Alfarr breathes deeply as he sits alone in his room meditating. He focused on the lesson his wind master taught him before they had left and tried to focus on creating a small controlled tornado in his palm.
"This is cool." Coco whispered over his shoulder as Ruby was over on his other shoulder.
"Shouldn't we close the door?" Ruby asks.
Coco waves her off. "Nah. We'll be fine."
Ruby raises an eyebrow. "Are you sure?" She asks still cradling the egg.
Coco then smirks. "Hey, this exercise is about concentration. How about we make it more difficult?"
"Um…no." Ruby says holding her egg.
"Shouldn't that be in the incubator?" Coco asks.
Ruby smiles. "I like holding this little one."
"How long till it even hatches?" Coco asks as she noticed Ozpin walking down the halls.
Ruby shrugs. "No idea. Maybe ask Alfarr here?"
Coco nudges her side and directs her to the approaching Ozpin.
Ruby yelps and tries to stand at attention. "Sir."
"Have I come at a bad time?" Ozpin asks.
Alfarr groans to himself as he tries to keep concentration. "Yes?"
"Alfarr, I need to see you." Ozpin says before telling him the situation.
Alfarr yells out as he loses his concentration. "Dang it. You have to kidding. I am not even in the games." He said as the girls watch the small tornado whip around the room before Alfarr clenched his hand and it dissipated after causing a mess.
"I'll go get the broom." Coco said walking to the closest.
"I'll get the mop." Ruby said following her.
"Yes, the request was strange but with the towers undergoing maintenance, I can't check it out." Ozpin says.
"Who am I facing?" Alfarr asks rubbing his head.
"Mercury Black." Ozpin said and Alfarr groans.
"I see, when is it?" Alfarr asks.
Ozpin hums. "Around tomorrow after lunch."
"I see." Alfarr says in thought.
"I will leave you two to instruct him in official tournament rules." Ozpin said.
Ruby and Coco wave at him as they keep cleaning.
"I will be back soon." Alfarr says walking away.
Ruby looks up from her cleaning. "Um…we have to tell you the rules."
"Go over them at dinner." Alfarr says walking away.
Mercury was doing pushups while Emerald was reading something when there was a knock on their door.
"Come in." Emerald said still reading.
Alfarr opened the door, not looking happy. "I am looking for your boss."
They both quickly stop and look to him surprised he came over. "Um…she's busy." Mercury said.
"If she is, I could kill you while I wait." Alfarr says bluntly letting them know he wasn't joking.
"Oh, no need for that." Cinder says coming out of the shower in the school uniform with her hair still wet.
"Let's talk in private." Alfarr says unamused.
Cinder looks slightly amused. "Aw, no good looks then for you?"
"I am still not fully convinced to not kill your people as I did warn you." Alfarr says before they walked off.
"Man, I was wrong. He is probably more bloodthirsty than…ow!" Mercury calls as he was hit with Neo's umbrella.
Emerald huffs. "Well…you did deserve that."
"So what can I do you for?" Cinder asks innocently smirking.
"You know well enough why I am here." Alfarr says glaring as they look out at the sea from an over watch.
Cinder chuckles. "Well enlighten me."
"I warned you not to fuck with me, my mission, or those close to me. If you did, I said I would kill you and all your little pawns." Alfarr says looking at her with his iris sharpened a bit.
Cinder laughs a little. "Really? You dragged a recently showered girl just to threaten her? I haven't even done anything. Besides, if I did…" She said picking up a rock and flicking it away to hit a wayward bird to make it fall. "You be dead too."
"You underestimate the wind too much." Alfarr says as a tree suddenly fell off the side of the over watch, it's stump with a perfectly smooth cut.
Cinder raises an eyebrow at that as she makes a wave ride up and wash the tree aside before the tree can catch the bird. "Or maybe you underestimate me."
"There is a difference between us." Alfarr says getting close up. "I am not afraid to die taking you down, but you. I smell the fear of death on you." Alfarr says.
Cinder sighs and lets a wave catch the bird and makes it wash ashore. "Or maybe I am studying you."
"Study all you want, but remember, when studying a dangerous creature, don't get too close or tick it off or it will bare its fang." Alfarr warns.
Cinder playfully holds out her hands menacingly. "Rawr rawr." She said playfully.
