Chapter 10: Team Meeting

"So, who's bright idea was that?" For the first time since team STRQ had been formed, Qrow, Raven, Tai, and I were all in our room together. This initial team meeting was going about as well as I figured it would, too. Tai sat at the foot of his bed, and I beside him on a chair I'd dragged over from the desk while we both waited for Qrow to answer. Raven just gave a sort of half-laugh, half indignant huff as we grilled her brother, slipping in a pair of earbuds and laying back against her headboard. I knew better than to ask her.

"Why does it matter? We tried it, there were more grimm than we were expecting, we got held up, and we ended up showing up behind you guys anyway. You heard the headmaster, we're not getting punished, so we're good."

"That's not really the issue here, Qrow. My problem is that you guys think you can get away with stuff like that, and it's gonna hurt us as a team eventually."

From her bed in the corner, Raven mumbled, "Maybe if we'd been able to get our hands on the Dean's tablet…"

"That's past, Raven. I'm talking about the next four years. You didn't get to use me for your little scheme. It's over. Deal with it."

"Just saying," Raven said, flipping through songs on her scroll. I decided right then not to address her at all from this point on, unless it couldn't be helped. We'd probably get more done without her 'input' anyway.

"Alright, you've made your point," Qrow said after I turned back from his sister. "Raven and me just aren't used to having all these dumb rules you gotta follow."

"I'm not either, man. I still do, just 'cos I know that's how this world works. You gotta follow some rules. Going around making your own just makes it so no one trusts you, then you're really outta luck."

"Hm. I'm outta that anyway."

"Geez. With that attitude you are," Tai said with a grin. "Dude. You're at a school designed to train you how to be a badass. Quit being such a downer."

Qrow grinned. "Oh, I'm already a badass. Barely had to try to take you out back in class."

"Pffft. Please, you got me by one percent aura-level. If that'd been a real fight—"

"I still woulda handed you your butt."

I rolled my eyes. "Guys, guys. Testosterone. Down. It's getting stuffy in here." Tai and Qrow both grinned. "Alright. Maybe we should start back at square one. Learn a little more about each other. Anyone want to go first?" I asked hopefully.

"Why? Pretty sure I already know everything I need to about everyone here," Raven grumbled annoyedly, eyes still glued to her scroll-screen.

"Kinda goes back to that trust thing we were talking about a second ago." Tai interjected before I could fling any inflammatory remark back.

"The only person ever worth trusting is yourself. And even then," Raven shot a derisive look at Qrow before going back to whatever she was doing on the device. Qrow never returned his sister's glance, but I could tell that for some reason, the comment had stung.

"Alright," I said after an uncomfortable moment passed. "I'll go first, then. I was raised all over, lived in all four of the kingdoms at one point or another. Favorite place so far has gotta've been a little village in Anima, right on the coast of Lake Matsu. My dad's a huntsman. Bandit tribes kept him busy while we lived there, but an old friend of his ran a small combat school there so that's where I'd train whenever he was off on a bounty mission or raid." I couldn't help but notice the Branwen twins' share a glance at that, but I didn't think anything of it. "But mostly my dad trained me, especially when I got old enough to come on short missions with him. My semblance is invisibility," I willed myself to disappear for a moment before reappearing and continuing, "And I fight close-in with my whip, Scourge, and my sword here, Thorn."

"Also, you're a huge nerd," Qrow said with a laugh. I grinned.

"Good of you to notice," I said, bowing deeply.

"You forgot to tell us your name," Tai joked. I shot him a dry look before leaning over and shoving him. He played along, sprawling exaggeratedly across his bed.

"It's Petals," Qrow mumbled under his breath.

"I heard that," I said, glancing with mock irritation in his direction. "Seriously, if we don't even know each other's names at this point, we've really got issues. Who wants to go next?"

