I don't know if I have to say this but Cursing and detailed descriptions of violence.
"Get up Rats!" A voice bellowed from the dark, interrupting the silent dream I and many others were happening.
Hearing 'Get up rats' was the last thing I wanted to hear after what felt like 5 hours of sleep.
People stirred awake around me, with some jumping up at arms with their weapons in case of danger.
Looking around the room I could see other Atlas soldiers yelling at their group of kids to wake up, some did it physically, others verbally yet all of them getting the same results.
"Move it rat or you'll miss breakfast!" A voice behind me yelled as around me people ran out the door and stop there at the lack of light.
Amas and Enzo ran with me to the giant door as well with Vester and his group to our right and many other groups around us as well.
Even with the wide width of the doors when we all tried to run into half of us got stuck on each other and fell down in a heap that groaned and yawned much to the exhaustion of military personnel who got to watch it.
"You are Soldiers of Atlas," a voice boomed in front of us, with some fallen people blocking my view. "Don't tell me this year's dipshits will be beaten by a door before I can do it personally,"
With that motivation, the people around me started to flop and scramble on top of each other in hopes of standing on their feet and into attention.
Growling and cursing were heard as people shifted and a second later we were in a straight line, with some people hands at their temple, and others not quite knowing what to do with their hands.
"At least you dipshits are in line now, granted this line is less straight than my son." A man said in front of me.
He was around 6'7 with shoulders chiseled like ancient statues. Despite his age of around the late 60s, he was built like an athlete, with muscles that could easily strangle the life out of me. He had no hair on top of his head, with only a thick beard and thin eyebrows to replace the empty space.
Around his body was the standard-issue Atlas soldier-issued uniform with a silver circle and two Bronze stars on his shoulder marking his ranking of Sergeant for all to see.
But what caught everyone's eyes was the lack of his right hand, not even a prosthetic was there, just a stump that held nothing. In his left held a wedding ring that should have been on his right with scarring to boot.
"Can someone tell what time it is right now?" The Sergeant asked
A kid with a monocle answered in the back, "2 o'clock sir,"
"Sergeant sir to you 'Monopoly', now who knows what time you fell asleep?"
"Around 9ish sir" another voice yelled from the back.
"So around 5 hours of sleep, doesn't seem fair huh. So you must be wondering why we're doing this; out of fun, to place bets on who would fail first, or to break you? Well, it's all the above really, Atlas Academy is to mold Warriors and Huntsmen out of nothing and no one. You would be my 30th class to mold, I haven't failed before and I wouldn't start now." He said before he started to pace around.
A giggle erupted from the crowd near my right. Turning his head the sergeant gained a look of anger.
"So you think that this is a joke huh, something to look back in 10 years and laugh about. Huh, a recruit I knew from day one was torn open by Grimm in front of his squad and had his intestines eaten like a bowl of noodles. My squad leader a year later was crushed by a falling bullhead with his blood hitting my face and not coming off for hours because we were in the middle of a mission." He said before pulling out his scroll and swiping up towards the guy who giggled.
The people around him leaned in close as the guy, Astron I think pulled out his scroll.
Not even 10 seconds after he pulled the scroll out people began to gag with some others straight up pulling away. With them, out the way, I could see that the video he was sent was the video of the recruit getting pinned down by Grimm and eaten alive. As the other squad members of the recruit began to scramble in a hopeless attempt to save the doomed man.
Astron stepped back with a horrified expression on his face before turning to the side and heaving what was inside his body in front of a girl who jumped back with a scream and glaring at the boy.
"Well now, do you think I'm serious?" Sergeant asked with a comically high eyebrow raised. "Good well after that display from 'Vomit Comit' I'm sure you want breakfast right, so follow this path and eat up you rats!" He boomed as if the following scene didn't happen. He turned his body and head letting us see the dirt path behind him that went on and on.
Groaning I and the rest of the recruits began to run.
But as you can guess running on 5 hours of sleep isn't the easiest thing to do, especially as a teenager who needs as much as you can get.
A chorus of groans and panting echoed my statements as people hard exterior or not were having trouble adjusting to the abrupt change.
The path we had to travel was easy, it was a normal dirt road around a foot wide with a bigger dirt road to our right around 7 feet wide. Some of the people jogging in the dirt road left to go to the other for more room.
That was up until they heard the revving of engines behind them. Ducking out of the way in the nick of time two military cars on either side of us drove up to the road right beside us.
"Hey watch where your going you nearly killed me," A voice yelled behind me
Instead of responding some people got out of their seats and after grabbing some objects near them, started to throw objects at us as we were running.
Cursing, Amas and I shifted our bodies closer to the ground while still jogged, Enzo opted to just sprint and try and dodge. People around us chose 1 of these two options, with Vester's group trying to block the objects or hit them out of the air.
'Ok know this is just unfair' I thought as I dodged... wait was that a hammer? Waking us up with only 5 hours of sleep is one thing, having us run for breakfast is one thing, but doing all that and having stuff thrown at us, What the fuck man' I couldn't help but think sourly.
Around us the area started to narrow, as our right side came into conflict with a cliff, this one not leading into other towers or the city below but rather a forest of uncertain things.
Suddenly the object's advances towards us stopped, while some of us were happy others were skeptical of the sudden change in attitude towards us even if it was given by order.
The excitement was cut short when lights interrupted the sighs of relief. The cars on our right-shifted behind to block us off.
