Ayelmao right on schedule. The first week of school is always the hardest but we shall see how it goes. I hope my writing is improving and making it easier for you guys to read... aside from that just tell me how I executed this I guess cause I have no regrets at the moment. Give it a few days tho and ill start regretting.
Chapter 12: Back to Normalcy
As they watched Tobias walk off Blake looked behind them and saw his units still standing there. "Aren't you going to follow him?"
They turned to look at Blake. "Why? He won't be needing us, and if something happens Melina is still near." Selena said.
"... I guess." Blake said.
Weiss looked at her scroll checking the time. "Hey there's still enough time to go back to the dorm, freshen up and get to class."
"No way Weiss! We just got back from mission, no one even knows we are back yet, I say you give your manic obsession with studying a break and relax for a little." Yang said placing her hand on Weiss's shoulder. "Besides we are all still tired from the trip."
Weiss scoffed. "I refuse to let your slack off nature affect my ability to be prepared for the next test, also think about the example you are showing to Ruby!"
"Weiss… the tournament starts next week, there are no more test until it's over… there's nothing to prepare for, all the teachers even said it would just be review lectures until the festival starts."
Weiss faltered at that. "I...knew that. I simply don't want my perfect attendance to be tarnished by your laziness!"
"As far as everyone knows we are still on mission so we are excused from classes until we return." Yang practically sang.
Weiss slumped her shoulders finally conceding defeat
Yang smiled victoriously. "Now then, let's go get some rest. Then if we want to we can go to the rest of the classes."
Weiss raised an eyebrow in surprise, expecting Yang to want to ditch the entire day
"May...may we join?" Nyami said in a small voice.
Yang raised an eyebrow. "Well we were gonna sleep for a bit before doing anything, do you guys sleep?"
"No. We don't require sleep and technically we don't require food. We can keep ourselves occupied around the school however." Rosetta said.
Yang thought back to when she had seen Nyami devour twelve packs of pudding in one sitting. "Right… well okay just meet us around the dorm room about..say twelve?
Melina hadn't taken long in finding her targets, it was rather easier seeing as they weren't really trying to hide. Not that they could hide from her anyway, no one could. Finding a place to listen in to their conversation without standing behind their door or in the middle of their room however was a different matter. She noticed a few metal grates around the area and decided to peek down one and saw they lead down a long network of small tunnels. So here she was crawling through the grates and was not too happy about it. She was no stranger to assassinations and dirty work but the dustiness of these tunnels were disgusting. She was a princess after all. Giving an exasperated sigh she continued to navigate the metal tunnels. Finally she recognized the bored lazy drawl of the boy called Mercury, as disgusting as these tunnels were they carried sound very well and Melina was thankful for that. As she crawled closer the voice became clearer.
"You didn't find anything in his room?"
"Not a thing, in fact it's completely empty, like no one actually stays in there."
"Thats...interesting, I might look into this myself, but until then we have some last minute business to take care of."
"So we meet with Adam and Roman one more time?"
Yes… just to iron out some detail before the tournament starts. We meet at the White Fang rally then we enjoy the festival. "
Summoner didn't know anything about a third teammate… not recognizing the new voice Melina crawled closer to the grate and peered out to look and try to identify who had just spoken, right as she peeked out mint green hair blocked her vision, eyes widening in shock she quickly teleported out of the small tunnel and appeared behind Tobias who was back in his dorm room looking over papers.
Smiling to herself she sang out "Summoner!" Causing Tobias to jump a mile.
"What the hell Melina! What did I say about doing that."
Instead of answering she simply stuck out her tongue and hugged him from behind. "I couldn't really learn anything new aside from there's a third person involved with those two and something called the White Fang. Also they did look in here for stuff, i'm not sure what but they were in here.
"A third person… I guess that makes sense seeing as there are four people in a team...did you happen to see her face?"
Melina pouted. "No, that Emerald girl interrupted my view and I didn't want to be seen so I had to leave in a hurry. But I do know they are meeting at some sort of rally but i'm not sure where."
"Well if its a rally I doubt it will be at the school, it's probably going to be somewhere in the city, they use flying bus things here for travel but you need to pay for them which is probably how they are going to get into the city so I want you to follow them, go ask team RWBY for some money for that bus okay?"
"Okay summoner!" she said as she finally let go of Tobias and disappeared again.
