A/N: This chapter is going to be fluff and not much action, more of a reflection/bonding session. Oh, and to MD21 question about Desruc's usage of Newton's third law, he simply used his arm strength to push himself off the ground, much like how we can jump off the ground using our leg strength.
Desruc awoke to the sound of arguing, a distinctively female-dominant one to be sure. He knew his helmet was off, torn to useless scraps during the last scuffle with the Goliath herd. He wondered though, if he'd succeeded in saving Beacon, the general white walls of the room that surrounded him telling nothing of his current location, all of them looked to be the same. Was he even in Beacon?
Clarification came with the opening doors, allowing several individuals he knew to enter. He was certainly at Beacon Academy, if Glynda's still-flushed features were of any indication, following her was the Beacon Academy staff.
"Good afternoon Professor Desruc, I hope you had a pleasant rest?" Ozpin greeted, coming up in front of others in his usual cool manner whilst sipping his beloved coffee, "I apologize if you are unable to see anything. You see, I had to wrap your head as it was badly 'Damaged' to the point where it resembled more of one of those Goliaths footprints rather that a face.
Desruc immediately began to feel up his face up at the mention of wraps, but true to Ozpin's words, his face was completely covered. "I see… did you wrap my entire head?" It was a tentatively asked in a way that only the Headmaster could interpret. Meaning: Did anyone else see my face?
"Indeed, I used my favorite shirt first to wrap your injured head! Wouldn't want to scare the others with that terrible bruise, why it even looked like a hole in your face when I first saw it!" At this Ozpin chuckled, fully covering one very important fact with his humorous mask. Meaning: No, no one saw your lack of facial features.
Ozpin had seen his face-or lack thereof- but not the others. He had then immediately perceived it as a personal secret and protected it with his shirt and jokes. Ozpin knew, and his current grin almost radiated curiosity.
"I may not be able to 'see', but I am able to hear. I heard multiple footfalls entering this room, you came with more than Miss Goodwitch, correct?" The lie could only be heard between the two men. After all, how could they know his sight was not at all impaired by the wrappings?
He didn't even have eyes to begin with.
"Indeed, as you may-or may not- know, your heroic actions that day saved the entirety of Beacon Academy. You were the only casualty on our side, while the remaining Goliaths were either diverted or killed off." Ozpin sucked in his breath and straightened himself up with as much dignity as he could, bowing just after "On Behalf of Beacon Academy, I as Headmaster, personally thank you for saving Beacon, its Hunters and Hunters-in-training."
The other staff members followed behind their Dean, bowing and not letting up for at least a minute. Finally he straightened up, releasing the others from their formal position of gratitude.
Desruc was delighted, no one had ever thanked him before so profusely! It was almost as good as finally tearing Nashandra limb from skeletal limb.
That pawning Abyssal Spawn…
"You know I just has the distinct 'feeling' that you all bowed to me, such a shame I'm unable to witness it with these wraps impairing my vision" Desruc feigned disappointment, hiding his feverish glee " It would have certainly been such a memorable event"
"Indeed, such an excellent view of Glynda's wonderful che-" Ozpin joked, but was silenced as the Disciplinary Mistress discreetly crushed his foot under heel, all the while a blush and stoic expression fixed on her face. The Dean grit his teeth and bent over in the pain that would not cease.
"Ignore the Dean for now Professor Desruc, even if you did save Beacon, there are still students to teach and lessons to pass on" She took a moment to glance at the clipboard perpetually hugged to her chest, a lucky piece of wood indeed.
Indeed though, with little more that waist cloth and tight bandages to hide his physique, the massive Professor's immensely defined musculature could be clearly seen. As any other woman, she would have drooled a water fall… but there was Ozpin to fill that category, so she was able to resist fantasizing about those abs. "Due to your visual disability, I have taken the liberty to call-in a replacement-"
"That will not be necessary Professor Goodwich, I'm perfectly capable of teaching without my 'eyes'" He almost growled, the unsettlingly deep tone in his voice caused her to flinch back. Realizing his mistaken hostility, he continued with a gentler tone so as to not scare her again "I know you mean well despite your behavior Miss Goodwitch, but… just call off any arrangements you may have had, I can handle things myself"
Her nervous laugh that proceeded next however, was so out of character that everybody looked stunned "Err…well about that. You see she really wanted to teach…"
"Who." It wasn't a question, but a demand. Glynda regained her composure despite her dampening forehead.