"I got it," Tai said, sitting back up. "I'm Taiyang Xiao Long, everyone just calls me Tai. Can't really say I lived anywhere fancy. Kinda just came up on the streets around here. Parents were a couple of druggies, couldn't hang on to a job, got into some bad debt with the wrong people. Moved down from Mantle with me when I was barely old enough to stand, trying to hide or whatever. Ended up disappearing, and I never did find out what happened to 'em. Don't really care, honestly. I ended up in a home, in and out of the system for years with different foster families and whatnot, till I finally just got sick of goin' back and decided I could make it on my own on the streets here. Ended up rolling with… Well, not the best kind of people. Heh. Just like my folks, I guess. My tonfas were a gift from a cop who coulda arrested me for somethin' I did a while back, but ended up lettin' me go. Good guy, turned out to be the closest thing to a father I ever had. I made some… Slight modifications to them, in the combat school I went to over on Patch."

"Patch? That's… I've lived there the whole last year! I went to Signal too! How come I never noticed you?"

Tai laughed. "Not surprising. Val and I kinda thought you were a little weird, always off by yourself with your hood up and whatnot. You were kinda an introvert."

"I wasn't that bad!"

"You totally were. Not saying I blame you, shy-girl. Especially now since I know you moved all over. Must've been pretty used to being an outsider, I'm guessing. You just did your thing, we did ours, and I mean, we never really crossed paths. No big deal."

A wave of self-consciousness hit me as my teammate spoke. I mean, I knew I was quiet most of the time but… was I really that awkward? I decided to change the subject, once I realized I already knew the answer to that. "So… Your tonfas. They have names?" I asked.

"Nah. Only really cool weapons have names. Mine're kinda… Normal, I guess."

"Oh, that's not true. Your weapons are really cool. And they have a backstory. They totally deserve a name."

"Not everybody has to name their weapons," Raven said, sighing exasperatedly. So, she was listening.

"Yeah, but lots of huntsmen do."

"Yeah, and they're all cu—"

"Raven," Qrow raised his hand annoyedly as he interjected, talking over his sister to interrupt the crass insult.

Tai shrugged. "Hm. Maybe I will name 'em now, just to annoy Raven." Qrow and I both laughed at that.

Raven grumbled something before shrugging. "I don't think you quite grasp how little I actually care," our recalcitrant teammate shot before turning the volume up on her music and focusing back on her scroll.

"So, what's your semblance?" I asked after returning Qrow's shrug at his sister's behavior, curious and already trying to envision how team-attacks might work between Tai and myself.

"Oh, nothing too fancy. It's… Well, here. I'll show you. Get your aura up." Tai stood, activating his own golden energy, which flashed and rippled across his body.

"Okayyyy…" I said confusedly, standing and concentrating, willing my own crimson protective field to activate.

"Alright. I'm not gonna hit you that hard. I don't really need to. I mean, it works better if I do, but I can kinda get the same effect either way."

"I still don't get it. What works better?"

"This," Tai said as he positioned himself to my left. He threw a simple palm-strike, which I avoided out of instinct. "Oh, come on. Hold still, it's not gonna kill you."

"Sorry, sorry. I just… I dunno, I don't know what you're gonna do, so it's weirding me out is all."

"Just trust me. You'll be fine. Aight, here. Ready?" I nodded, still unsure if I really was or not. Tai lined up the strike again, as Qrow watched with rapt attention. I even saw Raven glance up from her scroll, trying to hide her interest in whatever Tai was getting ready to do but still clearly intrigued. When he struck, I felt the weirdest sensation, like a crackling, tingling numbness just before his palm struck my shoulder, right through my aura. It was like he'd used his own protective field to overload mine.

"Whoa, woah, whoa. Wait a minute," I said as I stared at the spot his gentle strike had landed. My aura was struggling to crackle back over the numbed area, fizzling and crackling uselessly until I focused on the spot and, with a little more effort than normal, willed it to return. "You just ignored my aura. How did you… When did you learn to do that?"

"Figured out I could do it in a fistfight with a kid back in combat school. Actually… Heh. It was Val I was fighting with. It's like I just will a ton of my aura to one spot, usually my fist or my weapons, and the next hit can crack through an opponent's aura and strike them directly. Leaves me kinda vulnerable for the next few seconds, so I gotta land the hit or I'm screwed." Tai turned to Qrow. "That's how you jacked me up so good with that combo in our little fight earlier. Most of my aura was in my weapons, and you just caught the hit like it was nothing."

