Giles followed the girls of team RWBY to the lunch room and through the lines until they were sat down at one of the tables, also at the table was another team that the girls quickly started to introduce Giles to.
"Giles this is one of the other teams JNPR. Come on guys introduce yourselves." Ruby said as they sit down.
"Hiya I'm Nora. Whats your favorite food, mines pancakes and." An excitable girl with orange red hair started with a shout of joyous energy before a quiet look from a guy with black hair and a pink streak seemed to reign her in.
"Lie Ren." He added with a little nod of his head.
"Ahh, No need to be shy Renny, We all call him Ren." Nora added.
On the other side of the table from that pair was the next two to speak up.
A girl with crimson red hair done up in a long pony tail and a brass metal band on her forehead was the next. "Pyrrha Nikos, Its a pleasure to meet you." She was quite formal.
The last one was a blond guy. "Nice to meet you, I'm Jaune, leader on JNPR." This guy just reeked of false confidence when he said leader. Poor guy.
"I'm Giles, its nice to be here at Beacon." Giles replies as he sits down and on the edge of the group next to Ruby and starts to eat his meal. Today's meal seems to be a stew made primarily of a meat called Beef and some vegetables called potatoes and carrot. Hearty and filling. Giles was so focused on enjoying the comforting warmth the meal was giving him that he missed when the group asked him a question.
That is until Ruby poked him on the shoulder to get his attention.
"Hello, Remnant to Giles? You paying attention?"
"Sorry just enjoying my stew, what did you say?"
"We were just wondering where you are from? The professor never said." Blake asked.
"Northern Atlas. From a small independent mining camp." Giles answered with his prepared lie immediately. As much as he found a new target for his hatred of NEVEC in Atlas, its the best choice for an excuse for his combination of snow survival gear and technological knack.
"What brought you all the way to Beacon?" Weiss asked.
"Don't like the Atlesian Government, and by extension their academy." Giles replied.
"Why is your weapon so simple then? Atlas is known to be on the cutting edge of technology." Ruby asked.
"So far north we didn't have access to all that tech. We mostly did with leftovers and the odd supply run. My Sword Gun was scrapped together myself with some leftover parts."
"Why not sign up to the Schnee Corporation? They ensure supply drops and security presence." Weiss asked with interest.
"My parents had absolutely no trust in Atlas and especially in the Schnee. No company should have the amount of power that they have. Their infamous exploitation of their work force and other such activities made them not an option for my family." Giles said with heat in his voice.
The reactions around the table were mixed. Shock was pretty obvious, Blake seemed to have a small grin for a second before hiding it behind a passive expression. Weiss seemed to be hurt for some reason but was otherwise stunned into silence. The others were looking between Giles and Weiss with expressions of worry and discomfort. Weiss seemed to be slowly recovering, but before she could fully recover, Yang interjected.
"Alright, Enough story time I think its time for class. Alright gang lets go." Yang stood up and started to shepherd her team out of the room.
Giles sat there watching them leave before turning to JNPR with a raised eyebrow.
"What happened?" Giles asked.
The blond boy Jaune started to answer first. "Well Weiss is a Sch!" He was cut off mid sentence by Pyrrha throwing a hand over his mouth.
"What Jaune means is that Weiss is from Atlas as well. Her family works for the Schnee and she is very happy with that." She rattled off in a near panic to avoid what would obviously be a major argument.
Giles stopped for a second and thought about it before nodding. "I guess for people that do have a good job with them my opinion would be hard to hear. I guess i will just keep it to myself from now on." Giles just shrugged and got back to his meal after that. He didn't need to make enemy's here, it was easier to keep his head down then be obvious about his differences.
Meanwhile out in the courtyard with team RWBY...
"Can you believe the gall on that gas mask wearing new guy? Its like he didn't even know who i am. How can he claim to be from Atlas and not know who I am?" Weiss ranted to her team after Yang had dragged them out of there. Ruby looked on nervously trying to figure out how to calm down the enraged heiress of the Schnee Corporation. Blake had successfully hidden her grin at the reaction Giles had coaxed from Weiss. Yang Just stood to the side watching.