"Three actually, Summer Rose has signed up as a Combat Instructor, Winter Schnee as her partner, and…Shanalotte is now to be your assistant."
"Hold on, she actually GAVE you her name?" Absolute incredulity dripped from his tone, even if his facial expression couldn't be seen, not a single person managed to hide a chuckle at the imaginary expression on a face they'd never seen before.
"…yes? I did ask for it after all, why wouldn't she?"
Desruc just sat there, a contemplative, but tense silence following the next few minutes.
The number of times he'd died, the number of souls he'd accumulated, all the times he'd seen her, the only time he'd ever known of her name was just before he'd gone to have his ass handed to him by Nashandra and the hordes of red phantom ambushers. Repeatedly.
So simply having that very woman who'd given her name out of a simple request, when he had to practically take the world's throne itself to get it, simply made her the biggest troll in his mind. "That troll…"
"Anyways she was supposed to take over, but we had an arrangement to drop her to an assistant should you recover enough to do so" Glynda explained, purposely ignoring the comment coming out of the injured staff member "Professor Shanalotte has a surprising number of supportive skills developed from her simple 'Key' semblance."
At this point Professor Port deemed it fit to interrupt with his usual bombastic voice and attitude.
"Ah the wonderful stories you'll tell to the students!" The pot-bellied professor came up, a gleeful smile on his moustache-hidden mouth "Surely not as good as mine, but one more bombastic story for the student to appreciate the might of the old Hunters!"
As he laughed, Professor Oobleck came over and whispered to the seemingly injured Professors side. It seemed the ears were covered by bandages as well.
"I noticed that you've finally unlocked your semblance during that fight" The history Professor remarked "It is a very… interesting semblance, perhaps we can discuss it over some coffee in the near future..."
"Desruc, while I am very grateful to you for saving the students, I request that such a thing does not happen again" Ozpin turned to leave, but his words traced through the air as he left. "Things would be easier if you'd asked for help rather than shouldering the burden by yourself."
With every one finished with whatever they wanted to say, Desruc nodded to the group as they said their farewells, he needed to get ready for his class in about…ten minutes. No problem, all he needed was this cozy blanket to cover himself up with and his textbook to occasionally refer to lessons from. There was no time to ponder on the Dean's words for now.
His students were more important than some measly articles of clothing anyway. Oh, he had one helluva surprise for them today!
Wrapping the blanked over his exposed lower-half as much as he could, Desruc took his book and walked off to his awaiting student. As he exited, there was a strange feeling of completeness inside of him, he felt… whole, as if something he never realized was missing now occupied that space snuggly.
Within the classroom of 'Dust Applications', every student- First-Years – were eagerly awaiting for class to start. Ruby was the first one in, one hour before class even started. Now she was snoring away quietly, drool pooling off her lips.
"Serves her right for staying up all night and skipping breakfast…" Weiss remarked coldly, but her currently entranced stare at the younger girls sleeping face diminished that cold attitude by a large degree.
"Hey, she was worrying about me! Her older sister!" Yang pouted, "I did shield her from being stomped to death by that Goliath. Take that!"