"Also, you people are soft. You get too squeamish when it comes to survival. Me and my people though. We don't hesitate and out of respect for the influence you obtained so young, I won't rip out your throat this time. Next time though." Alfarr stops letting his threat hang before his eyes go back to normal.
Cinder smiles. "Such cute eyes."
"Also, tell your white fang spies over there to improve or not bother as I will cut their legs off and leave them hanging to bleed to death as I hate it when my own kind act like they do." Alfarr says getting a reaction from her.
Cinder frowns as he walks away. "Stupid boy." She said under her breath.
"So you aren't unable to get a reaction out of me huh?" Alfarr asks smirking.
Cinder scoffs. "As if I bother with you that much. At least I'm not the one fighting. We'll see how you really do tomorrow."
"Don't worry. I will return your little boy toy intact." Alfarr says reminding her of her taunting, making her smirk again.
"And I'll be sure to not harm your girls. Who knows, they could have been more fun if they were able to continue." Cinder trying to wipe her hair down.
Alfarr says nothing as he glares out before smirking inwardly. 'Search all you want, there are no materia in the ship.' Alfarr thinks.
Cinder sighs. "Well I better get going. Wouldn't want to watch a cold now." She said wringing her hair.
"Really, in this heat? Man you southerns really are wimps to the cold." Alfarr says.
Cinder shrugs. "Or maybe just not born in it like you. We are all different but there some things that keep us together."
"Whoa…I am not a great romantic, but even I think that was cheesy." Alfarr says before chuckling. "I never thought I would meet someone as bad as me at romantic stuff."
Cinder rolls her eyes. "You and me bad? Please. I had a guy wrapped around me finger and you didn't know it."
"They go for jail bait huh?" Alfarr jokes.
Cinder frowns. "And yet he still messes up."
"…I know this guy?" Alfarr asks.
Cinder shrugs. "How should I know? Are we even talking about the same person?"
"…he drunk nearly twenty-four seven?" Alfarr asks before they both facepalm. "God damn it Qrow." Alfarr says.
"Damn it Torchwick." She said under her breath.
"Everyone has at least one huh?" Alfarr asks.
Cinder smiles. "Looks like we have something in common,"
"Two, we are both vicious and don't let anything get in our way if we can help it." Alfarr says walking away.
Cinder sighs. "Such a boneheaded boy."
"I'm telling you, the thing was huge. It was known as one of the kings of the land." Jaune says.
"Yeah right." One of the guys said at a table.
They hear snoring and looks to see Ruby sleeping on a table with a large egg in her arms. "What the…?"
"That was an egg in its nest. Tell me what hatches won't be big." Jaune says.
They just stared at the egg as Alfarr places a blanket over Ruby. "So what's the rules?" He whispered.
Coco smirked, going over the rules as Sun showed off his new necklace fashioned from one of the fangs of the former queen of the land of Avalon, impressing the girls and guys who would listen.
"That's right everyone. Feast your eyes on it and be amazed." Sun said showing it off as much as possible.
"Jeez." Neptune says rubbing his forehead as the rest of the task force seemed to be having fun as they work off the deadly mission.
"Well this is going well. And we are supposed to work with these guys?" Rebecca asks.
"Could have been worse. Could have easily lost someone like Reese and the croc." Neptune says.
Rebecca raises an eyebrow. "Croc?"
"The one you, Alfarr, and Reese brought back and we all stay away from the water after that." Neptune reminds.
Rebecca blinks. "Oh. That croc. Yeah, it was big…and tasty."
"And it was a meno apparently." Neptune says.
Rebecca shrugs. "As long as it is dead and good to eat."
"Nice change of pace that we got to eat what we killed." Neptune says.
Rebecca smiles. "And you get to learn how to barbecue."
"I'm starting to like this assignment as we get to travel all over. Meeting new cultures and stuff, but I'm hoping that next time we won't be in such danger." Neptune says.
Rebecca raises an eyebrow. "You haven't much on this trip, haven't you?"
"I missed out on the guardians." Neptune says.
Rebecca sighs. "There are ale dangers as always. So if you want to be danger free, might as well get out of this group."
"I'm not asking for that. I'm hoping for less danger than that place for the next one." Neptune says.
"And away from the water." Scarlet adds.
Neptune frowns. "Yes…that too."