Tobias looked back down at the papers on his desk about the notes of various grimm species and how they relate to animals in El Gaia and Grand Gaia. "I'm really glad Nyami hid these well…"
An Incessant tapping took Weiss out of her surprisingly deep sleep, apparently her worry over Ruby left her more exhausted than she realized. Whatever gratefulness Weiss had for anyone or anything however was quickly dissolved as the tapping continued. "What the hell is that noise?!" she said, raising her voice to not quite the level of shouting but high enough to actually get the attention of Blake who had ignored everything in favor of reading one of her many books. She looked up, ears twitching for a moment before speaking. "I think it's a bird Weiss, it's coming from the window."
Grumbling she got up and stalked over to the window, she had half a mind to try and stab whatever bird kept pecking at the window, she snapped the curtains open and was met with not a bird but purple eyes staring right at her.
Weiss let out a startled shriek as she feel back on her butt causing Ruby, Blake, and Yang to shoot up. Blake being the most alert jumped out of bed next to Weiss. "What's wrong!" Blake asked hurriedly.
Weiss had her hand on her chest as she tried to calm her breathing but she pointed at the window, as Blake followed her gaze she saw a girl with purple eyes floating over the window sill… literally floating. Her eyes widened in shock as she gazed at the scene in front of her. The girl outside knocked on the window again then pointed inside. Yang finally leaned over and looked out the window as well. "Hey isn't that that Melina girl Tobias was talking to earlier?" She said her voice thick with sleep.
"I think your right Yang, the one who kissed him right?" Ruby said climbing down from her bunk.
Weiss and Blake's eyes widened in recognition as Ruby moved to the window and opened it up. Melina zipped inside and landed in front of Blake and Weiss shaking her finger at them. "Its rude to keep a princess waiting."
"Princess..?" Ruby said.
"Indeed!" she said turning back to Ruby with a small curtsy. "Sixth imperial princess of Baruria."
"Hey she's like you Weiss!" Ruby exclaimed.
Melina turned back to Weiss, curiosity evident in her eyes.
Sighing Weiss spoke. "I've told you dozens of times Ruby it's heiress."
"Well I mean...Same difference right?" Ruby said.
"Before we get into technicalities." Melina interrupted. "Summoner told me to come ask you for some of this worlds currency, I need to to use the airbus and get into the city."
"Why do you need to go into the city?" Blake asked.
Melina stared at her for a moment before saying. "Ask my summoner, if it is something you should know he will tell you."
Blake narrowed her eyes at Melina but nodded. "Okay. Ill ask him then." She then patted her sides to look for her wallet, pulling out a small plastic rectangle with an elaborate L on it she handed it to Melina. "That's ten lien that should be enough to get you there and back."
Melina smiled. "Thank you. I'll be taking my leave now." she once again gave a small curtsy then her form faded into darkness and vanished.
"Whoa." Ruby said. While Yang stared at the spot where Melina was once standing, her eyes narrowed.
Knocking at the door brought Yang out of her musings however as she walked over to answer it. She opened the door revealing Ciara and company, pulling out her scroll in surprise she saw that it was indeed Twelve on the dot. "Oh hey guys! Sorry we aren't ready we just were talking with Melina."
"Oh? Melina was here? Why?" Ciara asked.
"She needed some lien to get into town."
"I see. I suppose she is good at what she does."
"And what exactly is she doing?" Blake asked.
Ciara looked past Yang and stared at Blake. "Ask our summoner, if he thinks you need to know he will tell you."
Blake gave a suffering sigh as she nodded. "I don't even know why I tried."
Ciara gave a small chuckle. "Now that you've taken your naps was there anything in particular you wanted to do?"
The girls looked among themselves for a moment before Weiss spoke up. "We would have Oobleck's class next right? I wanted to see the scores for the test."
"Did you and summoner not make a bet over the test as well?" Selena said.
"Oh that's right! You guys did! I'll send him a message right now." Ruby said "Let's see if he is as smart as he really says.
"Well, now that we have a destination in mind let's head out!" Yang said.
Class was just starting when they got there, they strolled in leisurely knowing was always came in few seconds after class started. Their classmates looked at them in surprise and asked how they had returned so fast and what had happened on the mission. Team RWBY just chuckled and told everyone there were less grimm than expected and they had cleared everything out pretty quick. Tobias finally arrived just as zoomed in from the other door. Tobias sat down greeting everyone and tossed Nyami a pudding pack, much to her delight. shuffled some papers on his desk before looking up and scanning the classroom. His eyes fell on team RWBY and CNRS. "Ah! Girls! You back simply stupendous, you truly performed well on that mission if i do say so myself after reviewing the video, it was simply excellent." He gave them knowing glances but continued on anyway "You made it back just in time for me to return the test to you. However before I do I want to let everyone know this is our last day of class until the festival is over, so please let me give you back your test then you can relax or leave!"