"Yang, we all know you're completely fine, and the person that really shielded Ruby was the same one that took one for you" Blake deadpanned taking her eyes off her novel-hidden within the textbook-to momentarily make eye contact with the blonde momentarily "Besides you were the only one she could both expend excess tension and adrenaline after seeing her only sibling very nearly mauled in front of her eyes. If it was P. Desruc conscious instead, you'd be forgotten half way while she goes 'fan-girl' over him. It is simply a way to relieve the trauma she suffered"
Blake then proceeded to point at Cardin, who was standing on his seat and waving his hands around, attempting to preach-and fail- to his teammates. "Like that"
"It's true, he was freaking awesome! Throwing dust-forsaken Goliath around like rag dolls! I-" As the leader of team CDRL preached to his -dozing-team members about their Professor of Dust Applications, Jaune joined in, the only person completely absorbed by Cardin's word of awesomeness of their Professor. As it stood, the Cult of Awesomeness had formed with two members in it, Ruby being a highly probable candidate to join if she ever hears of it.
"Oh Jaune…" Phyrra moaned in exasperation, looking at her team leader's enraptured expression. There was absolutely no way to pry him out of that club, not unless his interests in something else was peaked to a greater level.
Maybe she could give him a surprise make-out session? She did always find him staring at her lips whenever she spoke rather that her face…or chest. In theory its shock value could overcome the obsession in awesomeness he was in. Beside her, Ren was being assaulted by Nora's non-stop obsession with Sloths and pancakes, somehow tuning her out as he continued to multi-task in self-study, peek at Jaune's potentially new hobby, and thoughts of how the class would react to the substitute they were going to get instead of the one they wanted the most. He mentally chuckled at the expressions they would make in a few minutes or so.
Just as the digital time on the tables struck nine o'clock, the doors opened to reveal not one, but two figures. The smaller, more feminine shape of the two came in first, followed directly by the unmistakably immense frame of the Professor of Dust Applications. Everybody gawked open-mouthed at the sight, even Ren saw himself get trolled with the other students at the unusual sight.
She strolled in, her impassive visible right hazel eye finding little interest in the surroundings, the other eye was covered by chestnut-brown bangs that reached far enough to touch her chin. The hooded emerald cloak she wore was tattered, but well cared for, with countless seams indicating maintainance of outmost zeal. The hood was down, and its bottom billowed out slightly as she walked, revealing much of her outfit underneath.
She wore a sleeve-detached T- shirt emblazoned with a dark cross motif at its center, but looking lower, one could see that it was actually a two-part dress. Its inner part was cream colored, fitted in between the outer green parts of the dress. The cream colored piece did not join with its green piece, resulting it two slits on either side of the dress allowing great mobility and comfort.
On her arms and legs, she wore brown leather gauntlets and boots of fine make. Her waist had a simple belt to keep a pouch latched on and to presumably keep her dress together. A red sash wrapped itself over her waist just before her bust, its end having an ancient looking feather hanging firmly off of it.
Completing the look was an impassive face. Her gaze was steady and cool, it didn't seem to be born from arrogance or haughtiness. They were simply empty, as if holding perpetual exhaustion at all times in them.
She made her way to a small stool placed beside the main table and sat down, there was a much larger stone chair behind the table, but that was reserved to handle P. Desruc's sheer weight. Once she finished settling in, she proceeded to make eye contact with every student in the class with a face void of expression.
That look immediately caused everyone-except Ruby-to properly sit down, straight backed on their chairs with tidied desks.
As if called to break the class away from the newcomers' terrifyingly empty gaze, the classroom's much anticipated Professor entered. He was a strange sight though, with blankets covering his heavily bandaged- incredibly massive and well-toned musculature- body, on his back, he hefted a sack full of bulges, and it was a very mysterious sack.
"All right, class is starting now. Get out your text books and open to chapter three: Simple Dust Applications" He said calmly, placing the bag on the other side of his table. He took out his own book, but no one seemed to want to move. He felt he needed to give them a more severe talking, unknown to him that the cause of the class wide paralysis was sitting directly beside him "You all have five seconds to read before I assume you've read the chapter and give a pop quiz on it"
At the words 'Pop Quiz' Ruby temporarily woke up and opened her book to a random page, she then continued to snooze discretely behind the standing hard-cover book. Her sudden spontaneous and random actions seemed to be the trigger that kicked the others into motion, every one rushed to find their text books, loud thumps echoing across-
"Time's up! Now for a Pop Quiz! So put your books away and answer my questions, I will pick a student to represent their team and ask a question. If you get it right, your team passes, if not, then your team fails." His head turned to survey the class and though the students knew could not 'see' due to his bandaged face, some like Jaune still shrunk back from the invisible gaze passing. "Now my new assistant Professor… Shanalotte will be monitoring all of you to ensure that the person I picked answered by themselves."