"So we all have our own room in the ship. How are you guys going to personalize?" Reese asks.
Neptune smiles. "A dessert style to it. Maybe a ranch."
"And here I thought I was the cowgirl." Rebecca says smirking.
Neptune nods before glaring at her. "Hey!"
Scarlet and Reese chuckle at hearing that.
Yang hums as she looks to her second tattoo. "It's strange to have two now."
"Psst. Yang." Nora whispers.
Yang looks over. "Yes? And why are you whispering?"
"Pyrrha says to let everyone know that in the next few days that the professor will want us to summon our guys in private so some scientist can study them a bit." Nora whispers.
Yang frowns. "And some of these guys come out when they want to."
"Yeah, they know." Nora says before zooming off.
Yang scratches her head in confusion. "The heck?"
"Welcome ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this special series of matches." Professor Port says over the loudspeakers.
"Indeed, these match look to be some good ones." Oobleck says.
"And here comes our first. First up is Alfarr vs Mercury. Wait, Alfarr wasn't in the tournament, is he?" Port asks.
"No, no he wasn't. Alfarr was injured greatly in the grimm attack before the tournament and was ruled too injured to compete." Oobleck says.
Port hums. "So I guess he has healed enough to try a match himself then?"
"Oh yes he is and here come the competitors now." Oobleck says spotting Alfarr and Mercury.
Alfarr groans as Carby actually rubs his shoulders by tap dancing on it. "Meep?"
"Yeah, this is just going to be a pain." Alfarr says popping his neck.
Carby pats his head. "Meep meep." He said encouragingly.
"Yeah, yeah, don't hurt the boy toy." Alfarr jokes.
Carby squeaks laughing as he walks off and holding his sides.
Alfarr looked back to Mercury who didn't look amused.
Alfarr shrugs as he keeps stretching his arms. "You are paying for any treatment for my relaxing time. I think I may need since you are going to be a sore loser."
Mercury growls as he readies himself as Alfarr draws only one of his swords. "Now can you impress me enough to draw both?" Alfarr asks.
"Go get him Alfarr!" Ruby yells as she held the egg tightly.
"What? Cat got your tongue boy toy?" Alfarr asks taunting.
Mercury yells out as the bell rang and he charges before it could be sounded. "And the first one out of gate is Mercury…with a rather dumb first move." Port said.
"Yes, seems he has lost his cool from Alfarr's taunting." Oobleck says.
"Last one must have really hit home then." Port says as Alfarr blocked with his sword sending both skidding back from the recoil.
Alfarr hums. "Hear that? I'm guessing you were not good with girls. Is that why you hang out with two who are above you, in more than one way?" Alfarr says before blasting him with a blast of wind.
Mercury frowns as he spins kick the blast of air and makes it go another way before trying to get close and kick him.
"Oh I have also studied your matches closely. Wind user." Alfarr says before jumping over him and slashes his back the only thing protecting him is his aura.
Mercury growls as his shirt got ripped up and tries to roundhouse kick him and makes him block and sends him skidding.
"This all you got?" Alfarr asks making Mercury mad and starts kicking while turning on one leg, sending out many air bullet like balls.
Coco raises an eyebrow. "That is so bad unless he has control of them."
Soon the two combatants were in a dome of orbiting air bullets. "Oh, so you have a tiny bit of skill." Alfarr mocks as he moves to a defensive stance.
Mercury huffs as the air bullets starts to come down on Alfarr as he slices or blows them away before being overwhelmed and gets bombarded. Mercury sees this and starts walking away.
"Not too bad." Alfarr says getting up.
Mercury looks back surprised as he stops. "Well, looks like even the dome of air can't stop our famous hunter. What will Mercury do? Two more times until he is down and out?" Port asks.
"Playtime is over." Alfarr says before charging forwards.
Mercury frowns and jumps back before landing and then breaks the ground as he charges forward as well and prepares to kick him.
Alfarr, seeing this, make a dodge by inches before slamming the hilt into Mercury's stomach, knocking the wind out of him before Alfarr blasts him away with an air blast, making the buzzard sound.
"Woo hoo! Go Alfarr!" Ruby cheers as Coco laughs and claps.
"Better luck next time boy toy and tell the girls if they want to hand out with a real man, come look me up." Alfarr says turning to walk away.
