Lean, Green, and Very, Very Mean

Chapter 6: One Way Ride

Rookie woke up on the floor of a room that wasn't hers. She remembered kicking down Yang's door, helping her to bed, and waiting until she went to sleep. But Rookie didn't remember going to sleep herself. She dragged herself up using the bed she fell asleep next to, and slowly walked over to check the time on the clock.

/06:28/

Rookie was pleased that despite all the strange happenings, her internal clock was still mostly on track. She looked back over to the bed, her eyes adjusting to the light, and saw Yang still asleep, half falling off the bed. Rookie found it best to let Yang sleep, remembering part of the night she had.

Rookie headed up to her dorm, and decided to wear her black bodysuit. She didn't trust that the new clothes had been washed, her trainer clothes definitely hadn't been, and there was no way in hell she was wearing the uniform.

Rookie headed out to the mess hall, hoping it was open this early in the day. She was starving, and she hadn't eaten much since she'd gotten here.

Walking out of the dorms, Rookie started towards the mess hall. Very few people were out this early, from what Rookie figured they were early arriving students, or a select few that stayed at the school before it was back in session the next year. The mess hall was open, so Rookie walked inside to grab something to eat.

There weren't many people around, just ones and twos wanting an early start to the day. Rookie walked to the serving line and grabbed some eggs, bacon, and waffles. As Rookie ate her breakfast her phone– scroll, she corrected herself, buzzed. Rookie ignored it. If it was important, they would've called. Otherwise, they could wait for her to finish eating.

As Rookie was finishing, her scroll buzzed again. Rookie got up, placed her dishes on the dirty rack, and walked outside to check her messages. Ozpin had messaged her about some extra training, to get her ready for the school year. Something about a landing strategy. She imagined that wasn't all that hard. She'd dropped from orbit… A hundred times now actually. That night was her hundredth drop, and she hadn't even realized.

No point worrying about it now. I've used a parachute too, so I'm not worried about whatever he means by 'landing strategy'.

Rookie had spent some time gathering some rudimentary sign language of the locals. It was almost USL, Universal Sign Language. There were a few variations that would just take some adapting, but it was all minor. Rookie started heading towards the armory to grab her gear. She hoped she fixed her gear correctly, otherwise she was due for some confusion.

As she approached the armory, she spotted Yang chatting with a guy with some odd green armor, who looked about the size of a Brute and had a sword to match, as well as someone who looked like she just walked out of a designer clothes store. She carried a studded purse that could have been a fashion accessory, or it could be a weapon. Rookie wasn't sure.

Rookie reached the building containing the armory, and made a right to the elevators. A tinny sounding voice asked her to place her scroll against the panel. Rookie complied, and was given access to the armory.

Rookie walked through the room that reminded Rookie more of a pool locker room than an armory, and reached her weapons locker. Rookie saw a sticky note attached to the front.

"I made a couple small modifications to help you use your Aura with your armor. Nothing major. Oh, I didn't get a chance to repaint it though.

Yang"

Rookie wasn't sure if she should be irritated or happy. On one hand, Yang had messed with her armor to let her use something she barely understood and never needed before. On the other hand, maybe this Aura would come in handy to avoid being blown up again.

Rookie opened the locker, and she was pissed.

Rookie's armor consisted of 3 major components. The black bodysuit that helped with thermal controls, vacuum sealing, and carried a small amount of ballistic protection, that she also was wearing now. The second part was the black body armor that went around her thighs and torso, as well as dropped down to protect some of the more important areas. And the "plates", which were a lot more than that. Her boots, which she would strap over her combat boots, and stretched up to protect her knees, the thigh, chest, forearm, and shoulder plates, the armored hardcase bag, and finally, her helmet. The plates were the problem.

All of her plates had lost their usual black coloring and instead had taken on a silver shine. She'd lost all her ability to sneak around, and the plates seemed to be a bit heavier. Not enough to make a difference with some training, but enough to notice.