In front of us, cars swerved to us dragging up dirt and sending recruits diving backward in an attempt to not get hit and sent to the hospital on their first training regiment.
The vehicles and Atlas soldiers trapped us, with 3 of the four directions being blocked with little to no room to use as an exit. The only place that didn't have soldiers and vehicles was the cliff that we hugged.
"What the fuck," breathed out Enzo staring at the formation of vehicles in front of him. "They can't do this right?" He asked before looking at me, then various other people hoping for some response.
"Oh yes I can," A voice spoke from inside a humvee parked outside the half-circle. The Sergeant then walked into the frame with his left hand massaging his right stump. "You are on Atlas Academy property and can be seen as definitely legal, also when you signed up to the school you are also saying we may push you to the limit in the pursuit of bettering you. So yes we can." He finished with a smug smile.
"Why?" I spoke up and our eyes met "Why stop us halfway through the first tasked you asked us to do?" I said with other people around me nodding in agreement.
"Did you actually think your first trial in Atlas Academy was to jog?!" He yelled with a laugh that held the barest hint of offense evident.
"No your actual first trial is very simple, there is a shrine in a clearing past the forest. There will be a bunch of podiums with artifacts on each bring both yours and your partners back to the academy to complete the first trial. And yes I said partner, the first person you make eye contact with inside the forest will be your partner." He spoke
"Wait what do you mean launch?" a voice asked behind me as the crowd began to murmur in agreement.
Clang.
The crowd wasn't that loud as murmurs and the wind rustling around was the only sound that could be heard, but when the ground shifted slightly letting out a sound of gears moving it silenced the limited sound.
On queue, we all looked to the ground on the cliff we were on. The boy with the monocle seemed to understand what it was and began fiddling with the straps on his back. People who were looking at him also seemed to gain an idea as they brought out their weapons and calibrate with their outfits.
The shared idea seemed to be lost on the rest of us, we would get out our weapons but we didn't know why, we weren't going to fight sergeant right?
"This is what I mean by launch." Sergeant said before turning back as the gears below us started to shift again before the distance from us and the ground started to increase at a rapid rate.
My body felt weightless, the cold wind wrapped around my face leaving a cold slap in its wake. People around me screamed and Vester grabbed onto one of his friends in an attempt to land on the ground better only for the opposite to undoubtedly happen.
Turning my head the world turned into a canvas of abstract art, dark green blended into the black sky with the moon being the only thing that stood out.
Pulling on the end of my razors they unwrapped around my arms and laying limp in its whip form. With a flick of my hands, the razors straightened out into my curved blade and normal sword that I was used to.
Turning the rest of my body around I had to resist not look at the scenery but rather than focus on how to land, stretching my right arm outwards I turned the razor back to its whip form and lashing it out towards the tree in an attempt to gain a foothold.
? Pov
Bright light flowed through the ceiling above me marking the desk in a yin and yang like look with the sharp light meeting the darkness coming from the windows behind me.
Sighing my eyes drifted down towards the clock placed on the right side of my desk, 2:34 was scrawled on the clock in bright red.
"It's was your idea to wake up at one in the morning sir." A familiar voice said from directly in front of him. Looking up he was met with the sight of his second in command Winter of the Schnee household.
"The first years are starting their trials today, and I can't sleep in while they work their ass off," Ironwood said before opening up the packet that held all the first year's profiles.
"Sir that is the fifth time you opened and then closed that packet, you are going to have to read it all at some point." Winter reminded him
Instead of replying he just opened up the packet and continued to read.
"Also sir who got to train the first years through their trials this year?" Winter asked after a minute of silence.
"Sergeant Navas,"
Winter gave a slight flinch, one that normal people would miss, but one that didn't go unnoticed by James.
"You met him?" He asked
"Once, it was a quick mission to the eastern tip of Atlas just a recon mission after we got reports from a small town of Grimm sightings. When my squad got there we met with Navas and his squad. Both of our squads went eastbound and shortly after reaching the village we took down the Grimm there pretty quickly.
We spent some time partying at the nearby village in one of the few chances we could just relax. But what we failed to account for was that the Grimm had been spread out throughout the area and that we took out only a batch of them. So when we were asleep the remaining Grimm attacked the village, wiping out most of the population before we could intervene.
After that he had changed, while I haven't seen much of his since I heard that he was especially crude and some would call him a hardass." she finished out her story before looking at James "But you knew part of this right."
He just nodded before speaking "I knew about part of the mission, and that you were both parts of it. But that was not the reason I brought him over. But the reason I brought him over was because of the intel that we received from Ozpin." To which Winter nodded along.
"So Sir what are you going to do with that intel?" Winter couldn't help but ask
Ironwood stopped reading as he thought about what he would do, Atlas and Vale could only interact so long before their populations began to question what was going on and that could spiral out of control. While Ozpin wants to help he can't speak for all of Vale and James can't speak for Atlas.
So instead he just looked at the window as he sighed and began tapping on his chair in a rhythmic pattern. "I don't know Winter all I do know is something has to happen or we won't be strong enough to stand on our own as a society."
Sorry if this chapter seems to drop towards the end just really wanted to get this out for the both of us.
Fact: Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify Texas as a former independent republic and as a reminder of the state's struggle for independence from Mexico. The "Lone Star" can be found on the Texas state flag and on the Texas state seal today.