"And you Yang! Why did you drag us out of there before I could give him a piece of my mind? I am well within my right to fight such.. such.. Slander!" Weiss yelled while turning on Yang.
"I figured it was a little to early for you and my little sisters new friend to get into a fight in the middle of lunch." She said with a cheeky grin and an elbow in Ruby's shoulder.
"Thanks Yang. Come on Weiss I didn't know who you were either when i met you." Ruby said trying to calm her teammate down.
"That is different. You are at least from a different kingdom. If he's really from Atlas then he should know who i am without a doubt."
"Northern Atlas he said, an independent mining camp, far from civilization. Maybe this is his first time in a Kingdom. Did you see how invested in his lunch he was? He ate like it was some sort of treat." Blake pointed out, defending the human that shared some of her own opinions of the Schnee's and Atlas.
"So he's just oblivious, thats no excuse to know about the Schnee's to the point of hating us like he does and not know who I am." Weiss retorted.
"Weiss, maybe you should wait before you get so mad at him. He said his parents were why he hated them. Maybe he just doesn't know anything from first hand experience." Ruby chipped in.
"Yeah why not turn on those high class charms of yours and show him the light?" Yang teased.
Weiss didn't even miss a beat though. "Your right! I will show him how amazing a person I can be and then tell him who i really am. That should just blow him and his opinion out of the water."
Before someone could comment on that though the bell signalling the end of lunch period rang. It was time for combat class with Glynda Goodwitch and the lunch room was already emptying out.
With their conversation put to the side Team RWBY hurried after the rest towards the arena.
With Giles at combat class...
Giles took a seat at the edge of the arena where the student duels and Glynda's lectures were held. He had already put his encounter with his fellow students aside for his excitement of seeing them in action. He wondered how they were going to train. Glynda mentioned duels but Remnant seemed too tame for training by blood sport so their must be some sort of defense mechanism or safety equipment.
Glynda had seemed quite off put by his story of his home when he had told her enough for them to craft his cover story, and even now as she stood in the center of the ring waiting for the students to gather and prepare themselves for the class, she seemed nervous when her gaze flickered over him. He decided that it was a simple difference in culture and shrugged it off as the the class finally settled down and Glynda began the lecture portion of the class.
The class was part open forum part arena. Glynda had explained to Giles that the students were already expected to be proficient in the basic and immediate level skills of a Huntsman by this point. This class was a two part class where she questioned the class on how to react to different situations a huntsman might encounter in the field. They were to submit their answers in writing and then she would tell them how a professional Huntsman should handle it, followed by taking questions from them on tweaking the approach for each of their own teams and individual fighting styles. The round-about way of teaching inspired creativity and variety in them while allowing them to gain advice from experience that was directly fed to them rather then looped around a long winded story.
The second part of the class was the duels, where the class were to be allowed to fight in the ring in order to be able to put their creative thoughts towards developing a new technique against a live opponent of presumably even skill level. The variety would teach them to be flexible in their approach. In theory at least.
After about two hours of situation running and lecturing Giles got to sit back and learn something new about this world and its Huntsman. First thing was that they were absurdly quick on their feet, even the slowest of them ran faster then Giles had ever seen anyone run in his life. Secondly the focus on creativity over doctrine had lead to the oddest weapons and fighting styles he had ever seen. This was most obvious in the first duel he watched where he actually knew the combatants.
It was a fight between Yang of team RWBY and Lie Ren from team JNPR. They were almost comically different from each other. Obvious from the second they squared off. Yang's weapons were a pair of bracers that expanded to cover most of her wrists, fists and lower arm, each was loaded with what looked like shotgun shells and she had taken the stance of a boxer ready to strike out with her fists, and with a huge cocky grin on her face. She had also traded her school uniform for what Giles assumed were her causal clothes. Honestly Giles was not sure where to look at her. The jacket she wore accented her large bust and left her stomach exposed and she wore a skirt on the back of a pair of shorts that left her legs exposed as well until they ended in calf high boots.
Ren, as Nora called him, had a pair of small pistols with what was effectively a pair of bayonets hanging from the short barrels in a way that protected his hands from melee swings. He held himself in a loose stance, ready to move in any direction rather then just straight ahead. His face was set in a serious focused grimace. Ren had also changed into a green shirt with a bit of pink at the end of his sleeves and some white pants.
