Chapter 13: Grimmhog Day

Viralious wakes up to his alarm going off, glancing around the room he notices that Winter is already up and walking into the common room dressed in her Atlas Academy uniform. Shaking his head, he grabs his uniform and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Quickly brushing his teeth, putting on deodorant, and changing into the drab gray and white uniform he looks at his long hair in the mirror before sighing and exiting the bathroom. Placing his sleepwear into a small hamper, he moves out into the common room to see Winter and Eckhart standing near the door waiting.

"Morning." Viralious chirps out getting both Winter and Eckhart to give a small nod of acknowledgement, little more than a nod though since neither had their morning coffee. Then turns to Eckhart "Hey Eckhart, you okay? I've already talked to Ifiral about what happened so…" He breathes in slightly. "Let's try and move forward and mark yesterday as a fluke."

Eckhart simply raises an eyebrow before shifting his head slightly down. Viralious couldn't tell if this was a nod or just a simple acknowledgement of what he had said.

"I second that motion" Ifiral says walking out of his suite in his uniform… His hair was a mess but other than that he looked… mostly ready for the day as his tie was on upside down.

Winter simply shakes her head before beckoning the rest of her team to follow as she exits the dorm room and starts making her way towards the cafeteria. Eckhart and Ifiral shuffle out behind her while Viralious sticks around for a moment looking at two. He notices no apprehension between them. Sighing he follows in step, shutting the door behind him.

–

Breakfast was similar to the previous day, same table, same spots, same food, and same coffee order. Viralious places four cups of black coffee onto the table before taking his seat. He doesn't speak but looks at the interactions between Ifiral and Eckhart trying to sense animosity or any emotion between the two. Seeing none, he picks up a bagel from his plate and starts eating it.

It's mostly quiet for breakfast, only the occasional request for a napkin or idle chatter about classes. They do end up planning to finish the report for Grimm Studies today after classes. Eventually when everyone is just about finished Winter speaks up addressing the elephant in the room.

"So Ifiral, Eckhart how are the two of you doing this-"

"Fine." Both Eckhart and Ifiral interrupt Winter before she could finish.

Viralious laughed a little at that display before speaking up "So Eckhart, I was wondering if you wanted today to work on some team attacks during sparring class today?"

Eckhart perked an eyebrow "What kind of team attacks?" his voice trying to hide annoyance.

"Well, it depends on what can go through your portals, let's say if I fired a bullet through it would it appear at the other end?"

"Yes, the best way to think of my gates is for them to be instantaneous tears from one location to another, there is no delay between travel and momentum is preserved." Eckhart responds with a slight militant tone.

Viralious smirks "Alright, can you keep them open for longer than one trip?"

Eckhart cocked an eyebrow, "Yes, but it takes a bit more focus on my part, keep in mind I do have to stay in range for it to work."

Viralious then turned to Ifiral "Ifiral, remember when you exploded fighting the Geist? Would you be able to dodge the blast before it goes off?"

Ifiral chuckled at the description, "Yeah I remember it and it's simply me unloading all of the fire dust in my weapon while it's in blade mode, as for dodging the explosion I haven't tried but can aim it slightly so it's probably possible." His tone gained enthusiasm as he went on.

Viralious turned back to Eckhart who had an annoyed look on his face. "Well then, I think the attack might work. Eckhart, I think that you and Ifiral could create an attack that is basically quickly getting Ifiral behind a target's defenses then having him go off like a bomb and safely extracting him." His tone was calm and scholarly with a simple smile appearing on his face.

Eckhart stared at Viralious blinking. Silently, he picks up his tray and walks away from the table. Ifiral shrugs before speaking, "I mean I thought it was a good idea."

Viralious shakes his head, "He could have just said that he didn't like it… *sigh* Well, we'll workshop it. Winter, you have any ideas for team attacks?"

Winter looks at Viralious for a moment in thought before shaking her head.

Viralious just sighs before downing the rest of his coffee "Well I guess we've got plenty of time to workshop it. Come on, let's get to Grimm Studies before Eckhart broods alone too much."

–

"Now, as I've said before, the Beowolf is common but not a pushover. Last thing you want is to get too cocky on a hunt and lose your life to one of them. So, that concludes our lecture for today. So, are there any questions?" Murt finishes his long story about Beowolfs attacking him and Lute in Mistral; overall it was a decent but a little overboard on the nervous system of them.