He turned to his assistant, who simply nodded in return before passing an impassive gaze upon the class. A massive finger then sent a nuke to a quivering Jaune Arc.
"Mister Arc, If you were to ingest Red Dust, how would the consequences differ if you'd ingested Blue Dust? You have one minute"
The JNPR team leader began to sweat, he had no idea! He never even saw the book until today to begin with! What was he going to- Oh, he began to relax as he felt a poke on his leg, most likely being Phyrra passing on a note that had the answer. He definitely owed her one.
He took a quick glance at the paper.
And heard seductive tone that did not sound Phyrra's voice in his fantasies, whispering into his ear. "Naughty child…he told you you're on your own didn't he? Now put that away before… I punish you"
He froze, uncaring that his time had already ended. That voice had chilled his very bones, as well as exciting Jaune Junior to uncomfortable levels. He needed to think of happier thought, like pancakes or Phyrra's sweaty b-
This was totally not working, whoever whispered to him had somehow made him too excited. He hoped no one noticed his slightly raised pants, maybe he could hide it by leaning over his desk?
Phyrra, for her part, was utterly confused. One moment she was about to score a favor from her crush as he prepared to eat up her answer, then he had frozen up as stiff as a statue while looking incredibly uncomfortable. She also noticed that his pants seemed to bulge and his face reddened, strange. Maybe he wanted to talk about it after class…
The finger of doom selected a new target, firing away its load.
"Now, Mister Winchester, what can you tell me about the formation of Dust Subtypes?"
"Uhh, they're like, um, not the basic elements like water, fire, earth and wind?"
The target then proceeded to completely deflect the missile with a fraction of a second to spare. New target: Coco Beans.
"CDRL passes, JNPR fails" He stated aloud, before turning to CVFY "Miss…Beans?"
"Err, that's me Professor" Coco, a brown-themed girl with an over developed sense of fashion answered. She shied slightly at the incredulous looks the room was giving her. It wasn't her fault her whole family were coffee-obsessed individuals!
"…right, you question is: What can you apply Red Dust to?"
"Err… anything that need to explode?" Such a simple answer to a simple question could not possibly be right! Oh she was going to fail-!
Deflected. New target: Sun Wukong
"Correct, CVFY passes." Dumbfounded by her correct answer, Coco Beans slunk back to her chair relieved. The Professor then shifted his bandaged head to another team "Mister Wu Kong, tell me how many grams of Red Dust it takes to propel the ten millimeter, armor-piercing rounds that Miss Rose uses in her Crescent Rose?"
"Err… one kilo?" How would he know? It was that red chick's 'Sweet Heart'! She'd never let ANYONE get close to the damn thing. This was rigged to fail, he knew it was!
Target locked on. Target Eliminated.
"That was a trick question Mister Wukong, no one should know another person's weapon, and it is something that a hunter has a deep connection with. In this case, you should have went with your usual 'I don't know' answer. Your team fails." He shook his head in disappointment, recalling the last few times he'd tried to get the Faunus to pay attention to him instead of the girls in his last class "The one time I rig the question to pass you…"
"Aww man! I shouldn't have studied after all..."
Desruc then turned to an obviously snoozing Ruby Rose, however he had no desire to antagonize the numerous people that seemed to be so fond of the girl, himself included. It was a bias decision, but he was the Professor here, so he did what he had to…and what he wanted to.
Target locked: Ruby Rose.
