Chapter 7

Royal Will

Two weeks had passed since the Initiation and with the weekend coming up there was one more class to get through. For the first years it was sparring class with Professor Sno. The young hunters in training were watching what was clearly going to be the last match of the day. May Zedong, armed with her sniper rifle, was facing off against her team leader Brawnz Ni.

They stood roughly twenty feet apart and surrounded by the protective dome. It was far from the sniper's ideal targeting ground but, as her team had discovered during their group training exercises, May was far from incapable in melee combat despite her lacking physical strength. She carried herself with the confidence of a Huntress just as her leader cocked his fists and revealed the blades in his gloves.

"Alright kids, and... Go!" Was the last thing either student heard before they let their fighter's instincts take hold of their minds. Brawnz knew first hand that he had to get in close or he'd be done for. May brought her rifle to her right eye, knelt and began shooting.

Running at an angle, the dark haired brawler spun around and threw a knife from his glove at May, forcing her to summersault away to dodge. Her opponent took the opportunity to lunge forward and force her to block an incoming downward punch with the end of her rifle.

Out of the butt of the gun, an axe blade was swiftly deployed and swung but dodged and in the process, May was barely able to back step in time to dodge another punch. However, in stepping backwards May's head fell towards the left and Brawnz's right fist was out of sight of the one eye she had hidden under her cap. Without even seeing it, one claw enhanced punch hit her right in the side of the head.

The blow sent her spiralling downward and a loud buzzer to go off as she landed on her stomach just on top of her rifle.

"What, but she's still got a ton of Aura!" Brawnz exclaimed angrily having reacted to the buzzer before May even had a chance to comprehend what had happened.

"Two things Mr. Ni; one, she was disoriented and you would have had more than enough time to dive while she was down, secondly, the bell's about to ring and since it's Friday I can't be bothered to deal with you brats any longer than I'm required to... Now," he raised his hand into the air just as the bell rang, "Have a pleasant weekend."

With a significant amount of chatter coming from the students, no one hesitated in getting out of class and with the white noise of clambering chairs and chatting students in the ears, May didn't even register that Brawnz was holding out a hand to her, her eye instead fixated on the screen above the domed arena which did indeed clearly show she had just over 76 percent of her Aura left.

"May!" Brawnz said, getting the girl's attention. Looking up she saw a hand outstretched to her. She nodded and held out her hand letting him pull her to her feet.

Meeting up with Nolan and Roy, team BRNZ began walking back to the locker rooms to deposit their weapons for the day and though Roy and Nolan were talking amicably with each other smiles on their faces, Brawnz had a frown that suggested both concern and a bit of anger.

"May... Why do you wear that over your eye?" he asked angrily, "You missed me in that fight because you created a blind spot!'

There was a click in that moment within the mind of the young sniper. This click was one that came out of nowhere, at least nowhere in the minds of her team, yet one with the fury of a struck nerve and a very defensive part of her spirit. Thus May spun around, her uncovered eye glaring with a hurt and rage as her teeth clenched so hard some might think shards were about to start coming from them as she spat, "You don't think I know that?!"

Brawnz took a step back caught completely off guard by the way his teammate had reacted and even Roy and Nolan jumped a little at this.

With a stride in her step that did nothing to hide her apparent anger, May turned around and continued walking albeit with a significant amount more stomp to her step.

"May!" Nolan yelled, but the sniper was having none of it and before any of the team knew it she was lost in the throngs of students in the halls.

"Well that's uh... Great." Brawnz said shaking his head slightly to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"Let her be," Nolan said, "Looks like you struck a nerve, we'll ask what that nerve was when she's calmed down." he surmised. Though they hadn't known each other for long, May and Nolan had gotten quite close over the last two weeks, having already begun practicing coordinating for team attacks on their own. He had spent enough time with her to know May Zedong was one girl who didn't go off like that over anything. At least, that's what he thought, he never was that great at reading people, being from a small town outside the larger city around Shade that was Vacuo.

Everything was straight forward back then and he discovered as he came to Shade that emotions could be a lot more complicated than the simplicity of the survivalist's lifestyle.

May for her part, decided against putting her things away, instead, she opted for a trip to the firing range for practice; her favorite pastime was to spend time with her best friend, her own rifle.

Though the activity itself wasn't very taxing and her mind wasn't completely in it, still, the intermediate settings for the holographic targets were so easy for the sniper that she was able to hit them and still let her mind wander elsewhere.

Of course, she knew about the blind spot, it had been with her long before coming to Shade, long before any of it. May had never learned the cause of it but for reasons, only genetics can explain she was blind in her left eye. Rather, the eye wasn't even there, only a hole where an eye should have been but sealed with skin that grew there instead.

Ironic that she would pick one of the most vision centric weapons in the world and she herself was blind in one of her eyes.

May had been lucky to survive. Though she was as skilled as any other girl who took their Vacuo upbringing beyond pragmatism, as was the case with most of those in Shade, but the fact she had such a broad weakness as to have half her line of sight be gone was one she had still yet to adapt to. Though she hid it under her cap, an act of bravado making it seem as if she didn't need the eye, the fact remained that she was missing something from her toolkit and it was far from a simple screw, it was more like the hilt of the hammer.

Ever lost in thought, when she finally pulled her rifle back into ready position she turned around only to bump right into another person readying to leave the room.

The two girls took a few steps back to steady themselves before looking up towards each other. The girl May had run into was clad in a purple coat with a gray undershirt, dark indigo hair with bright friendly olive green eyes.

"I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention," May said apologetically.