Excited murmuring went around the classroom as he zoomed through the aisles passing back test. When he finally got to them he slowed down and gave a small wink to Weiss. "Excellent as always , however this time you did have some stiff competition." he said smiling while he passed out the rest of the papers. Weiss's eyes widened as she looked at Tobias who in return gave a smug grin.
"Aw so close, i got a 89" Ruby said.
"Better luck next time Ruby." Blake said while patting her on the back. " I got a 92."
Yang let out a small huff. "80." this cause Blake to stop patting Ruby on the back and begin to tease Yang, poking her in the stomach and telling her she shoulda just studied with her.
This left Tobias and Weiss staring at the others upside down paper.
"Well?" Ruby asked impatiently. "Lets see whos smarter!"
"Ladies first." Tobias said with a smirk.
Weiss let out a haughty huff. "I think you mean winners first, there no way you could possibly match my score when you hardly ever came to class in person." She flipped over her paper and looked at the score. "98." she said and looked at Tobias smugly. "Good luck."
Smirking back he brought the paper to face with a flourish as he read his score aloud. "98…"
"You guys...tied." Blake said.
Tobias and Weiss simply stared at each others papers again until something tickled the back of Tobias's neck. He turned around and saw Nyami holding out a bunch of papers. "What are these? Your guy's test?"
She nodded. Tobias turned around and looked through them quickly not surprised to see that they had filled in the exact same answers as him however he was forced to do a quick double take on the last paper which had a big 100 percent with a red circle around it. "Wha-... Nyami?! How did you get a hundred?!"
"What?!" Weiss said. "Give me that!" She snatched the paper looking over it frantically while Nyami spoke up again.
"W-well I knew summoner did not appreciate us taking his word as the right one when it came to various things… and I knew you didn't know what the second question was so...I guessed something else."
Tobias gave a huge grin as he patted her head. "Haha im proud of you, good job."
Weiss however was having the opposite effect. She stared at the paper in disbelief. "I...I got a lower score than a pudding eating demon…?"
"Hey she's a Morokai not a demon." Tobias interjected.
She snapped her head at Tobias. "That's not the point! How did you learn all this material so fast, you hardly ever came to class!"
Tobias held his hands up. "I mean yea I wasn't there but I had these guys taking notes for me."
"That doesn't mean anything! He always slips in things he's talking about that are little hints… how could you possible have noted those."
"They wrote down everything he said. I didn't actually miss anything."
Weiss looked about ready to burst a blood vessel. Ruby put a had on her shoulder right as Tobias said. "Look...you need to take the stick out of your ass." He smirked deviously. "Or at least make it one Ruby can use as well."
His words had the intended effect. Yang let out a loud cackle as Weiss instantly burned a bright red color and stood up and walked briskly out of the room. Ruby, surprised at the mention of herself in the joke but not quite getting it stood up with her as Weiss began to move all the while asked "Wait! Weiss! Calm Down, what did he mean! Weiss please!"
A few minutes later the laughter died down from team CNRS and the BY of RWBY. "Oh man that was a good on Tobias. Although if it's Weiss we are talking about it shoulda been an icicle not a stick." Yang said. This set off a whole new round of laughter. Wiping a tear from her eye Yang said. "Well we should probably go check on them before Weiss has an aneurysm. They are probably back in the dorm.
As they approached the dorm room the last few chuckles were getting out of their system. Yang put up a hand telling them to stand back for a second before putting her ear to the door. "Well...I don't hear yelling so it looks like Ruby managed to calm her down."
"I hope she's not too mad at me for making that joke. She knows it's fairly obvious right?" Tobias said.
"I mean yea but Ruby is a brick wall when it comes to that kind of thing."
"I see." he said with a small laugh, he looked back at Ciara. "Is that why you liked to mess with her?"
Ciara smiled and nodded.
Yang opened the door and took a step inside only to freeze mid way through the door.
"What's wrong Yang?" Blake asked looking over her and freezing in shock, eyes wide.
Tobias now very curious peeked over Yang's shoulder and the sight that greeted him made his jaw drop.
Weiss had Ruby pinned up against the wall her hands firmly clasped with Ruby's and were locked in a very intense lip lock.