"Now Miss Rose, since you seem to be… busy catching up on materials despite having been told to put your text book away," His tone was a mix of knowing amusement, sarcasm and disappointment, all in one "I will pick Miss Xiao Long instead. How many basic forms of dust are there?'
Target shifted. New Target: Yang Xiao Long.
"Err, ten?" She answered sheepishly
"Miss Xiao Long" He stared at her long and hard without eyes, so he only appeared to be facing her.
"Yes, Professor?"
Target locked on. Target Eliminated.
"Please at least open your book for once, it's in the very first introductory sentence" He deadpanned, flipping his own text book to the very first page as he said so. He flipped the book around for the whole class to see. "Oh, and your team fails"
Turning around to prepare for the next activity, Desruc ignored the silent chaos that the failed teams caused by venting their anger on those who were chosen, mainly: Sun, Yang and Jaune. Shanalotte passed her impassive gaze over the class as the Professor turned, silencing them with an indiscriminate look.
"She's scary" Jaune whispered to Ren, who tilted his nod in approval. It seemed fear had jolted him out of his temporary excitement. Jaune didn't know whether that was good or bad.
"Alright now class, I know we didn't get much done since this has been our second wholly undisturbed class this whole semester, but were going to make it up with these. " He took out something that consisted of a trigger, a handle, and a plate which was suspiciously cookie-sized. All this from his mysterious bag of bulges "This contraption I have here is the result of applying Red and Green Dust in a simple manner, observe"
He reached out his hand to his assistant, palm facing outwards. Shanalotte rummaged through her side pouch before handing it over into his open palm. The professor then took some time to fit the object into the launcher before showing the class what exactly he was doing.
It was indeed a cookie launcher.
"Now Miss Schnee, since you are the closest to Miss Rose, I need you to remove her text book so she can properly experience the demonstration" As much he liked to spoil the little girl, nap time was over. Ruby Rose needed to wake up, and what better way to do so than with her favorite snack?
It simply wouldn't enter her mouth as it normally would.
"B-but, Professor, Ruby is-" Weiss stuttered, she saw how peace fully the little girl was sleeping and she didn't want to take the book away for multiple reasons. Firstly they'd get in trouble if Ruby was found snoring soundly. Second, she wanted that cute face for herself.
"Miss Schnee, we both know Miss Rose isn't entirely…aware of her surroundings, so please do as the Professor asks" it was the new assistant who spoke, though her tone was soft and wispy, there was a firm undertone that brokered no argument.
"Y-yes Professor Shanalotte" Hastily, she remove the book, revealing Ruby's open-mouthed, drooling and snoozing face to the whole class.
True to their word however, neither professor reacted.
"Class, can any one of you tell me what I have here, and roughly guess how it works?" His question was responded by only one raised hand. "Yes Miss Schnee?"
"From what I can deduce, that's a cookie-launching device, using Red dust for initial propulsion followed by Green Dust for stabilization and flight."
"As expected from someone of your caliber Miss Schnee, your analysis is nearly correct, allow me to demonstrate on the point you missed due to inexperience rather than knowledge" He explained, using one hand to aim the toy-like launcher directly at Ruby. He then waited until her mouth was at its widest before triggering the device.
Nobody could see it coming, one moment they were at a standstill, the next was with Ruby sitting upright, nearly choking on her favorite snack as it flew directly into her mouth. The class was completely astonished and amused at the same time, it was quite the ironic sight. Yang however was not amused.
"Ruby! You-!" Just as her fury began to boil off at the giant, she was on the ground, clutching her throat on the terrible cookie projectile going down the wrong pipe. The two sisters were on the ground together.
"Miss Xiao Long, please do not interrupt the demonstration"
Blake soon joined the other two, her bored yawn being the end of her as she reached a particularly slow part of her novel.
"Professor, why is Blake down as well?" Weiss asked nervously, hoping to not be the latest victim of the deceptively innocent cookie launcher.
"She was reading…a different book than is required for this class, and he did ask everyone to put their books away for the pop quiz" The green robed woman explained instead. Suddenly Weiss shivered in both fear and excitement as she heard another voice whisper something into her ear seductively.