Viralious raises his hand and Murt immediately notices "Ah Viralious and what's your question?"

"I was wondering if you could give a moment to explain why you went over the proposed nervous system of a Beowolf but not a Saybr?"

"Ahh a great question, it's simply because Beowolfs, while pack hunters, are more likely to be encountered alone compared to Saybrs. Now the nervous system comes into play as there are multiple accounts of paralyzing a Beowolf and I would like you all to at least keep them in mind if you encounter one, after all it's easier to escape a immobile opponent or even capture one." Murt responds with a stern tone.

Ifiral is the next person to raise his hand, "Yes ?"

"Going off of Russet getting hit by Tiff today. If you get hit with the shirt from Tiff, do you get to keep the shirt?" Ifiral says in pure curiosity.

"No, sadly I need it back, I mean I might be a huntsman, but I'm paid a teacher's salary." Murt responds matter of factly.

Eckhart side eyes his partner and whispers something that only Winter picks up on, "A purely stupid question, why even entertain the thought?" His tone is low but venomous.

The bell suddenly rings signaling that it was time to get moving to Beryl's history class.

–

Team VIEW shuffled in taking their same spots from the day before. After everyone was seated, Viralious turned and asked his team a simple question: "Anyone have a fairy tale to share today?"

Winter and Ifiral shook their heads, Eckhart simply stared at Viralious silently asking himself why he would take stock in such drivel.

The bell signaled that it was time for class to begin and Beryl shot up from his desk not wasting a moment. "Now, welcome class to the second day. So, who here has a fairy tale we can look at?"

Celica was the first to raise her hand prompting Beryl to respond "Ah, Ms. Rhulk, care to tell us what tale you wish to impart onto us?"

"I was thinking we could look at 'The Man Who Stared at the Sun'." Celica responded

"Ah, a classic, so can you tell the class the story?"

"Uh. I guess the gist of it is a farmer gets into a staring contest with the sun in a bid to have his crops always be better than the competition. It goes on for months with neither the man or the sun backed down but eventually the man wins after faking it since he lost his sight a long time ago."

"Very good, and what's the takeaway from this story?" Beryl hums.

"Don't stare at the sun." Ifiral deadpans.

" , I believe Ms. Rhulk was sharing, so please keep any comments to yourself. Now then, Ms. Rhulk, what is the moral of the story?"

Celica pauses for a moment before finally speaking up, "It's don't stare at the sun." This causes a low chuckle to erupt from the other students in the classroom with Beryl just slightly shaking his head.

"Another interpretation of the story has the old man already blind when he challenges the sun to the contest. From this telling we can take the lesson that even a fair challenge could be unbalanced. Are there any other interpretations?" Beryl says trying to get the discussion back on track.

No student raised their hands. "Okay then, discuss amongst yourselves the story and why it's specific to Vacuo. Why would a simple tale like it only be popular there? What does it matter about the status of the farmer's eyesight at the start of the contest?" Beryl continues in a scholarly tone.

Sighing, Viralious turned to his team and spoke "Okay well, as much as I agree with you Ifiral that the message is don't stare at the sun, I think he's trying to say it's representing the strong will of the people of Vacuo."

Eckhart raises an eyebrow at this before responding "How is it speaking to their strong will? Sounds more like bull-headed foolishness."

Viralious ignores his teammate's comment before continuing "So I think the eyesight tells you more about the storyteller than the message, so for example, if they want to teach that there are sometimes costs to victory, have him lose his eyesight. Likewise, if you want to teach them to play dirty you have him start blind."

"Makes sense… it's still a shitty fairy tale." Ifiral says while nodding.

"I have to agree with you on that one Ifiral." Viralious responded.

"Alright that's enough discussion, keep it in mind as we continue our discussion of the settlement Pole. So, who can remind me where we left off?"

Winter raised her hand, "Ah Ms. Schnee where did we leave off?"

"We were just about to cover the reaffirmation of the Polar Hunter's guilds commitment to ban Grimm baiting."

"Correct and who could explain to me how this connects to today's fairy tale?"

Delphi's hand rose quickly and was prompted to speak by Beryl. "It's because the gesture seems obvious but needed to be reaffirmed in the first place." Her tone was surprisingly calm.