"It's alright, no harm done," The girl said smiling, "Name's Nebula by the way." She said, the cheery smile never leaving.

The cheeriness of this girl was infectious apparently because May found herself smiling as she said "May." Holding her hand out as well.

The two girls shook hands and before they knew it, the two of them were walking side by side towards the locker room, Nebula to put away the crossbow she had been practising with and May did the same with her sniper rifle.

"So May, you seem troubled by something, need anyone to talk to?" Nebula asked.

"It's nothing, just... something I have to talk to my team about." May said shaking her head. "They... hit a nerve with me earlier, one they didn't know was there and I yelled at them."

"Oh dear, well I'm sure they'll understand if you explain it to them." Nebula said as she opened the door to the locker room and held it open for the shorter girl.

May nodded apprehensively, "I hope so... I just, I feel so awful." May admitted.

"Well that's a good sign," Nebula said, "Last time I argued with my partner Dew, it took us both two days to come around and talk it out, so if you're already ready then... Well, it's a good start." Nebula admitted as she walked to her locker and lightly put her crossbow down inside it while her new compatriot did the same with her rifle.

"I know, thank you," May said looking away, of course, Nebula didn't know the whole story, though she could easily apologise for snapping, the reason for her snapping remained, her disability made her feel weak and weakness was something unfit for a Huntress. She had to fight through it somehow, but that still made her one unhappy marksman.

"Anyway, I better go, the essays that Rain gives out for second years are unreal." Nebula admitted, "Perhaps we'll run into each other again... figuratively at least." Nebula said smiling.

"Of course," She said plastering a smile on her face while the crossbow wielding second-year nodded and left.

May sighed to herself and after making sure her locker was perfectly sealed she headed towards her dorm room, hoping her team was still there so she could apologise to them for her uncharacteristically angry outburst.

Fortunately for the sniper, her team had all agreed that the dorm room was a better place to study than the library, half because they knew May would be returning at some point soon, and the other half because they knew they couldn't get any work done if their sister team were to appear and decide the same thing. Studying as four can work, but studying as eight, especially with Dia and Daff among them combined with Roy's and Brawnz's strained ability to sit still as is would lead to, at best, a considerably lacking amount of completed work.

And thus, Nolan laying on his top bunk, Brawnz sprawled on his back on the floor in the middle and Roy at the desk, all of whom sprawled over books for Dust Application. Professor Lazul having stressed that these three chapters on the basics were the only part she'd teach from the textbook but that the basics were best left unchanged for first years.

One of the more sensible things that Professor Lazul had said to all of them and definitely the easiest thing to understand the first time around.

Yet all three heads went upwards towards the door as it was slowly opened. A loud creaking sound caught their attention as the purple haired sniper peeked her head in before slowly walking the rest of the way inside. She was worried about the responses of her teammates and she would not only be shocked if they were angry. She was, in fact, expecting a poor response.

The last thing she expected was the empathetic smile on Nolan's face as he jumped down from his bunk and stood in front of her and asked, "You up to telling us what happened?"

"I... yeah, I'm sorry guys. I lost my head and it wasn't cool." May explained, looking away.

The purple haired sniper felt a hand on her shoulder putting a comforting pressure on it. She looked up and saw the dark eyes of Nolan gazing into her own eye. "You don't go off like that without reason May. So, what's the problem?"

May took one really deep breath, 'Now or never,' she thought as she reached her hands up to her head and pulled her took off her head. Revealing the place where her left eye should have been. The malformity that she hid. "My blind spot isn't a choice," she said with an ever so slight undertone of bitterness.

"Woah," Brawnz said uncertainly as he found himself staring the non-existent pupil. Even the calm Roy did a double take on the sight on the girls face.

"I hate being weak, I'm not that strong, which is why I learned to shoot in the first place, and a missing eye is just one more weakness to compensate for," May said, pursing her lips and feeling a few tears begin to grace her tear ducts.

Nolan's hand had never left her shoulder; to the contrary he pulled her inwards and wrapped his arm around her back, "I'm going to smack you the next time I hear you refer to yourself as weak." Nolan said dangerously, "You got into the academy, which speaks volumes of what you can do, with or without your eye."

May pursed her lips and blinked those unfallen tears from her eyes as the comforting embrace of her partner took hold.

"It just means we need to spend some time training to protect the blind side." Brawnz smiled, getting to his feet and standing between the two partners, "Could be fun, give us all a reason to train with our other senses."

At this point May was smiling, despite the shining streaks on her cheeks indicating the fallen tears, "I... you guys are awesome!" May said.

"I know," Nolan said putting his arms behind his head with a smirk that was nothing short of full blown cheekiness.

May lightly punched her partner in the chest at this but she had no argument or any other retort at this time.

The feeling of relief coursing through May at this point was indescribable to her, she felt... Safe, her friends knew about her shortcomings and they were not only refraining from looking at her differently but were ready to help her train around it. Even her own parents had treated it as a reason to protect her fervently as fragile. It was a great feeling, standing beside her fellow warriors as an equal despite her disability and there was no denying the one thought in the sniper's head.

"This was a feeling she could get used to!"

A/N - So yeah, I hope this chapter dosen't get hated like the Jaune Dice arc got hated back at the beginning.

So yeah I've got a few chapters planned for team BRNZ, hoping to make them at least somewhat relevant to the story because I actually found them quite interesting. maybe because I liked the style or maybe because of all the headcanon I came up with like this chapters events.

Anyway remember the poll, if you want to see this story be my focus be sure to vote, and as always I'll see you all next friday

Until Next Time Ashbringer36 Out