Glynda gave a short bark of "Begin." and the two were off like a shot. Yang rocketed forward as fast as her legs could carry her, which was again almost ludicrously fast, at Ren who rocketed backwards firing his twin pistols on full auto at Yang. She dodged between the shots by jumping back and forth, always closing the distance between them. Giles figured that they must have some sort of personal shield technology because a good few of those bullets had hit Yang without her slowing down in the slightest.
The battle quickly devolved into a game of keep away as Ren did his level best to stay out of Yangs swings while wearing down her shield with a constant barrage of bullets. Suddenly though with an excited yell Yang threw her arms behind her and fired her Gauntlets, they fired some sort of explosive rounds and the explosion thrust her forward at a much higher speed then she had been lunging before.
Ren didn't even seem surprised by the move though, he calmly waited until she approached and side stepped the first swing, ducked the second and swiped out with his bladed pistols in quick succession. Yang blocked most of the swings with her Gauntlets and threw her punches out in an attempt to catch her agile opponent, each swing punctuated with the discharge of her explosive shells. The room shook with the constant and wasteful use of explosives as Yang swung like a berserker. Giles noticed that on the wall was a board with the two combatants pictures and a round gauge, he figured that this was the power in the shields that the two were using. Yangs was slowly being decreased by the bullets and slashes that she was taking. Ren on the other hand was mostly full still.
The battle on the ground took a sudden turn however when Yang finally connected one of her swings, the explosion of the shell along with the force of her berserk strength sent Ren flying across the arena, along with wholly 30 percent of his shield capacity. He recovered quickly, turning his tumble into a graceful landing before he hit the wall. He started to return fire as soon as he was on his feet, Yang stood her ground and started to pepper his area with explosive shots, throwing up dust and debris and lowering Rens shield more with the glancing hits from the shrapnel.
After a while of Yang trading blows with Ren, who kept dodging the explosions, Yang exploded forward again and this time she caught Ren mid air after one of his dodges. This time she blasted him into the wall with a large explosion of force and their was a loud buzzer sound as Glynda ended the match. The shields were at about 45 percent for Yang and 25 percent for Ren. Which was enough that the match was called in Yangs favor.
Giles had barely been able to keep up with this exchange though. Though his harmonizer kept him relative to the Huntsman in strength, from what he could tell, their speed was crazy. The speed of their movements was ludicrous and obviously super human.
It was time to leave for Giles shortly after that match, Combat class was cut short for him so he could go work with Ferrus, weather it was on learning about Remnant technology or starting work on his own projects for the deal with Ozpin. So Giles stood up and started to make his way out of the class to go to the workshop. Before he made it out of the room though a voice called out to him.
"Giles, where are you going? Class is not over yet." It was Ruby.
"It is for me, the class is shortened for me so i can go study and practice in the workshop with Ferrus." He replied.
"Oh that's really cool! Um about what happened at lunch."
"Oh Pyrrha explained to me that Weiss's family works for the Schnee and are treated quite well, so i decided to just not bring it up anymore. No need to make an enemy where their is no need to one. Oh can you apologize for me? Just tell her I didn't mean to upset her and if she will drop it, i will too."
Ruby looked confused for a second before realizing that Pyrrha had just tried to stop anymore fights, just like Yang had done. She nodded before giving Giles a thumbs up.
"Alright, thanks, see you later. We will have to talk about upgrading my weapons later." Giles said as he left the room. He figured that someone must have forgotten to mention something to him about what makes these Huntsman so special.
So my month long or so absence is brought to you by, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Stellaris: Console edition and Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock. I apologize for that but as i said earlier, I write when my games no longer relax me and Deadlock and Stellaris are pretty relaxing honestly. I also started to write the chapter and didn't like my first way of doing it, i was going to have a fight with Weiss off the bat, but i decided to wait and see how long i could stretch them being friendly before Giles finds out the truth. Pyrrha seemed to be a good way to avoid Giles finding out the truth from her team. Also as for Yang avoiding the fight... well I explained my reason flimsy as it is it seemed, the best choice to me.