Rookie put all her gear on, and stared into the small mirror that was on the inside of her locker, and scowled at herself. She looked like a fashion accessory, featuring a team of ambushed ODSTs who got spotted because of a stray flashlight. Rookie pulled on her helmet, and grabbed the rest of her weapons from the locker, then made her way back outside to meet where Ozpin had designated "The Barn".

Rookie had done a lot of crazy shit. But get flung off of a cliff, into a forest, with no equipment to make a safe landing? Rookie was almost entirely sure that one wasn't on her list of crazy shit.

And yet Ozpin looked dead serious about it. She was pretty sure this had to be illegal in some way, but here she was. Rookie took off her helmet and looked at Ozpin with a face that she hoped conveyed disbelief. Ozpin returned her stare, with no humor or deceit in his eyes.

"It's quite simple. You will be catapulted off this mountain, and you will find a method to safely land. This will be your first test of the year, which will be held in just 2 weeks."

Rookie scoffed. She was pretty sure she would break her neck attempting a stunt like that.

The cliff that Rookie was standing on was impressive to say the least. As she looked out over the forest, she thought she saw some ruins of some kind. They were small, and Rookie couldn't make it out. She fiddled with her helmet controls, magnifying her zoom by 5 times. All ODST helmets had a zoom of some level. Rookie had the basic model, and higher zoom levels typically required heavy external attachments.

Rookie looked at the ruins again. It was a small and circular arraignment, which she was pretty sure was featured in every fantasy game she'd ever played. It had pillars around the perimeter, with a solid round stone on top of the pillars, leaving a gap, so it almost looked like a donut.

Rookie turned back to Ozpin and sighed. She knew she wasn't getting out of this.

Rookie landed with an audible thud as all the air in her lungs evacuated in a fraction of a second. She sat up, wheezing to try and catch her breath again. She remembered the first time she'd gotten the wind knocked out of her. She had falsely believed that she was going to die. She remembered James had-

Rookie stopped herself, and forced herself to suck air in, trying to block the memory. She had landed rather close to a tree. She probably could have used it to slow down, had her trajectory been a little different. Ozpin had her doing smaller jumps for practice, due to Rookies concern for breaking her neck. They still hurt beyond belief when she messed the landing up.

She dragged herself up, and started to trudge back up the hill they were using as a launch point. Rookie had thought Ozpin was joking when he said the launcher would catapult her into the woods. He was not, and Rookie had since decided he was insane. Rookie was pretty sure there should have been laws against shit like this.

"You're getting better at dragging yourself back up here after you crash land." Rookie looked over to the brunette she had seen talking to Yang earlier in the day. Rookie raised her hand and gave the newcomer the one fingered salute, and collapsed near the launcher. She couldn't remember a day where she had hurt this much. Rookie was fairly sure her armor's gel layer was stopping most of the damage that came with slamming into the ground at high speeds, but it still hurt like hell.

The brunette didn't seem to have a reason to be here, and Rookie was determined not to give her one. Rookie hawled herself to her feet, and trudged towards the launcher once more.

Ozpin spoke up before Rookie could get there. "Perhaps we should take a break. There's plenty of time to practice landing, and there's more we have to cover before initiation. Most people have several years of training and education to build up to this. So it's no surprise that you're having some trouble, and we have quite a few topics to cover."

"Yeah, maybe you'll get farther along than hitting the dirt." The brunette chipped in.

Ozpin sighed. "I've called Miss Adel here to help you train your Aura. It's a useful skill that will help mitigate the harm you'll take from falling in the future. It seems you've already upgraded your armor to allow yourself to conduct aura better, which will help your training."

Rookie shrugged. She'd rather fuck with this than keep hitting the ground at higher speeds than she would've preferred.

Rookie extended her hand to 'Miss Adel'. She may not have liked her, but she was raised to be polite, and so she was going to try.

The girl shrugged, and took Rookie's hand. "My name's Coco. Like the Professor said, I'm here to help you with your aura, and we'll also cover a bit about fighting Grimm, since you're likely to encounter them during initiation."

Rookie cocked her head, confused by what she meant. Grim?

'What is "grim"?' Rookie signed.

