Chapter six: Classes
(Goodwitch's POV)
Professor Glynda Goodwitch looked around at her students, her experience as an educator told her the best course of action for the first day of classes, and that was action, after initiation yesterday the students would have a lot of energy that a day of lectures would have failed miserably at resolving, these teens were all warriors, and the best outlet for their energy was combat, they could save technical discussions for another day.
"Good afternoon, and welcome to Combat Class, there seems to be little point in beating around the bush, this class is here to make each of you into the best fighters you can be, so I'm going to have a few practice duels to start our year off, do we have any volunteers?" Goodwitch's stern, lime green eyes swept the room before coming to rest on the first volunteer, a tall, lean young man with long hair in varying shades of blue, a blue and black sniper rifle hung across his back, a quick search through her memory gave her his name. "Mr. Aesir, very well, is there anyone who would like to face him in the ring?" Almost immediately a pale hand shot into the air. "Miss Schnee, alright, both fighters make their way to the dueling ring."
(Weiss' POV)
Weiss Schnee didn't know exactly why she'd volunteered to fight Indigo, there was just something about him that irritated her, but even she would admit that annoyance wasn't enough to make her this excited at the prospect of fighting the blue haired wiseass. Nevertheless, she wanted to face him in a sparring ring, maybe it was the fighter in her that was unsatisfied with their previous encounter, or maybe it was embarrassment, her ears heated as she remembered the how she'd felt as he'd stopped her head from hitting the ground, once again she felt his weight pressing her to the floor, his warm breath against her face from inches away, her face burned at the memory, just another reason to kick his insufferable ass.
Indigo stood in the center of the ring, Jormungandr was strapped to his back as he watched Weiss step into the ring, her multi action Dust rapier, Myrtenaster, hung at her waist, and her pointed chin was lifted in regal distain, which had nothing to do with the fact that he was half a foot taller than her, damn it. The snow white heiress drew her blade and pointed it at her opponent, who reached over his shoulder, flipped the switch on the rifle's stock, and took out a pair of knives from the compartment that had snapped open in the stock. The blue haired sniper flipped both knives into backhanded grips, it was a smart move, Weiss admitted, his rifle would be of limited utility in the close quarters of the sparring ring, and she knew that he had the speed and precise movements necessary to fight effectively with those seven inch long, curved blades.
Summoning a movement Glyph under her own feet Weiss flashed forward with a lightning fast thrust, Indigo took one step back and to his left and Myrtenaster's tip passed right through the space his chest had occupied a second before. Weiss was forced to leap back to avoid a knife slash, as the blade arced in front of her eyes electrical sparks trailed from the back of the single edged knife, 'oh, they're electrified, that complicates things slightly' Weiss thought as her blue haired opponent continued to press his attack with a second slash aimed at eye level. The Schnee heiress instinctively jerked back, away from the strike, Indigo stomped on the heel of her left foot to disrupt her balance further before kneeing the girl with his other leg and sending her tumbling to the ground. For the second time during this fight Weiss' instincts took hold, this time they saved her rather than being used against her, the white haired duelist rolled backwards and to her feet, in the blink of an eye she rushed Indigo and thrust her rapier at the young man's chest, the experienced knife fighter used the bare minimum amount of movement to dodge each thrust.
(Indigo's POV)
"Woah, nearly got me there, Snow Kitten." Weiss snarled at the nickname and redoubled her attack, Indigo smirked and backed up, dodging each strike in her flurry of attacks with the minimum possible amount of movement before bringing up his left knife to turn aside a thrust. The instant the knife made contact with Myrtenaster's blade electricity flowed from the knife blade down the length of the rapier and into Weiss' body through her hand, the white haired girl yelped at the shock. Indigo kicked her in the side of her left knee, then he raked both of Jormungandr's fangs across Weiss' midsection, her aura stopped the sharp force trauma, but did little to nothing for the electricity that was suddenly coursing through her small body. With a scream of rage and pain Weiss triggered her rapier's Dust Selector, it came to rest on a pale blue Dust that matched her eyes, light the color of the Dust spilled from the hilt of the powerful rapier before Weiss stabbed her slim glowing blade into the ground and sent a wave of ice at Indigo who leapt backwards, out of the way. The blue haired sniper didn't get away clear, his right foot got caught in the ice, though this only slowed him down a little as he flared his midnight blue aura and shattered the ice surrounding his foot.
