the creature in the cage and his mouth twisted in a cruel sneer, Indigo watched as his Teammate's body tensed in anticipation, the blue haired sniper watched the Grimm hating swordsman draw his black bladed bastard sword and hold the blade across his body, as Port lifted his ax to slash the lock off of his newly uncovered cage.
"Let the match..." The elderly Huntsman began.
(Obsidian's POV)
"...Begin!" Obsidian barely registered the old man's voice, his attention was wholly on the darkened cage, a box really, not a proper cage, but he didn't really care about the distinction. He felt the wild joy of the hunt, a thrill of eagerness at the prospect of killing whatever beast was about to come crashing out of the box. In order to draw out the experience Obsidian drew only one of his swords, Phobos, and held the three and a half foot sword in both hands, ready to face his opponent. Professor Port slashed the lock off of the box. Obsidian's grin widened as a Boarbatusk charged full tilt out at him. The obsessive swordsman launched himself upwards off of a clone, opened his sword, and fired three shots at the boar monster's armored back, the shots just annoyed the creature but that was what he'd been aiming for, Phobos snapped closed as Obsidian landed and both combatants turned to face each other, the monster's four orange eyes burned with hatred, Obsidian's orange and silver gaze was just as filled with all consuming hatred. The boar demon charged, and the Huntsman met that charge with a heavy swing of his blade, the edge of the black bastard sword couldn't penetrate the armor plates and thick hide, but the force of the blow knocked the creature off course, then, as the Boarbatusk rushed past him, Obsidian opened Phobos' blade and fired four more shots at the Boarbatusk's back legs, the nine millimetre Dust rounds shattered the delicate bones just above the creature's hooves, the Boarbatusk began thrashing around in a panic, it's opponent walked forward casually, enjoying the sight of the monster squealing and squirming in fear, as he approached the beast he activated his aura, black energy threaded with lines of orange and silver surrounded the young man and absorbed a hit from the lamed monster's tusks before Obsidian kicked it onto it's back, thrust Phobos into the creature's guts, opened the blade, and unloaded the remaining bullets in Phobos' cylinder into the dying monster's torso, red suffused Obsidian's vision as he ripped the blade out of the dead creature's shredded innards, snapped it closed, and with a single vicious slash, removed the monster's head.
(Ruby's POV)
Ruby was shocked, the amount of brutality shown by Obsidian at the end of his fight was unnerving. And this guy is one of Indigo's teammates? Ruby couldn't see it, Ruby and Jaune had both ended up with great teams, Weiss' grumpiness notwithstanding, but all three of Indigo's teammates scared Ruby, they all looked like they wanted to attack anyone who approached them, the only reason Ruby would ever want to spend time near Team INGO was their leader, at least Indigo was still his usual friendly self. Professor Port announced the end of class, and Ruby turned to see Weiss stalking off with a piece of paper clenched in her hand, a minute later Indigo went after her, tossing a wink at Ruby as he exited the classroom.
(Indigo's POV)
"Weiss! Wait up!" Indigo called after the heiress, who stopped and turned to face the approaching boy.
"What is it Aesir? I swear, if you've come to mock me then you will regret it!" The white haired girl snapped, a white Glyph formed in her palm and she cocked her arm back like she was about to throw it.
Indigo skidded to a stop and held his hands up in surrender. "Stop! Don't shoot! I'm just a concerned citizen! I ain't meant no harm to nobody." Weiss growled and threw the glyph, which expanded as it left her hand, Indigo ducked and twisted to the left, then he dashed under the Glyph, spun low and swept the Schnee heiress' legs out from under her, reacting on pure instinct Indigo lunged forward and put his forearm under her head so she wouldn't hit it on the floor. Unfortunately, this left Weiss lying on the floor with Indigo on top of her, his forearm under the back of her head, their faces inches apart, Indigo felt his face burning, the next thing the blue haired boy knew a Glyph had sprung up between them and slammed him against the ceiling.
Weiss Schnee glared up at her captive, who was still being jammed against the ceiling of the hallway. "P-P-Pervert!" She yelped, her face was so red Indigo could almost swear he saw steam rising from the top of her head, Indigo felt a surge of annoyance, but he suppressed it before it hit his face.
"I'm not a pervert." Indigo had told that to multiple women, they always assumed the worst when they learned what his Semblance did. "I was just trying to make sure your head didn't hit the stone floor."
"Yes, after tripping me! How do I know you didn't just arrange that?" Weiss demanded.
Indigo rolled his eyes and sighed. "I tripped you so that you wouldn't attack me again, so much for that plan."
Weiss' mouth twitched. "Yes, it does seem to have backfired rather badly."
"Tell me about it, so... Could you let me down? Please?"
Weiss waved her hand and the Glyph vanished, leaving Indigo to fall to the floor with a thud and a low "ow".
Indigo got to his feet slowly, his body ached from the impact, but his aura was rapidly easing the pain. "Was that strictly necessary?"
Weiss smirked. "No, but it was more fun."
Indigo rolled his dark blue eyes. "You know Snowy, you have anger issues, have you ever thought about seeing someone for that?"
Her smirk vanished. "What are you here for Aesir? Spit it out and then leave me alone."
"Alright, as Milady commands." Indigo smirked as the icy heiress snarled.
"I was being serious earlier, I actually am here because I want to help." Indigo said seriously.
Weiss scoffed. "What could an idiot like you help me with?"
"How about providing an outlet for your frustrations at not being made leader of your team? Or by explaining Ruby's behavior today? Heck, I could just draw you another dumb picture, it might help improve your mood."