"Grimm. 2 M's at the end," Coco signed while she spoke, teaching Rookie yet another new sign. "Creatures of Grimm, the embodiment of negative emotion. Sadness, anger, the whole platter. Usually it's the job of a huntress to kill them, and usually for money. Haven't you had to deal with them?"

Before Rookie could respond, Ozpin chimed in. "Rookie is from a place where they manage to keep Grimm rather far away from normal life. Unfortunately, they also refused to teach her of it."

"I see…" Coco sounded as if she didn't believe it, but Ozpin's tone offered no argument. "Well, we'll start with Aura. I'm gonna assume you don't know much about it?"

Rookie shook her head quickly. 'Another thing they didn't teach'

Rookie wasn't sure why Ozpin was hiding who she was, but she decided she should probably go along with it.

"Gotcha. Where are you from anyways?"

It was time to improvise. She wasn't sure if Coco would draw a correlation between Luna and the moon, so she changed it up a bit.

'Lunelle' Rookie responded, spelling out the word she had just made up.

"Never heard of it." Coco wasn't buying it, but she also didn't seem to care. "Whatever. Aura is an extension of who you are as a person. All humans and faunus have it. Most don't have it activated though, and only military personnel or Huntsman make regular use of it. Your aura can block attacks, be used to regenerate wounds, to a degree, and can be used to strengthen your weapon in combat, but there's usually not much need for that unless you're fighting a particularly armored opponent. In your case, you can use it to block damage to your armor, and soften blows. Using aura is going to be the result of a lot of concentration at first, but will eventually become second nature, like riding a bike or something. You got all that?"

Rookie nodded her head. She got it, but she didn't quite understand how it worked. If she had it, all humans should have it. So why didn't the UNSC use it? It could turn the tide of the war against the covenant. No use thinking about that now. She wasn't going back.

"Good. Then concentrate on the idea of protecting yourself from harm. You'll feel when it's active, then nod when you're ready. Some people close their eyes, they say it helps at first, but you might as well get practice without."

Rookie gave a thumbs up, and tried to concentrate on it. She felt a tingling sensation, and figured that was probably it. Rookie focused a bit longer, and nodded.

What came next was not what she was expecting. Coco grabbed a studded purse off her side and swung it at her head. Rookie was on the ground pretty quick. She rolled left, and jumped to her feet, drawing her pistol from her side and bringing it up.

"Let's not utilize your firearms for this, Miss Rookie. I see no reason to cause excess harm to Miss Adel. This is all a part of the process."

Rookie thought "Miss Rookie" sounded weird and condescending, but obliged. She put her sidearm down and drew her knife from her sheath above her ass plate. She wasn't going to fist fight Coco.

"Try and keep your aura up. It should become second nature."

Rookie got her aura back up, and got into a fighting stance. She kept her knife loose in a forward grip, in case she needed to flip it around. Coco walked up to her idly, as if she was walking down a catwalk at a fashion show, and whipped her purse around faster than should have been humanly possible. Rookie ducked below, tightened her grip, and went for a punch to the gut. Rookie was met with what might as well have been a brick wall, and Coco kneed her helmet, sending Rookie to the dirt.

"Use your weapon. If my aura gets too low, we'll call the fight there. Not that it will, I'd be more worried about your Aura level." Coco was rather sure she would come out unscathed, and Rookie was determined to make sure she didn't. She sighed and pushed herself to her feet. She'd managed to keep her aura up through all of it, and it was requiring less and less active thought as she went along. She always was a fast learner. The sharpened edge of her black combat knife glinted in the sun. Rookie got up and went on the offensive. She was trained in more than a couple hand to hand fighting techniques. Dutch had made sure of that after her first mission with Alpha 9. Her weapon had been smacked down, and she got punched in the neck by a burly insurrectionist. Dutch shoulder checked him, and promised Rookie to teach her some hand to hand.

Rookie remembered something Dutch had said. "If you've got nothing on the enemy, then make what you need. The three best things to have for any military operation are speed, surprise, and violence of action. Same thing for a fight. Get aggressive, force your opponent to the defensive.