Mercury frowns. "You…" He groans before launching himself at him and aims to kick him.
Alfarr sighs and looks to about to counter before quickly sheathing his sword to Mercury's shock, before being kicked away into the wall. "Okay, the wall hurts." He groans as he slid down.
"Alfarr!" Both Ruby and Coco yells as they look down at him and jump down to him.
"Wait, what?!" Port calls as he saw two things differently.
"Someone cut the feed and check it!" Oobleck yells.
"Uh oh." Mercury says as the security looked to him.
Alfarr groans as he stays laying down. "Okay, that hurt. Hi girls." He said smiling to them.
Coco looks him over. "What the heck happened?"
"Guy sucker punched me." Alfarr says knowingly smirking inwardly.
Ruby frowns. "Can I go kick his ass?"
"I think security is ahead of you." Alfarr says before they start hearing an alarm.
Coco looks up at the arena. "Wonder what that is for."
"Sound like it is coming from the academy." Alfarr says, his ears twitching under his cloak's hood.
"It's a lot of our research and stuff is gone and it looks like the ship was broken into as well. Luckily, no materia were on board." Oobleck says.
Alfarr scratches at his small bandages. "Nothing else huh?"
"We can duplicate the research easily. The problem is that we had a really promising place for a potential materia site." Oobleck says.
Alfarr frowns. "Do you remember where?"
"We will have to recreate our research once more before we can give an accurate decision." Oobleck says.
Alfarr groans. "Get it done. If whoever attacked this place, they could get materia of their own."
"We are aware of that. Which is why we already started." Oobleck says.
Alfarr nods as he rubs his forehead. "Now what is going on with Mercury?"
"We will give him detention for now." Ozpin says.
Alfarr smiles inwardly. "Good. Now then, is there anything else?"
"How are you? You took a nasty blow to the chest." Ozpin asks.
Alfarr shrugs. "It's fine. I took worse."
"That is all then. I will inform you of any new developments." Ozpin says and Alfarr turns to leave.
When the elevator opened up on the ground floor, Alfarr saw Reese there waiting.
Reese smiles and waves. "Hi. You okay?"
"I'm fine enough." Alfarr says before walking with her.
Reese raises an eyebrow as she hovers along. "Are you sure? You went into the wall pretty hard."
"Yeah I am, but I appreciate the thought." Alfarr says as Reese smiles.
Reese sighs in relief. "Good. It's still weird how that happen though. I mean…one screen showed you hitting him in the leg and our eyes show you flying off to the wall from a kick."
"Someone manipulating that with illusion powers. Mercury probably wanted me to hit him when he did that." Alfarr says.
Reese hums. "So what happened?"
"Someone broke into here and our ship. They were obviously looking for our materia, but unfortunately." Alfarr says stopping to let her finish.
Reese sighs. "There were none. Thank goodness."
"But we have bad news as well." Alfarr says.
Reese blinks. "What is it?"
"They stole all the research of potential materia locations and one looked promising I am told." Alfarr says.
Reese groans. "Great. Now what?"
"They are working to repiece their research together." Alfarr says not sounding in a good mood.
Reese looks worried. "Are you okay?" She asks taking a closer look.
"No, this is not anything good." Alfarr says.
Reese frowns. "I mean you. Are you okay?"
"Same." Alfarr says before he feels someone hugging him.
"Don't worry about hiding it." Reese said making sure he doesn't move for a bit.
Alfarr says nothing and just pats her head.
Reese smiles and hugs him tighter. "Now then, let's sit down somewhere and just enjoy some peaceful relaxation."
"I take it the others approved?" Alfarr asks.
Reese nods and pokes his forehead. "As long as I don't hurt the handsome guy here."
Alfarr smiles and walks with her.
Reese giggles and keeps hugging him. "So…what's the plans for now?"
"So what are you into?" Alfarr asks as they walk.
Reese shrugs. "Not by much. But I do love to do tricks with my board."
"Oh why don't you show me?" Alfarr asks.
Reese chuckles and let's go of him before moving away a bit and starts to ride her board a bit faster. "Any requests?"
"Show me what you got." Alfarr says.
Reese grins and rushes off before actually riding up building walls and tree trunks and spins in the air and flips around. "So?" She asks still doing tricks.
"You're quite the acrobat." Alfarr says.