"Correct!" Beryl exclaimed. The rest of the lecture continued normally with the same theatrics that one would expect from Beryl. Once the lecture was over everyone shuffled out and continued to Applied Science.

–

"So, as you can see the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!" Makoto exclaimed, causing Cinnamon to facepalm slightly. Firstly, because Makoto had forgotten to go over her side of the syllabus that day. Secondly, because she was supposed to be teaching about chemistry, specifically acidity, not whatever biology she was teaching.

Slowly Eckhart raised his hand. Seeing this Cinnamon silently thanked Oum before speaking "Mr. Slate what's your question?"

"What does this have to do with the acidity of a formula?" Eckhart says in general confusion.

Makoto places one finger on her chin before getting lost in thought for a moment. Eventually she snaps her fingers together, "Well in the most advanced terms low pH increases the concentration of base causing mitochondria to pump out H+ to the inter membrane space leading to ATP production and the high external acid concentration causes an increase in H+ in the inter membrane space leading to increased ATP production by ATP synthetase…. BUT at this level we are going over nothing!" Makoto sticks her tongue out slightly as she finishes and creates a 'Tada' pose with her hands.

Cinnamon audibly facepalms and a general groan is heard from the students. Eckhart simply shakes his head before continuing, "If it's pointless to the lesson why cover it?" his voice barely hiding annoyance.

"Well, the functions of the human and faunus body will be useful during your First Aid lecture and the Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!" This last part got a glare from Cinnamon before Makoto continued "What I mean to say is that it is very important in understanding how energy travels throughout the body so it's important. Biology is just advanced chemistry and physics so I guess you can look at this as a sneak peek for what you'll be learning about next year in Huntsmen Sciences!"

Eckhart simply rolled his eyes before glaring at Viralious who had raised his hand. "Yes, Viralious!" Makoto practically screamed in excitement.

"I was wondering if you could go into more detail about how acidity affects the process of ATP synthetase?" Viralious questions in a simple tone earning another eye roll from Eckhart.

Makoto beams with excitement, Cinnamon simply shrugs and starts typing an announcement on her scroll figuring that the students will just have to read Makoto's part of the syllabus on their own. "Okay well, I think the best place we can start with that question is to review what ATP actually is! so… "The lecture trailed on easily filling the rest of the time with more facts about the mitochondria than a huntsman needed to know. Eventually, the bell chimed signaling that they were free to go to lunch. Team VIEW along with the rest of the students packed their bags and exited the room leaving Makoto to simply continue repeating the simple fact that the mitochondria was the powerhouse of the cell.

–

Lunch was honestly like how it was the day before, down to the same seating arrangements, time they spent in line and most noticeably the quality of the food.

Ifiral picked up a piece of pizza that somehow didn't have any cheese on it… shrugging he takes a bite before nodding slightly and continuing to eat it. Eckhart on the other hand was eating a simple bread roll, a bit of beef jerky that he had taken with him and a bruised apple. As Eckhart bit down on the roll, he found out it was rock solid.

Winter had found the luck of the draw and was currently eating a simple Caesar salad that was somehow not absolutely ruined… then again how hard was it to make a good salad? Viralious sadly drew the short end of the stick as the chicken sandwich that he chose while precooked was frozen solid.

Grumbling, Viralious sets it back down onto his plate and reaches for his napkin before he gets an idea. He quickly rearranges his plate to have the patty of the sandwich sitting on the plate itself, then he uses his silverware to slightly raise said plate off the table. Lastly, he placed a napkin underneath the plate. These actions earned him confused glances from the rest of his team before he turned to Ifiral and spoke "Hey Ifiral, could you light this napkin on fire? If you don't want to, I can use some du-" before he could finish Ifiral had already snapped his fingers and a small orange flame appeared on the napkin. Slowly it spread through and heated the simple metal plate eventually thawing the chicken out just enough to be edible.

Viralious moved the plate off of the napkin then used his spoon to fish an ice cube from his cup of ice and dropped it onto the flame. After a moment or so the fire had disappeared leaving a burnt napkin. "Thanks, Ifiral, being honest I wasn't sure that would work."

Eckhart blinked a few times before quickly turning to both Viralious and Ifiral, "that was reckless and stupid! Starting a fire in the middle of the cafeteria! You're lucky no one saw or that the fire alarm didn't go off!" His voice didn't hide his anger and frustration.