"Oh, it wasn't nothing. That freakin' hurt, man." Qrow affirmed. "Way more than I thought it would, but I guess I know why now. My hand's even still a little numb."

"Still. You tanked it, then dang near broke my nose and threw that backhand that felt like I got hit by a truck for a second. You're tougher than you look, for a skinny little guy."

"Heh. Gotten my ass beat more than a few times back home. Sometimes for no reason at all. I know how to take a hit, is all."

"Must've been a pretty rough tribe you guys were raised in," I said, glad that the two of them seemed to have built some mutual respect at least.

"Yeah, you could say that. We weren't always with them though. Raven and I were born in a village that… Well, it doesn't exist anymore."

"What happened?"

"None of your damn business," Raven growled before Qrow could reply.

"Hey, Raven, your brother had the speaking ball. Howabout you shuddup and let him answer how he wants?" I couldn't help but smile at Tai's blunt retort on behalf of the Branwen brother.

"It's aight, Tai. She doesn't do all my thinking for me." Qrow shot me a look as he said that, and I remembered back to our earlier conversation after I had been released from the infirmary. "Raven and I were born in a little village called… Er… Kurōbā? Kurūbo? I dunno. Can't remember exactly, 's been so long. I remember the banner though. Looked like a clover. Anyway, we couldn't've been more than five or six when one day the village was wiped out by grimm while Raven and I were out playing in the woods. Came back that night to find everyone dead. We lived in the ruins for a little while, before our tribe happened by. The chief took us in, and that was that. Came here to get a bit more training, like I told you a while ago."

I scratched my head. "Wait… Kurōbā? I've heard that name before. I think… Yeah, one of my friends back when I was living in Anima said she was born there too. Weird though, I could've sworn she'd said the place was raided by bandits before the grimm attacked."

Qrow looked back at Raven for just a split second, and his sister shrugged apathetically. "Maybe there were other survivors, and maybe the bandits did attack first. We don't know. Both of us were out playing when it happened."

"Yeah. Something like that," Qrow said, looking back to me. "How it really all went down, doesn't matter. We got back and everyone we knew was dead. The end."

Tai and I looked at each other, as if wordlessly commenting on the Branwen's rather bleak outlook on the events of their past, yet neither of us seeming particularly surprised either. I couldn't help but remember, though, what Raven had said about their father the other day. That had clearly been a harsh memory. Painful, almost as if they'd watched him die. But now they were saying that they'd been out in the woods when their village was attacked… Something didn't add up, but I thought nothing more of it and decided it was probably best to change the subject. "So, I saw Raven's semblance back in Ancient Vale. Those portals. Got us out of a tight spot, but she needed you outside before it would've done us any good. So, what, is that some kind of twin connection you two have or something?"

"Yeah. Well, it can connect to anyone…" Qrow's voice trailed as he realized that Raven was glaring at him. "I mean, to uh, to anywhere near me. No more than like, ten meters or something. But you get it." What was her problem now? We all needed to know each other's strengths and abilities in order to be a better team. Why would she be against that?

"So, what about you?" I asked Qrow after staring pointedly at Raven for her having silenced her brother like that.

"Oh, me… I… Well… I've got one, but if I tell ya, I'd have to kill you."

Tai sighed loudly. "Oh, come on, Qrow. We all have to know, it's going to help us in the long run. You got a semblance or not?"

"Hahaha, of course I do. It's like a force field that protects me from attacks and stuff…"

"Idiot. That's aura. Your semblance, tell 'em what your semblance is," Raven snapped at Qrow.

"Oh, ahhh, yeah, I knew that. My semblance is… It's um… Oh yeah! I can uh… See… like, really far. Like… Really, really far."

Tai and I both looked at each other, with me shrugging after a moment. That was a weird ability. Useful, I supposed. But weird. "Like how far?" I pressed.

"Uhhh… Really far."

"Really far, huh?" Tai echoed, a slight mocking edge to his voice.

"Yeah. Really far," Qrow confirmed with an emphatic nod.