As the burst of dark blue light faded from around the sniper's body he flashed a cocky grin at his opponent's startled face. "That's right Snowbird, I've learned a few aura tricks other than my Semblance, I don't like using them, since they run me dry pretty quickly, but that doesn't mean I won't use them." Indigo's breath was coming out heavier than it had before, he could feel his heart beating rapidly against his ribs as well, this was the other reason he didn't like using any of his aura techniques: they were physically draining on top of their aura cost, but they were each quite useful to compensate for the price. Weiss was across the combat arena and in Indigo's face in a flash of white, the blue haired sniper was hit with a thrust of her rapier, though he managed at the last second to twist his body into making it a glancing hit. Two electrically buzzing knives provided Indigo's answer to the strike, both blades slashed an X on Weiss' torso, sending her reeling back with the pain of two intense electric shocks.
"What's the matter Princess? Having a little trouble?" All Indigo needed was one more mistake, and Weiss, with her pride and fragile ego, was easy to goad into hasty action. Flames washed along the length of the rapier in the infuriated heiress' hand, and with three movement glyphs in a row Weiss sent herself rocketing towards her cockliy grinning opponent, who, to everyone's shock, dropped his knives and ducked under the tip of the rapier, with one hand grabbed and pushed her arm up, a stomp on her instep and a quick movement of his shoulders and Indigo flipped Weiss over his shoulder and onto the ground, turning all of her Semblance boosted speed against her. While she lay on the ground, stunned, Indigo put a boot between her shoulder blades and unslung Jormungandr before pointing it at her head.
As Weiss looked up from her prone position, her head turned to look behind herself, Indigo's voice took on a businesslike tone and his smirk vanished.
"I win."
After a moment of silence Professor Goodwitch called the match and Indigo took his boot off of Weiss' back before offering his hand to help her up, with a snarl Weiss pushed the hand away and got up on her own, straightening her skirt and jacket as she did so.
"It was a match Weiss, I found an opening and I took it, there's no point getting mad about it, just get stronger so that it doesn't happen again."
(Weiss' POV)
How dare he! That insufferable blue asshole humiliated me in front of our whole class! Weiss was fuming after Combat Class, Aesir had outmatched her, pushing her buttons with embarrassing ease, and she had fallen into each trap. She'd only scored glancing hits while he scored hit after hit, each one punctuated by painful electrical shocks, and worst of all, he'd been right, her temper over small slights was a glaring weakness and it had cost her that match. Today had been a series of embarrassing lessons at the hands of the most annoying boy she'd ever met, which just made her grind her teeth, though she recognized that he'd been correct, it was still galling to have been taught anything about herself by a wiseass joker she'd met two days ago. Because she was so busy fuming Weiss nearly ran into her partner.
"Oh! Sorry Weiss, I didn't see you there." Ruby hurriedly apologized. Indigo was right about her too, I have been unfair to her, that's going to change now, Weiss shook her head. "No it was my fault, Ruby, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going." Ruby gaped at her for a second and Weiss fought down a surge of annoyance and shame, was that how she'd come across as? Did they all see her as so arrogant that she couldn't admit when she made a mistake? She needed to fix that.
"Hey, Ruby? How do you like your coffee?"
The red reaper looked puzzled. "Cream and five sugars, why?"
Weiss barely kept from rolling her eyes, that explains so much. "I want to apologize for how I've been acting over the past couple of days, my behavior has been inexcusable, and all over little things, so we're going to go to the coffee shop on campus and we're going to talk, because we're partners and we should get to know each other."
Ruby's eyes glittering with emotion should have been a warning sign, but Weiss was still taken off guard when the younger girl threw her arms around the white haired heiress and squealed with excitement. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou! We're going to be the best team EVER!"
With that the excitable leader of Team RWBY took off, practically dragging her partner behind her, Weiss felt a smile begin to work it's way onto her face, Ruby's enthusiasm reminded Weiss of her own little sister sometimes, though last time she'd checked Nieve couldn't break the sound barrier whenever she wanted to, she also didn't have more energy than a room full of two year olds hopped up on the biggest sugar rush in history. Weiss resolved right then to be the best teammate Ruby would ever have, the crimsonette would need all the support she could get the next few years.
(Author's note: enjoy, and review retcon: I'd posted this chapter originally just before I saw 'it's brawl in the family' so I've now apparently created a third Schnee sister, woohoo, go me! yes I know I'm weird deal with it)