Viralious rolled his eyes and was about to respond when he noticed something occurring at the table across from them. His face hardens and then he points to the table across from them. "No one was going to look, not with that going on." As he speaks, he slowly stands up, grabs his canned soda and starts walking toward where he was pointing to.

Winter and Eckhart slowly follow where his hand was pointing to a moment ago before landing upon what he was walking toward. Kris was currently sitting on top of a table in front of a clearly uncomfortable Delphi. Surprising everyone Delphi was sitting alone as her team was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, they see Kris grab onto one of Delphi's antlers and pull violently, causing cries of pain to spring from the poor faunus.

"Bastard's about to get his shit rocked again." Ifiral says, standing up cracking his knuckles and following Viralious.

Winter and Eckhart simply stare at the scene unfolding in front of them. Thinking for a moment, Winter eventually decides to get up and walks over to the two other members of her team. Eckhart simply stares at the rest of his team in confusion. Why are they getting involved, it's just a simple case of bullying. The faunus will just tell the professors that this is happening, and it will be over by tomorrow. I'm especially surprised Winter is going to "help" ugh this is going to cause more issues and land them all in detention.

Eckhart simply rolls his eyes and continues to down his drink.

Viralious was the first to reach Kris and Delphi, he looked down at the poor deer faunus who looked like she was on the verge of tears. Viralious then put a hand on Kris' shoulder and violently pulled forcing him to look at him.

"The fuck do you want?" Kris spit out, venom lacing his words. Viralious simply blinked once before slamming his soda can into Kris' face. The drink explodes as it makes contact with Kris' face, the force of the hit causes him to stumble back falling over the table. Viralious then turns to Delphi who is watching with shock, "Are you alright?" Viralious' tone is simple but compassionate.

Delphi simply nods once before turning back to Kris who is starting to stand back up.

"You should probably go sit with the rest of my team; I'll handle this from here." Viralious says in a surprisingly commanding tone. Delphi decides not to argue and picks up her tray, eventually taking a seat next to Eckhart who is simply shaking his head.

Kris having finally stood back up from the hit glares at Viralious and screeches out, "YOU! YOU DID NOT JUST FUCKING DO THAT! I'M GOING TO FUCKING KI-"

"Try something and I can assure you that the beating that I'll give you will make last night look like two kids playing with foam swords." Ifiral says taking a spot next to Viralious who raises an eyebrow at the comment. Winter then stands next to Viralious simply holding a stern look on her face.

Kris looks at the three grumbles something under his breath before turning and walking away. Viralious lets out a breath and turns back to his team's table. Ifiral and Winter follow behind. Sitting down Viralious grabs his still poorly cooked chicken sandwich and takes a bite. Silence is all that follows, a couple of minutes pass before Eckhart painfully breaks the silence.

"That was stupid of you, Viralious." His tone is cold and uncaring.

Delphi looks at Eckhart then to Viralious nervous before seeing Viralious shift slightly in his seat. "Eckhart, I'm going to say this as calmly as I can right now. Shut the fuck up." Viralious responds barely hiding anger.

Eckhart simply responds with a whatever, followed by him picking up his tray and walking away. Viralious releases a sigh and turns to the deer faunus "Are you okay Delphi?"

"I'm… I'm fine, you honestly didn't need to step in. It's just-" Delphi says, sinking into her chair before being interrupted by Viralious.

"I stepped in because you were in pain, there's no reason for Kris to-"

"Please don't intervene on my behalf Viralious! I'm not a damsel in distress, I can look out for myself!" Delphi surprisingly screams at him.

Viralious simply blinks confused at her sudden outburst. Eventually he sighs, "No promises Delphi, sometimes people just need the racism beat out of them. But alright I respect your wishes…" his tone is one of confusion but honesty

With that Delphi nods her head and picks up her tray walking away.

The rest of Team VIEW finishes their meal in silence only. Eventually they place their trays on the carousel and make their way to First Aid class.

"Now, tie the two ends of the bandage together in a reef knot above their collar bone and tuck in the free ends. Next, you're going to adjust the sling so that it supports their arm all the way to the end of the pinky finger and lastly, make sure that the edge of the bandage by the elbow is secured by twisting the fabric and tucking it into the sling. With that you should have been able to wrap a very basic sling. I'll come around and check everyone's work." Lute announces with a scholarly tone, Luckily for everyone today's lesson was much much more PG than the last and Winter thought it could have some actual use in the field.

