Chapter 9: First Morning
Artemis jumps up out of bed, quickly reaching for her bow before realizing it is at the foot of her bed and what she was reaching for instead was thin air, causing her to trip and slam her face into Vak's bed, which he had luckily already sat up in, reacting to the same noise as her. A loud ringing came from Judy's backpack, which suddenly changes to a buzz and then continues to change and get louder and louder. Luci and Judy continue to sleep through the variety of noises with vaguely irritated looks on their faces.
"What's going on!?" Artemis yells to Vak. He yells something back but she doesn't hear him, leading her to assume he can't hear her, so she tries yelling louder. "What-!?" She begins but he starts yelling at the same time.
"Nixi!" Vak yells at the top of his lungs and the noises stop immediately.
"What's Nixi!?" Artemis yells, still recovering from the noise.
"Judy only explained it briefly, but it's an AI in her backpack, I guess."
"What's an AI?"
"Artificial intelligence." Judy says, still half asleep, scratching the back of her head. "I was going to explain her to you yesterday but I guess I was more tired than I thought. She's an AI I created at Signal, after eight failed attempts, I created an intelligent computer to help manage my weapons and combat."
"Is that the N9 thing you were talking about yesterday? Doesn't that count as cheating, I mean, teams are only supposed to have four people." She questions.
"Maybe, but that depends how they define "people". If they find out and decide it's against the rules, they will be classifying Artificial intelligences as people, meaning that they will have to accept them as students as well, but if they decide it's fine then they will be classifying AIs as weapons and have to allow people to use AI in combat academies." Judy explains briefly. "Either way it would be much easier to keep her hidden unless we want to cause trouble for the headmaster."
"Okay, I guess." Artemis shrugs, not really understanding the politics. "What was that noise about though?"
"That's our alarm. I got used to the regular alarm sound so I asked N9 to play different sounds every few seconds to make sure it eventually wakes me up, Luci is the same." She explains, taking her scroll off the desk to check the time. "Eight thirty? That's way too early." She says, collapsing back onto her bed.
"Luci told me to wake you all up early so that you had time to prepare, and so that, quote, the crazy girl can apologize for her false accusation she made yesterday, end quote." Nixi explains before she can go back to sleep.
"Artemis, please apologize to him so I can go back to sleep." Judy says, covering her face with her arm.
"How do I do that if he's still asleep?" She asks. "Wait, no, that's not the problem! You, get up! And you, I'm not saying sorry for that!" She demands, pointing to them in turn. "Just because you're the leader, doesn't mean you can tell me what to do, you're supposed to organize us!"
"I was organizing you." Judy says, starting to fall asleep again. Artemis grabs Luci's arm and drags him out of bed and onto the floor. As soon as he hits the ground he jumps up, grabbing Artemis by the and tripping her over.
"Oh... sorry about that." He says, realizing what he did. "What's going on, I didn't hear the alarm."
"What the hell are you doing!?" Artemis yells as soon as she gets back up.
"Can you all stop shouting?" Judy says. "We have half an hour until class starts. What do we have first?"
"Grimm studies." Vak says, reading through some type of schedule. "And that's for most of the day, apparently." He says looking puzzled.
"They're probably going easy on us, since it's our first day and all." Luci suggests. "Would have probably been more helpful than sending us into a forest full of grimm yesterday though."
Artemis throws the curtains open, seeing that Judy is falling asleep again, and opens the window wide. "We need to start getting ready, now!" She orders. Judy covers her eyes and rolls out of bed onto the floor next to Nixi before Artemis pulls her to her feet. "Stop lazing around!" She yells, grabbing both of their uniforms and dragging Judy into the attached changing room on Judy and Luci's side of the room. "We'll use this room, I have to make sure she doesn't fall asleep and drown herself." She finishes, slamming the door behind them.
Vak looks to Luci, realizing he is still half asleep. "You know that if you don't get up, she will yell at you again." He says while grabbing his uniform and walking towards the room opposite to the girls. He looks back to see if Luci was listening but sees that he is already getting undressed and closes the door quickly behind him.
The first thing Judy sees when Artemis bursts through the classroom door is team JADE jump up out of their seats right in front of them. The room is laid out so that the students further back are higher up, and the closest to the double door, while there is a path leading down the middle of the room from the door to the front desk. "We made it." Artemis sighs, letting Judy through first.
"Well, well." The man at the front of the class, who Judy assumes to be the teacher, says while shaking his head. "As everyone else in the room knows, I am professor port. I will be teaching you grimm studies, or I would be if you had shown up on time." The portly man laughs, stopping when he realizes everyone else is silent. "Umm... you came at a perfect time however, I was just about to start telling the tale of my heroism and greatness! When I was a boy..." They take their seats at the back of the class, on the opposite side from team JADE, and take out their scrolls.
"Ten past nine! How did we end up ten minutes late?" Artemis whispers.
"Ignoring the directions we were given and walking around half the academy may have something to do with it." Luci says sarcastically.
"Don't blame me for that! At least I was trying to help!" Vak is sat between them, trying to focus on what Port is saying but not being able to hear a word, while Judy is sat on the end of the row next to Luci. She is about to go to sleep when she hears someone whispering to her left and turns to see Apollo across the path trying to pass her something that looks like a pamphlet. She reaches over and takes it just to see that it's the same schedule that Vak was reading over and passes it back, writing 'Artemis got us lost on the way here.' On the front of it. As soon as he sees this he bows his head in apology before turning back to the front of the class.
"...Despite smelling of cabbages, my grandfather was a wise man. 'Peter', he told me..." Professor Port continues, despite only a few people in the class still listening. Judy lifts her head at the sound of some loud laughter from the front of the room, looking over everyone she notices the team at the front but only recognizes one of the three laughing girls as one she thinks is Yang, by her bright blonde hair, a girl in the same classes as Luci at signal, and she recognizes the only girl not laughing by her distinct white hair, realizing that she's Weiss Schnee. Port makes a quick coughing noise and tries to continue but is interrupted straight away.
"You're the one acting like a child!" Artemis says, still in a whisper but loud enough to break through the silence created by Port's cough.
"Well then, it seems like none of you want to hear my heroic tale." He says in a pout. "This story could be a great help for all of you but if you think you have the traits of a true huntsman then please raise your hand." He challenges, expecting no-one to comply, but Weiss raises her hand instantly. He pauses for a moment but coughs and regains his composure. "Well then, step forwards and we'll soon find out."