"Yeah, what was this about?" Weiss waved the drawing she still held in her hand.
Indigo smiled. "I drew that from memory from Initiation, it was right before he got thrown and hit Ruby in midair."
Weiss looked confused by that. "But you were in the clearing, I saw you from the back of the Nevermore, unless that was someone else with blue hair and a sniper rifle I saw."
"No, that was me, I used my rifle's scope, and my Semblance to look through the trees and see him."
"Your Semblance?"
"It's called Phase Vision, I can see through solid objects by concentrating."
"Oh." Weiss nodded, then her ice blue eyes widened and she hugged her chest, as if trying to shield herself from his gaze, her ears turned bright red, Indigo rolled his eyes.
"No I don't use it to be a pervert, and why are you putting your arms in front of your chest? They wouldn't do anything to stop me if I did decide to abuse my power but it's pretty easy to tell when I'm using my Semblance, a pinprick of blue light appears in the center of both my pupils. Besides, peeking like that is disrespectful, and way too easy to hold any appeal to me, I prefer the challenge of actually getting into a relationship to copping out like that."
Weiss cocked her head to the side. "You don't seem like you care all that much about respect otherwise, so why this?"
Indigo snorted. "You think I don't respect you?"
"Obviously."
"Weiss, if I didn't respect you, and heck, like you I'd either ignore you, or be far worse to you than I am right now, besides, being flippant is a far cry from not respecting basic dignity, I tease you and am flippant with you because I enjoy the way you react to it, I pick on you because not only are you an easy target, but you're tough enough to take it, if you weren't then I wouldn't act the way I do around you, there are two types of people that I tend to like almost immediately, people who can take a joke, and people who present a challenge."
"I assume you've placed me in the second category."
Indigo smiled down at her. "Yup, you're a challenge alright, and that's fine, I like challenges."
Weiss' ears turned slightly pink, but she otherwise didn't acknowledge what he'd said. "You said you were here to try to help me?"
Indigo nodded. "If you'll let me, at minimum I can give you some advice about what I've figured out about leadership from my own team."
Weiss sighed. "Fine, I suppose it couldn't hurt."
"Why do you want to be a leader?"
Weiss blinked at the blunt question, but she answered without a hint of hesitation. "I believe that I can do a better job of leading the team than Ruby can."
Indigo nodded. "Alright, if you were to become leader, what would you change?"
"Ruby is so disorganized and sloppy, if I was leader I certainly wouldn't put up with how she was acting in class this morning, for example."
"If that's your reason for wanting to become the leader of team RWBY then you shouldn't be leader."
"What? That's ridiculous!"
"No it isn't. A Hunter team isn't a military squad, if things went the way you wanted you would cause unnecessary conflict within the team, Ruby's sister is on that team, and if you, in your hypothetical position as leader attempted to curb Ruby's personality with your authority in the way you are suggesting Yang would turn against you, Blake would likely support her as she doesn't seem to like you much, no one would listen to you, you would accomplish nothing."
Weiss flinched at the brutal honesty in his voice before rallying. "Ruby is nothing more than an immature child, she shouldn't be a leader."
Indigo shook his head. "You are being too hard on her, yes she's immature, hyperactive, and doesn't seem to care very much about her studies, but as far as I've seen she has the better attitude toward leadership between the two of you, you want to take the leadership position in order to enforce changes you wish to see happen, regardless of the feelings of your teammates, Ruby however wants nothing more than to help her team succeed, she wishes she could be worthy of her position, you believe that the only position worthy of you is hers, a team leader needs to put their team before their own desires, you haven't been able to do this, and that is why Ruby is the leader, and not you."
Weiss frowned. "You've been a team leader for less than a day, and you don't seem to be big on responsibility, so where did that come from?"
Indigo's cocky smirk returned, it was like it was stuck on his face, he could make his expression serious for a while, but the smirk always returned. "You jump to a lot of conclusions, I'm a leader now, I need to take it at least a little seriously, after all my team is made up of a hostilely antisocial Dust witch, a wolf Faunus who trusts no one, and, well, you saw Obsidian earlier?"
Weiss nodded.
"Well that seems to be fairly mild for him when a Grimm is concerned, he's obsessed with killing monsters for some reason... Not that I don't understand where he's coming from." The last part had been under Indigo's breath and Weiss didn't seem to react to it for which Indigo was glad, he may have liked the icy duelist, but he wasn't ready to share that much of his past with anyone at the time. He continued talking. "So you understand why I've needed to spend time thinking about leadership, Ruby has a great team, you included, so she can afford to take her position a little less seriously, though it does sound like she could use a talk about being too lax with her position, I could do it, that way she'd get the advice from someone she trusts, and it doesn't mess with your team dynamic like it would if you tried to get her to change yourself."
Weiss nodded. "That does seem like a better option than causing trouble, though i still don't understand why you're doing this."
"I told you Snowball, I like you, besides, this will help your entire team and Ruby and Yang are my friends, that Blake girl doesn't seem too bad either, so why shouldn't I help them." Indigo shrugged, though his smirk widened into a smile when Weiss went back to glaring at him for the nickname.
"Are the nicknames really necessary?" The heiress asked.
"No, but it is more fun this way." Indigo tossed Weiss' previous words back at her.
Weiss' beautiful crystal blue eyes narrowed. "Nobody likes a wiseass Aesir."
Indigo grinned widely. "Are you kidding Weiss? As long as the wiseass is talking to someone else everybody loves him."
Weiss rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation, Indigo laughed.
(Author's Note: Chapter five is finally complete, enjoy, and please review, I can't know how I'm doing unless you do)