Viralious was standing there helping Winter finish tucking the bandage into the sling, they had decided that Viralious would be the model for today's lesson. Not that it really mattered much considering they would repeat the steps on the opposite pair next. Viralious watched Lute closely as he made his way around the classroom checking the slings, seeing he had time he asked Winter a question "Do you think I overreacted at lunch?"

Winter pondered for a moment before responding, "I honestly don't know Viralious, the soda maybe was a step out of line, but I think you did the right thing. Why do you ask?"

"I was thinking of Eckhart and Delphi's reaction, looking back it probably was stupid of me to get involved but I don't understand why Delphi doesn't want me to help. Being assaulted due to something you have no control over isn't right."

Before Winter could respond Lute came over and checked the sling. Commenting his approval, he told them to switch positions. Viralious unwraps the sling and stands up giving the seat to Winter shortly afterwards he starts wrapping the sling around her right arm. Eventually after Lute is out of earshot Winter responds.

"I honestly don't know Viralious, but it's probably best if you follow her wishes… She seemed a little adamant about it."

Viralious nodded his head before finishing up with the sling. "How's that? Is it too tight or too loose?"

"No, honestly it's almost perfect, how did you do that so fast?" Winter responds

"Honestly I've picked up on fixing minor injuries, Mom always was a little clumsy and Qrow often brought misfortune where ever he went" Viralious responds shrugging

"Qrow? I don't believe you mentioned him before. Is he another member of your family?" Winter questions.

Viralious becomes tense and freezes for a second before responding, "No he's a murderer, honestly forget I mentioned him."

"Viralious yo-"

"Please just drop it." Viralious interrupts.

Lute comes over and checks Viralious' sling wrap, commenting that it's pretty good for the time he spent on it. He then instructs them to start reading over chapter 2 and familiarize themselves with the disinfectants sitting on the table.

The two just nod and get started. Eventually the bell rings signaling that they should get ready for sparring class.

Kaine started off by telling everyone that today they would be focusing on teamwork before walking over to Team KNGT and giving them special drills to perform. She was quietly watching over that team like a hawk.

Viralious turned to his team before speaking "Okay, so who has any brilliant ideas for team attacks?"

Eckhart surprisingly is the first to respond, "I was thinking perhaps Ifiral and Winter could do a dual technique where Winter uses her glyphs as a stepping stone for Ifiral to launch upwards before unloading the rest of his dust into a powerful downward strike."

Ifiral and Winter pondered the idea for a moment, in theory it could work but it would require a bit of coordination and forward planning as they would want to do it in a moment where Ifiral could reload afterwards.

"Sounds like a good place to start at least, are you two fine with trying that?" Viralious says after thinking through the logistics

Winter nods and Ifiral gives a thumbs up.

"Alright, Ifiral do you mind not actually using the fire dust, it's a little expensive right now and I don't want to injure anyone." Viralious responds earning a nod from Ifiral.

With that Winter and Ifiral went to start practicing. Viralious turned to Eckhart before saying, "I think I have an idea of a team attack we could work on as well."

This causes Eckhart to raise an eyebrow questioning where this could possibly be going.

"So, I have an idea for a combo between the two of us, so I was thinking you could open a gate above the target, and I'll use my weapons to rain a host of bullets down-"

"No."

"Alright so you don't like the idea, have any better ones?"

Eckhart thought for a second before snapping his fingers "Well, your skill with the blades is better than your marksmanship so focusing on that I would say simply I could just gate you closer to a target so you can engage." his tone is neutral

"Okay I understand that, but I was thinking more well, team attacks, or a dual technique like Winter and Ifiral are practicing" Viralious says with a shrug.

Eckhart glances over to the two other members of his team practicing their team attack. Currently it seems they are working on the launching portion with Ifiral discussing with Winter optimal angles, whether he should shift his mass or if he should just brace. Eckhart then glanced back to Viralious and shook his head. "As it stands right now there is no team technique between the two of us that would be effective Viralious." Eckhart says in a cold tone.

Viralious rolls his eyes, "Actually you're wrong. One technique that you could do is open a gate in front of me and have it exit on the other side of the target. I'll diffuse the poison in my weapon through the SMG and create a toxic cloud and be safe from the fumes or I could use your gate for a quick escape."