Tai's sardonic tone was one thing, but I noticed his gaze narrow and thought that perhaps there may have been an edge of suspicion masked behind his words as he tried to get Qrow to elaborate. "Not gonna… Oh, I dunno, give us any specifics or anything?"

"Nah, I mean, can't really think of any to give you," Qrow said, fidgeting noticeably and casting a look back at his sister. Raven just rolled her eyes.

"It's not important, anyway," she said. "So, you've heard our sad little story, and I've heard yours. Whatever you were hoping would come of that, I don't really care, but I've got better places to be now that it's over."

"Hm. I dunno, Raven, kinda cool seeing what these guys are all about," Qrow said as his sister stood and slung her backpack.

"Well, you I guess you all are just the best of friends now, aren't you?" As she began to walk towards the door, Raven turned again. "Qrow, come find me when you're done acting like you actually care."

"Why are you so damn controlling, Raven?" I asked, just about sick of Raven's disdain for our team and her attitude towards her brother. If he wasn't gonna stick up for himself, I would. I stood from my seat and stepped between Raven and the door.

"Move, cheerleader."

"No. I'm the leader of this team. As long as that's true, you don't get a free pass to just come and go. If we want to succeed, we're all going to need to work together, and we can't as long as you've got an attitude like that. So, what gives? What exactly is your problem, Raven?"

The dark-haired girl sighed. "Listen, I didn't ask to come here. I was told. We both were. For the good of the tribe or whatever. I hope they're all dead by the time Qrow and I get back, I honestly wouldn't care. As far as I see it, me acting like I want to be here is a waste of my time. Just leave me alone, and we'll get along fine."

"Then why don't you just leave? If you're so selfish that you don't even want to help your own people out, the people who pulled you and Qrow from the ruins of your village and raised you, gave you a home, you might as well just run off. There's no point in dragging us down, too." I hated having to be so brutally honest, but by this point I really was just too fed up with Raven's attitude to care how I came across. "We sure don't need you."

"I don't think you really mean that, Summer," Tai said, clearly surprised at the sudden bite to my tone.

"Oh, yes she does," Raven shot back over her shoulder to Tai. Turning back to me, she grinned. "About time you cut the act, trying to be everyone's friend."

"It's not an act. I'm just sick of trying to be your friend."

"Good. Wouldn't have it any other way. Now move," Raven growled as she shouldered past me. I was about to let her go, but as she gripped the door handle and pulled, Qrow brushed past me too.

"Raven, wait," he said, grabbing at her backpack as she slung the door open. He hadn't pulled really hard, but all the same, the worn old leather knapsack ripped all the way down its seams and its contents spilled all across the threshold of the door. Raven froze, and Qrow, Tai and I all stared at the mess that had clattered to the ground all around me. Several wallets, a few scrolls, and a little silver locket in the shape of a nevermore's skull suspended from a silver chain littered the floor at Raven's feet.

"You IDIOT," Raven said as she turned her attention and boiling temper to her brother.

"What the…" I said, kneeling and picking the locket up off the floor. Standing, I again placed myself in between Raven and her brother. "This is Gretchen's. She lost it the other day! And all these?" I said, indicating all the extra money clips and wallets, and the scrolls that clearly didn't belong to the Branwen twin. "Did you two steal all these too? Is that the 'trouble' you said you were looking to get into on our first day?" I turned to look back at Qrow. His face looked like the mind behind it couldn't decide on whether or not to look angry or ashamed. I felt the silver chain in my hand begin to slip as Raven tried to snatch it from my hand, and I clenched my grip.

"Let go. It's mine!" Raven shouted.

"Like hell it is!" We both strained over the piece of jewelry, each trying to yank it from the other's grasp. The delicate silver rings that made up the chain couldn't take the strain, and the linkage snapped, sending Raven and I sprawling back to either sides of the doorway. I stood, my eyes immediately searching for the locket that had hung from the broken chain. It lay on the floor between Raven and me, its little silvery beak open to reveal a holo of Gretchen and another pretty lady who looked like an older version of my friend. Her mother. "Like I said. Not yours," I growled, looking up as both Raven and I stood. My gaze halted midway up my teammate's frame as I went to look her in the eyes, locking on an unexpected and imminent threat: Raven's hand had gripped the hilt of her sword. She was getting ready to draw on me as she charged back into the room. My weapons were over by my bedside, too far for me to retrieve in time. I tried to leap back and avoid the impending strike, but realized I'd been too slow. This was gonna hurt.