"Maybe you'd like to get a 'something'larger than that little cookie shoved down your throat as well?"
The alabaster haired girl felt her throat dry and her face heat at the double entendre, she calmly sat down and took deep breaths to remain absolutely calm. This was a classroom, to get excited in such a place would be quite humiliating, especially with Faunus like Blake-unconscious or not- and Velvet to sniff out her aroused state.
Without looking away from the Professor, she asked one question to the unseen voice. She sharpened her tone and lowered it to chilling levels.
"Who are you?"
Then, the whole of team RWBY was together again, with cookies down their throats. His arm still pointed to where Weiss was a second ago told everyone that he had certainly fired off the sugary projectile.
"Now as you can see, I did indeed use Green dust to stabilize it, however I also used it for acceleration after the initial propulsion, this makes something even as bulky as a simple cookie fly at an amazing velocity "The launcher briefly pointed to everyone that seemed to move before lowering. "Any more spontaneously weird questions?"
Nobody opened their mouths after that, nor made another disturbance as team RWBY had recovered from the sugary assault. P. Desruc approved of the silence and attention he had garnered.
"Well now that I have all your attention, would everyone come up and take an item from this box? You may take as many as you want though, no need to be shy. I'm not the one holding them after all." He assured the students, silently giving them the go-ahead to move without the looming threat of strangulation-by-cookie.
Yang glared at him as she grabbed as much as she could from the bag with little care to her actions. Blake picked out the more esoteric-looking devices. Ruby picked the more fun devices, a smile on her face as she stared at the withheld cookie launcher. Weiss simply took a random item without looking.
The class trickled towards the opened bag, some taking two, some taking only one, his bag was still quite full though. He'd prepared for many to lay waste to his little experiments.
"Now this will be your homework: you are to write a report on the items you've picked detailing its mode of operation, Dust used in its creation, and plans on how to make it more efficient. I will also expect you all to know the device(s) thoroughly after the weekend, and will pull a small test on you, so please study hard." At this announcement, many of them groaned in disappointment but clammed up when he raised his hyper-lethal cookie launcher. "For those of you who chose more than one, I expect a paper on each one, but will of course be far more lenient when grading them than to single papers."
Yang seemed to have turned into a lifeless pile of flesh at the announcement, she had to do more than ten papers…
He glanced over to the class, seeing them gape at the sudden mountain of work dumped over them "If there is nothing else, you are all dismissed, have a wonder full evening." Gathering his belongings, Desruc vacated the class as swiftly as he could.
Moments later, Weiss could be heard above the raging horde, in her signature rant. Both Professors internally chuckled.
"Wasn't that a bit overbearing? From my findings on your teaching patterns, you're usually very passive, Professor…Desruc" Shanalotte commented as they walked through halls.
"Yes, that was necessary, to keep them from straying off the subject I had to be firm" He hauled the now-limp bag with his belongings inside " Besides, I didn't want to handle all those requests about Glory Tales that the Grimm Behavior Professor loves handing out on a whim."
"Indeed, you were never one for talk…Desruc" She spoke the name, as if still testing it despite having said it at least a dozen times already. "Now that you have time to do so, get properly groomed. The new combat instructors wish to keep their skills sharp, we can't have them fainting from your stench now can we?"
The Emerald Herald stated all this with her even tone and impassive gaze, to the point where it sounded absolutely serious rather than the sarcasm that just simply had to be there! Desruc wondered whether she was joking or not, even if he had no face, she was harder to read than his own people.
Desruc decided that Shanalotte was the ultimate troll.
He could really use some Estus right about now…But first, he needed to meet with Oobleck.
Unseen by anyone else, a slender, hooded figure poked its hidden features out from a corridor behind the giant's back. If anyone could see its features, they would be immediately hospitalized from the sheer terror that radiated from its grin "Oh don't worry my host, things are moving even now…"
The halls were once again devoid of life as both partied left.