"I'm not helping you use poisons on students, Viralious." Eckhart deadpans

"I know, which is why I wasn't planning on using any." Viralious chuckles out.

The two stand awkwardly for a minute before Eckhart breaks the silence "Since there's no point in trying to formulate a technique between the two of us, how about we do some simple positioning drills?"

"How about some marksmanship training? You're a crack shot and according to you my skills with a gun are lacking" Viralious says smirking.

Eckhart frowns, "I didn't say lacking their just adequate," before pulling out his pistol "toss me one of your ice dust cartridges, you're going to be skeet shooting as I launch them through my portals"

Viralious simply nodded and tossed the cartridge to him. The two spent a solid 25 minutes just training their marksmanship. Winter and Ifiral had gotten the synergy down to a reasonable degree, so they came and joined in the training. Ifiral actually changed things up by throwing partially heated Dust containers through to act as targets for them to not hit, Winter and Viralious used their glyphs to cause the targets to move slightly more erratically while in the air. Their training session was cut short by Kaine's voice.

"Alright, that's enough training for today. Everybody, sit down except for team VIEW. Today it's going to be a fun match, 3v1 Viralious, Winter, and Eckhart against Ifiral." Kaine spoke with a shimmer of a smile on her face. Ifiral knew this was punishment for last night.

Ifiral quickly got into position on the right side of the field, with Viralious, Winter and Eckhart sharing a confused glance before preparing on the left. Viralious turned to his team and motioned for them to huddle to discuss a plan.

"Okay, so Ifiral is totally being singled out here that being said we need a plan to take him down. For now, I think we should engage at range. Winter, if you see me engage using my dual blades, I want you to shift focus from to using your glyphs to try and keep him off balance. Eckhart until we engage in melee combat do you think you could open gates to his flank and rear allowing for some of Winter's projectiles to curve into him? Alright, be ready to improvise." Viralious speaks with a firm commanding tone.

Winter nods her head thinking the plan is solid enough, but Eckhart shakes his head

"Improvise? It's simple, keep Ifiral at range, he's got shotguns. Out range him and we wear him down."

Viralious was about to retort but Kaine started the timer signaling that it was time to begin. Viralious breathed in slowly, unsheathed his weapon and flipped it into SMG mode.

3…2…1… 0: BEGIN

–

Character Change: Viralious- Ifiral Phenrix

Location: Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom

–

Ifiral raised his weapon facing the side of the blade in front of him anticipating his teammates to use their ranged advantage. Something he was correct about. Using his weapon as a makeshift shield he slowly makes his way towards Viralious who is already swapping his weapon into its blade mode as he quickly drains the ammo from it. Ifiral lifts his blade from in front of him and makes it perpendicular to his body. He then shifts the weight back and shifts it over his head. He then two hands the grip and quickly pulls the blade into two quick upward slashes to Viralious.

Viralious manages to block the first one but receives a glancing blow from the second, capitalizing off of this Ifiral spins the blade around in his left hand and delivers a strong downward slash to Viralious' chest. The hit did not cleanly connect but still was extremely powerful causing Viralious to backpedal away.

Winter quickly used a glyph and shot towards Ifiral to give her partner some room to retreat. She attacks swiftly with her saber to deliver some glancing blows to Ifiral but he eventually shifts his arm and blocks the blade with his arm guard causing the attack to bounce. This gives Ifiral all the time he needed to strike Winter in the stomach with the edge of his blade, sending her tumbling towards Eckhart.

Eckhart, seeing the Heiress flying towards him, uses a portal to redirect her onto the ground. Viralious quickly runs over making sure she's alright before checking the score board.

Viralious: 77%

Winter: 87%

Eckhart: 95%

Ifiral: 90%

Viralious curses slightly, deciding it's time to shift strategies. He turns to Winter and smirks, his highlights shifting white

Eckhart, meanwhile, throughout the fight has been peppering Ifiral with his gunfire between Impartial Amends and his drones however Ifiral has now closed the distance and before Eckhart is able to portal away he gets a blast of fire dust to the chest which sends him flying out of the arena eliminating him.

Eckhart slams into the side and falls to the ground. He lays there for a moment before gritting his teeth and getting up and noticing Viralious and Winter have engaged Ifiral in melee range together.