"Raven! No!" Raven's swing as she drew her weapon was so fast I barely saw it. Fortunately, it stopped as soon as it made contact with Curse. Qrow had thrust himself between Raven and me, stopping what would've been a powerful blow.

"Get out of the way, Qrow. I'll handle this," I said, leaping back over Tai's bed to mine and grabbing Scourge and Thorn.

"Yeah, listen to your girlfriend, brother," Raven spat mockingly as she spun around her brother and kicked him in the chin, sending him sprawling back into Tai before again charging me. Perfect. I turned invisible and slid low, punching Raven in the face with Thorn's ringular outer chassis. I kept the blades retracted. The last thing I wanted was to actually injure my teammate, but as Raven recovered and whirled in the direction she knew I must've gone, the string of curses she let out made it pretty clear she wasn't averse to giving me a few nasty cuts.

The tight space we found ourselves fighting in didn't exactly favor my semblance that well either. There weren't very many avenues I could use to evade the sweeping strikes Raven was making to try and find me. I stumbled back in an uncoordinated effort to slide past one attack, only to bump into the desk in the corner. The furniture shifted in response to the collision. "There you are!" Raven shouted, her sword swinging once again, this time directly for me.

CLANK! Thorn extended in my right hand just in time. I'd timed it so that the two separate halves would slam together like a claw as I actuated the weapon and their pivots were pulled towards each other by the powerful magnetic forces in the ring. It worked just as I'd intended, with Raven's blade caught in the pinch point. Rather than clamp down on solid steel, however, I was surprised to see the interchangeable nodachi blade shatter like glass. licks of flame flashed through the atomized burn dust that must've been encased in the brittle material the blade had been made of. Without missing a beat, Raven's arm snapped back to her scabbard, ejecting the broken lower end of her blade that was still attached to its grip with a pull of the trigger on the hilt. The simple but effective mounting system slid back into place in the rotary chamber, and a little window on the side of the scabbard flashed with a strange rainbow of colors before Raven again pulled the trigger on her weapon's hilt and drew a new blade. This one was the same blue as the freeze dust Scourge used, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees the instant she brandished it.

"Am I gonna have to run you out of blades?" I shouted exasperatedly, even though Raven still couldn't see me.

"I'll send you back to the infirmary before you can!" The new blade sucked the warmth out of the air as it flashed towards me once again. I parried with Thorn, but Raven's attacks were quick. I wasn't a match for her in sword-to-sword combat, that much I could tell. I'd been avoiding using Scourge, but it seemed there was no other option as the fight raged about the room. I unspooled the braid and flicked it, leaving no dust reservoir selected. The last thing we needed was to burn the dorms down on the first day of class. The end of the whip snapped at Raven's left calf, causing Raven to recoil at the sting of the unseen impact.

"Damn you!" She screamed as she unleashed a flurry of freezing swings. I dodged away, kicking off the wall and leaping over her head as she swung at the empty air by the doorframe. As I sailed over her, I again flicked Scourge out and caught her left wrist over her opposite shoulder and yanked. Raven's own fist slammed into her face and she was pulled off balance, and I kicked her left shoulder to add a little power to the spin she now found herself in.

"Stop hitting yourself," I taunted, genuinely pleased with myself for that. Flipping out of the leap, I landed on Tai's bed. The disturbance in the blanket was pretty obvious, and though Raven's left wrist was still caught, she swiped with her sword straight for me. I was prepared to answer the swing with a block from Thorn. What I didn't expect, however, was the pull of the trigger on her hilt that released the ice-blue blade like a freezing, razor-sharp dart before it met my parry. The detached blade shot like an arrow right past my short sword, slinging close over my shoulder and slicing across my aura. The red ripple followed my outline before disappearing again, but it was enough for Raven to grab onto the braid of Scourge and pull herself towards me, aiming a vicious kick that caught my side and drove the wind out of me as I sprawled to the floor. My head hit the bedside table between Tai's and Qrow's beds and I was stunned for a moment. A moment too long, that was.