Rookie lunged, feigned a left hook, and rammed her knife into Coco's side, being greeted by another brick wall. Rookie slashed at her purse hand, and kneed her in the gut, all in vain attempts to disarm her opponent. Coco was shaken, but not enough to go down. She jumped backwards, propelling herself at least 20 feet, leaving Rookie out of range. Coco shook her purse, and Rookie watched it transform into a massive gatling gun that definitely should not have fit inside the purse. Coco started firing at Rookie, and she sprinted for cover, more than one round hitting her, but not doing too much to her. Either Aura was very good at absorbing kinetic energy, or bullets were weaker here. Rookie was guessing it was a combination of the two, given her first night caused some amazement at her shotgun. Rookie found a rock to hide behind, and decided if she could use a gun, Rookie could use one. She would just have to be careful not to kill Coco. Rookie peeked out of cover and spotted Coco ready to fire again. Rookie sheathed her knife and drew her sidearm, stepped out, and fired two rounds at Coco's arms. The first round hit her left arm, just above the shield, but the second one hit Coco center mass, and knocked her flat.

Coco sat up, out of breath. "Woah!" She exclaimed between pants. "Where the hell did you get that thing? You knocked my Aura out completely!"

Rookie shrugged. She couldn't exactly say it was standard issue. 'I designed it with my uncle.' Rookie signed, which was nowhere close to the truth, but should be believable enough here.

"Well, your Uncle is very good at designing weapons. I'll have to talk with him about a few upgrades."

Rookie shrugged, and hoped the lie wouldn't come back to haunt her.

Ozpin coughed and spoke up. "You did an excellent job at keeping your Aura up through the fight. I recommend getting some extra practice, but I think this would be an excellent time to move on to Grimm before trying to find a way for you to hit the ground safely, wouldn't you agree, Miss Adel?"

"Yes Professor, I think moving on would be best. I don't think I can go into another fight like that for a bit."

The sun was setting by the time Rookie had wrapped up Grimm identification and weak points. Coco had lost some of her attitude after the fight, and had given Rookie a notebook to help her study Grimm, as well as a few ideas to break her falls. There were several ideas that Rookie was keen to try, and she wasn't quite ready to sleep, so she headed down to the armory. Her helmet had plenty of systems that could help her identify materials that were at least similar to her arm guards, and it had a faint idea of the alloy that Yang used to coat the plates. Rookie would ask Yang after she had this done and ready. Coco had explained that most of the super impressive maneuvers were done through more channeling of Aura, which was another reason most people didn't wear much armor. Those that did weren't as able to make the twists and turns she'd seen. So, Rookie had to step up her game. She'd read about ninjas in the 19th century using studded grips on the inside of their gloves when they needed to climb trees. They weren't exactly spikes, but they were sharp enough to gain some purchase, especially in bark, and maybe even some packed dirt. She had a couple other ideas, including a grappling hook and line to swing and allow her to use something nearby to transfer her momentum, and the idea Coco had, which was two parallel rows of teeth embedded in her gauntlets. Coco offered to help her create everything in the morning, and replicate whatever needed to be replicated. All Rookie had to do was get a space in the armory cleared off to work on it.

Rookie found where she had been testing ammunition earlier, and moved most of the extra parts of the project off to the side. She'd found ample replacements to reload her ammunition, though she was going to have trouble with her shotgun shells.

Happy with what she had managed to clear off, Rookie found her locker and stripped off her armor plates, the bronze glinting off of the armory lights. She stowed it and the extra body armor in the locker, and headed back for the dorms.

A/N: I did promise a new chapter, and here it is. I know it's rather short, and I'm super sorry that it took this long to do. It's rather fluffy, just like I like my waffles. However, I'm getting to work with the next chapter which should see some new content, some juicy interactions, and hopefully some good combat writing. I tried my first attempt here, let me know your feedback on it, so I can improve that as much as I can. Otherwise, I hope you all have a wonderful day, and I'll see you all next chapter.

Also, my DMs are always open if you have questions, ideas, or comments, I usually will get a response at the latest the same day or following morning.