Viralious was performing over parrying slashes to give Winter openings for her saber to make quick glancing blows. It showed basic coordination, but the kicker was Viralious and Winter were alternating creating glyphs around Ifiral as the clashes continued. Eventually Ifiral had enough, grit his teeth hardened his grip on his weapon and activated his semblance.

Ifiral swung wide intending to strike Viralious in the chest and sweep Winter away. However, Viralious blocked with his weapon. As the three blades collided something lit up beneath on the edge of Viralious' blades. Moments later Ifiral's weapon flew across the arena. This caught Ifiral off guard, Winter took advantage of this moment of surprise to use the glyphs that were prepared and launched herself from them quickly eventually knocking Ifiral off his footing.

Ifiral could have caught himself and blocked the attack, but he knew Eckhart was watching, hoping for Winter and Viralious' plan to fail. So instead, he let Viralious finish the fight with a repelling glyph sending him outside the bounds of the Arena.

–

Character Change: Ifiral Phenrix -Viralious

Location Atlas Academy: Combat Training Classroom

–

"And that's the match. Viralious, Winter, and Eckhart you did good, but I hope this fight shows you that teamwork is the better strategy. Ifiral, decent form but I would recommend catching yourself when being knocked away." Kaine spoke in a neutral tone.

Viralious and Winter simply nodded, Ifiral gave a slight shrug while going to collect his weapon. Eckhart however rolled his eyes and started making his way towards the locker room.

Things moved in a bit of a blur afterwards. Nothing of real note could be said about Basil's class. They just reviewed some of the basic fundamentals of how to properly handle raw dust in the field and she actually had them practice using a raw dust crystal that she brought in. Thinking back, it was lucky the classroom didn't explode, that shit was volatile.

Afterwards, Team VIEW had made their way back to their dorm and started working on the paper for Murt's class.

"I understand that they are pack hunters Eckhart, but Saybr's don't typically follow the pack model of attack. They tend to go one at a time allowing the weak to get picked off and distract the hunter." Viralious said in an exhausted tone.

"Viralious, I'm telling you they will surround you and attack from multiple angles. What you're describing is Beowolfs this paper is supposed to be over Saybr!" Eckhart echoed in a similarly exhausted tone.

Finishing this paper as a team had been a surprising challenge Eckhart seemingly had it out for Viralious, arguing over the littlest things. Currently, they were engaged in an argument about something relatively minor.

"According to the textbook you are both right. Saybrs have been known to follow both the Pack model of attack and the alpha hierarchy model of attack. It is currently believed that the terrain and age of the Grimm is the primary factor in the difference in tactics." Winter responds while holding said textbook.

Viralious shrugs "Alright we were both half right then. Let's explain that in the paper then." His tone is calm

Eckhart rubs the bridge of his nose, "Alright fine, ugh. What else do we have to add?" His exhaustion is clear as day.

"I think we're mostly good now, I would maybe include a comparison to his story about the Saybrs it will show him we actually paid attention to the lecture and took notes." Winter sighed out, closing the textbook.

"Already did, I compared the pack model to his time in the potential dust mine and I think we could work the story of him swinging one around his tonfa for the alpha model." Viralious responds.

"Great, so we're done with this bullshit?" Ifiral sighs

"What are you complaining about, you only brought up the armor and its weakness to fire while it's in Solitas." Winter responds in a huff before walking into her and Viralious' shared bathroom.

"Well, it's enough, if you all need me I'm going to perform maintenance on my weapon, feel free to eat without me." Ifiral says while walking out the door.

Winter and Eckhart roll their eyes at their teammate before they hear a light knocking sound on the door.

Eckhart gets up, opening the door, seeing Celica standing there.

"Hey Eckhart, is Viralious there?" she asked with a low tone.

"He's currently finishing out the paper for Grimm Studies, but yeah." Eckhart responds in a neutral tone.

"Mind if I step in?" Celica aks,

Eckhart thinks for a second before he nods. Celica enters and Eckhart exits the Dorm.

"And done. Alright now that's done we should probably- Oh, hey Celica, I didn't hear you enter. Where'd Eckhart head off to?" Viraliouis responds in a simple tone that turns confused near the end.

"I don't know he stepped out, but I came to talk to you about Delphi." Celica says getting serious.

"Alright what's up?" he responds, leaning back slightly.

"I know she doesn't want you to step in after what Kris did today but…. Thank you." Celica says in a sigh.