Raven came charging over the bed straight for where I'd thudded to the ground and planted her booted foot on what would've looked like bare floor to her. She got lucky. Her heel slammed into my shoulder, pinning it, and she grinned menacingly as she drew another blade and raised her sword in preparation for a vicious downward stab.

"Raven, stop, dammit!" Again, Qrow tried to intervene. Raven's murderous gaze snapped to her brother as he charged, forcing her to adjust her stance and ignore me long enough for me to try to scramble back. Unfortunately, the weight of her back foot was still planted on the hem of my cloak, and I couldn't do much to affect an escape. Raven swung the brand-new blade in a high-to-low strike at her brother, which Qrow easily sidestepped. "Too slow, sis!" He shouted as he hauled back with Curse. Raven just grinned, giving her brother some pause as his stroke fell. I knew why she was smiling. She'd meant to miss him. I'd seen the portal open behind Qrow, but he hadn't as he'd rushed in. Raven evaded Qrow's attack and booted her brother through the rift with a spinning back-kick. The receiving end of her semblance opened on the other side of the room, right by Tai. Qrow sprawled past our teammate, groaning and clutching his gut, and Tai looked at the two nearby dimensional rifts as if an idea had just occurred to him.

I saw Tai's grin, but my attention was again drawn by Raven as she turned back to me and again prepared to strike. At the last second before she would have, however, a hand surrounded in a bright golden glow struck through the still-open portal to Raven's right. The full force palm-strike thudded squarely into Raven's temple, and her body locked up as her aura crackled away and she sailed across the room. Tai leapt through the portal the instant before it closed, a satisfied look on his face as he searched the floor where he knew I lay.

I allowed myself to become visible again and accepted Tai's help extricating myself from the awkward position between the beds where I'd landed. Qrow stood from where he'd landed and dashed over to Raven, who was out colder than freeze dust with her aura flickering weakly at the spot where Tai's strike had cracked right through it. Raven's brother snagged both the rotary sheath and sword and backed up across the room as she began to shakily regain consciousness.

"I'll just hang on to these, since you're so dead-set on acting like a psychopath today," he said as he retreated, seemingly prepared just in case she regained her ability to move.

"You soft… Little… Prick…" Raven groaned as she slowly began to turn her head towards her brother.

Just then, I heard the door across the hall swing open as team GLDN dashed over and into our room. "What's going on, Summer?" Gretchen asked, alarm and concern showing on the faces of our entire neighboring team. As my friend spoke, the blue-tinged hologram that still shone from the mouth of her locket caught her eye from where it lay on the ground. She knelt to pick it up. "My locket… How…" Gretchen looked at Raven, the torn backpack on the ground by the foot of Qrow's bed, and back to Raven. "Oh. This what you guys were fighting about?"

"Among other things," I said as I caught my breath from the short but intense fight. I picked the silver chain that had suspended the locket up from where it had come to rest, walking over to Gretchen and holding out my hand to take the little silver nevermore skull. "I'll go fix it. I broke it, after all."

"It's fine, Summer. I'm just glad we found it. Don't worry about it."

"I need some time alone anyway. Give it here. I'll be in the armory." With that, I took the locket and walked off down the hall.

"Summer," Tai called after me just before I rounded the corner out of our suite.

"What, Tai?"

"You good?" My blonde-headed teammate asked as he trotted up to me.

"What do you think? I was just trying to get to know everyone. We can't even handle that. Tell Raven and Qrow better return everything they stole, or when I come back, campus security will be right behind me."

"But they'd be expelled if you got the cops involved!" Tai said, visibly taken aback that I'd go that far.

"Exactly," I grumbled, turning back down the hall. "Team STRQ," I said to myself. "Hmph. What a joke. We're not a team, we're a disaster."