Reese smiles as she speeds by him. "Thanks. Kinda my easiest part."
"You have the dexterity for it." Alfarr says.
Reese raises an eyebrow. "So you're saying I'm flexible huh?"
"Quick as well." Alfarr adds.
Reese sighs as she rides up to him. "Want more?"
"I'm happy if you are having fun." Alfarr says.
Reese giggles. "Sure am. What do you want to do now?" She asks hovering in circles around him.
"Personally, to hunt down those who did this and introduce them to the business end of my swords." Alfarr says.
Reese rolls her eyes. "Alfarr."
"I don't know what to do." Alfarr says.
Reese smiles. "Aw. I can help with that. We don't have much to do today. So…want to have a date?"
"I am still new to that so you will have to lead a bit." Alfarr says.
Reese then grins a bit. "It's okay. Come on." She said taking his hand and leading him off.
Ruby hums softly as she rubs the egg and still holds it close to her. "How long has she been carrying that thing?" Blake whispered to the rest on the other side of the room.
"Weeks." Yang says as she reads a book.
Weiss hums as she tries to work. "The egg is kinda growing on me. Makes me wonder how's the baby going to be like."
"Big and red?" Yang offers.
Weiss shrugs. "It's a suggestion. But why do I think Ruby is going to be doing a lot of dress up?"
"Why would she?" Blake asks.
They all look over to Ruby softly singing to the egg as she wraps blankets around it. "Just a feeling." Weiss said.
"So have any informed your parents on your new tattoos?" Blake asks.
Weiss chuckles nervously. "Well…"
"Ruby, Yang?" Blake asks.
Ruby and Yang smile. "Dad already threw Ozpin's cup out of the window in his office." Yang said as she helps Ruby wrap some blankets.
Ruby holds up a finger. "And Ozpin is still looking for a new one since the one he has now is held together by glue."
Yang smirks. "And I bet everyone hates glue mixing in their coffee."
"So have you two tried invoking your new guardians?" Blake asks.
They both look to their tattoos. "Not really." "Not yet." They said.
"Remember that scientist from all four kingdoms want to see the summoning and take readings today." Blake says noticing Weiss wearing stockings now.
Yang shrugs. "Eh, I need a spar anyways. It has been a while."
"They want to see your new one I bet." Blake says.
"Speaking of parents Weiss, have you talked to your father?" Ruby asks.
Weiss unconsciously pulls her stocking up higher. "Nope. Not yet." She said trying to work.
"Weiss, you in here?" Winter asks opening the door.
Weiss looks up as Winter walks in. "Oh, do you need something?"
"I need to talk to you about a few things in private." Winter says.
Weiss sighs and gets up and follows her. "Let's go."
After getting somewhere private, Winter turns to her little sister. "Ok, it's time we talked about Alfarr."
Weiss raises an eyebrow. "What for? He's a good teammate and knows about these." She said pointing to her legs.
"Sister, I noticed how you look at him, especially after that fight." Winter says.
Weiss frowns. "If you are saying I like him, you are sadly mistaken."
"Weiss you do. No matter how much you deny it." Winter says looking at Weiss' blush.
Weiss huffs. "I don't like him."
"Weiss, are you still afraid of making a connection?" Winter asks.
Weiss groans as she crosses her arms and looks away.
"Weiss, if you don't take a chance, you will miss him forever." Winter says.
Weiss sighs. "I know."
"You have to go after him." Winter says putting a hand on her shoulder.
Weiss groans. "Yeah, now I just have to find him."
"I'll help with that. Also, there are two other things." Winter says.
Weiss raises an eyebrow. "What is that?"
"First, our father will want to know about the quality of dust on the continent of Avalon." Winter says.
Weiss groans. "Alfarr doesn't not want his homeland being taken over and everything tourist."
"I know and one last thing. Father is coming for a visit." Winter says.
Weiss looks a bit shocked. "What? Why?"
"Our company built the engine so it has a vested part in the blades. Also, he wants to see these guardians and finally he is likely using the former two to come see us." Winter says.
Weiss sighs as she rubs her forehead. "I have the worst luck right now."
"Now you know. Let's go find him after you go see the others." Winter says.
Weiss groans as she keeps rubbing her head. "I feel I need more headache pills."
"This is why I have a prescription." Winter says.