"I don't know why you're-"

"I'm thanking you because you stepped in, there was a whole cafeteria of other students and you actually did something. I wish I was there honestly… No faunus should go through that."

"Celica, Delphi asked me to drop it so I'm going to. But I'll still keep an eye on Kris. Sometimes you just need to beat the racism out of someone."

"Ah, Vacuo Street justice." Celica laughs out

"You get it." Viralious chuckles.

"Alright well have a good night Viralious:" Celica says before exiting.

"What was that about?" Winter asks re-entering the room.

"Honestly, nothing. So how about we get some dinner and study for the quiz tomorrow?" Viralious responds.

"Sounds like a decent plan," Winter says, nodding.

With that the two went and quickly ate a disappointing dinner. Afterwards, Ifiral returned to the room and actually joined the study session. Eventually, Eckhart returned covered in soot causing Ifiral to ask the obvious question.

"What happened to you?"

"Hardware malfunctioned with my drones. It's fixed now." Eckhart deadpanned.

"Alright well, Eckhart you want to jump in? We're just reviewing the physics for the quiz tomorrow." Winter calls out.

"I'm good," Eckhart responded.

Viralious simply shook his head and watched his teammate walk into his suite. In the end the rest of his team finished studying for the quiz. Preparing to sleep, Viralious thought back about the day. He knew Eckhart was still being frigid but believed that they could work through this. He figured that things would get better.

A/N

This chapter was surprisingly longer than I anticipated. I also had an oddly hard time writing this chapter and I don't even know why. Not a ton happened in this chapter Again it's mostly just a set up chapter. I will admit that this is going a bit slower than I thought it would so there is going to be a small time skip.

Overall, what happened with this chapter is simple: it's just going through the classes and building up the conflict with Eckhart not being the leader. Overall, I will admit I've lost a bit of steam when writing this story, but I'll keep to it as I honestly think it's just due to most of these past few chapters being set up. It's honestly a little bit funny on my planning doc since chapter 9 we have covered about two sentences on the first page… on a 12-page document. I really need to kick this story into gear.

So going over some specifics it's mostly just expanding the Lore and worldbuilding. Breakfast was just meant to show Eckhart being himself and Viralious trying to be a decent leader. Murt's Class was simple; it's just expanding some worldbuilding and answering a question AmoebaHewdraw had in chapter 9. Beryl's, is I picked a random fairy tale from the Wiki and wrote some jokes with it. Honestly It ended up being better than I thought. Makoto's class was 100% a joke and meant for humor.

This brings us to Lunch, yeah Kris is Cardin 0.5 and deserves exactly what happened to him. I wrote this scene as the shot of Cardin bullying Velvet showed his character decently (not that he had a character) I figured it would introduce an interesting conflict where Eckhart straight up thinks it wasn't the smart thing to do. I 100% believe that Viralious would be justified in that situation but a conflict in the team about it might be interesting to look at. The whole scene was brought to you by Twisted Tea… Not actually but if they want to sponsor me I'll take it.

As for Delphi (and the Celica portion at the end of the chapter) I don't want them to be a damsel in distress, so I want to show a bit more of her character and possibly build conflict as the story goes on.

Lutes class is all about Viralious and Winter talking about their thoughts on what happened. Combat class with Kaine is meant to show that Eckhart doesn't respect Viralious' ideas. Think back to his comments about the team attacks, he shoots them down without really giving them thought. He then proceeds to insult Viralious in a backhanded way. Eventually this leads to the fight scene and it's not great I'll be honest. I wanted it to be quick, things of note originally Viralious' weapon broke but I didn't like how the chapter went on after that, so I removed it and Ifiral's attacks are based off of Cloud's attacks from the FF7 Remake.

Basil's class we skipped over as I want to save the mouse faunus for a minute. So lastly the paper is just meant to show tensions outside of the classroom. So, with that set I think we have the worst chapter I have written yet. I'm going to make this one better by going back and strengthening it. But I do have to get going on the plot in all honesty. I might be able to just completely cut this chapter and move on… Depending on how it goes in chapter 14 I might.

Here's where I would like to thank my editor AmoebaHewdraw. Without him, every other word would probably be capitalized.

AmeobaHewdraw's Note: Fuck you Eckhart for calling my question pointless.

Until next time Xcom out