Chapter 2, Section I
The landing pad where the airship arrived is slowly fading out, becoming a faint outcropping as I stand, looking outward. Between me and the outside world is a glass wall. The airship hummed along in methodical working towards its destination. Instead of rigid metal benches and ridges, the seats are cushioned, though I prefer to stand and simply stare at the outside world.
Getting into Beacon was not much trouble. Instead, I'm mainly worried if my alias picked up unwanted attention since Atlas still wanted my head. More than once had I disposed of Atlesian and Mistrilian, even the occasional Valean and Vacuon, bounty hunters. I wasn't concerned about whether I could fight them. I faced greater odds in the past, facing entire regiments and fellow cybernetic soldiers.
I fear more for Ruby and Yang becoming a part of this mess.
I can hear Yang being...well, being Yang. Endless teasing and puns. Something about Ruby being the bee's knees.
"The bees knees, what?" I increase the sensitivity of my listening module.
"I don't want to be the "bee's knees," okay?" Ruby whines. "I don't want to be any kind of knees! I just want to be a normal girl with normal knees."
I suppress a chuckle.
I may or may not...watch Ruby behind bushes or the classic spy with a newspaper. Maybe I've been caught, making the awkward nothing happened moments as I scurry away. But now, I feel like I can actually just be me. To an extent, of course. When people question where I am from, I often say I am from Atlas.
"Wow, this place is more green than I expected." I hear an excited voice say to my left.
"A far cry from home." A male voice chimes in response.
I hear the girl squeal, "When we get to Beacon, we have to take some pictures. I promised Caiten and Shimmer."
"Does your scroll still works?"
"Oh...scrolls aren't the strongest-"
"I swear you always break your scroll." The guy, a brother, I think, sighs, rubbing his head. I peek past them to find a familiar face in the sea of freshmen. One with her trademark black bow. I squeeze past freshmen, pushing a blonde guy out of my way right before he vomits near Ruby and Yang; the vile liquid mostly misses the two.
I move past two guys until I feel a foot trip me, causing me to stagger forward into Blake, accidentally smashing her into the wall.
"Hey loser, how was your last trip?" I curse under my breath before turning around to face the kid. He's tall, taller than me, muscular with orange hair, his mouth curled upwards in a snark grin. He's arrogant enough I can smell off him. Looking at Blake, she stands there, surprised. When she left the White Fang, she was confident she didn't leave a crumb trail behind. Unfortunately for her, I'm good at following tracks.
"Aww, are you going to cry?" Dickhead brings my attention back. Typically, I settle this mano-on-mano. However, I don't wish to draw Yang's and Ruby's attention or involve them.
"Alright motherfucker, I'm going to show you a magic trick," I tell him.
"Cloaking device lacking maintenance," HUDDAC reminds me, "Maximum duration: five minutes."
"Now you see me," I say while casually flipping him off. "Now find me." The boy swings for a punch, prompting my predictive module to show where his punch will land. I dodge his first strike with relative ease.
The kid searches for me, turning in circles, looking into the small gathered crowd. Taking advantage, I jab into his right ear. He yells out in pain, gripping his ear, and swinging behind him. Easily missing, I yank his left arm and toss him into a pillar with my enhanced strength. I can hear the metal crack as he smashes into it. Instead of rising for another round, he falls unconscious.
Walking back to the confused and somewhat shocked Blake, I deactivate my cloaking, putting my hands behind my back.
"Sorry about that, Blake," I say nonchalantly, not bothering that an unconscious man is drawing a crowd around us. "Hey, there was this awesome view I found. It should be better than the view right now."
"Sure," Blake says and follows me away from the scene.
We weave around the crowd, passing Ruby and Yang, who finally caught on that vomit boy spewed green projectile on her motorcycle boot. We passed a redhead leaning against a corridor arch, thoughtfully looking at vomit boy. Then an energetic ginger girl and a black-hair Asian-looking guy. They could be a fitting description for yin and Yang, for the girl is bouncing all over the place, running her mouth a thousand miles a second, while the guy simply listened in silence.
"How can he stand her?" I question, briefly looking back at the odd duo. "If it were me, I shoot the girl for being too damn loud."
"Some people can handle distractions. And a few don't get distracted at all. Like you. Though, should I remind you when you got distracted in Silas?" Blake teases, her yellow eyes glancing in my direction. I groan loudly, "Seriously, I thought we let it go?"
"Oh don't take it personal," she stops, her face giving me a quiet grin, a sign she's relaxed instead of being on guard. "But I found it funny when you keep having problems with your night vision. You said it's state-of-the-art."
"It is," I retort, slightly annoyed, "But I don't have the right tools to repair my thermal imager."
"You ran into a tree. Not a small tree. But a fully-grown tree."
"Not my fault," I cross my arms, peering through the glass. Blake's smirk doesn't elude me. Apple-like trees dot the rolling meadow, a backdrop for the academy. Beacon.
"When the darkness settles," Blake begins, "the sun rises."
"So poetic," I reply. A light against the darkness. A steady flame of democracy against despotism. The darkness that is Atlas. This Ironwood not only usurped the government and established a quasi-fascist police state but is this close to world domination. As if Ironwood's point wasn't more defined, except for Beacon, the rest of the academies became military-sponsored. Instead of guardians, they'll become oppressors. A dangerous prospect.
"So poetic and yet the darkness surrounding us is repelled by a single, flickering candle. It's suffocating. And around this candle? Gasoline."
"Gasoline?" Blake asks, tilting her head. I forgot she still isn't entirely knowledgeable of Earth.
"It's a very flammable substance when it fumes. One spark and whoose," I accentuate, imitating a cigarette bud being thrown in a puddle of gasoline. More than once, I've done this to some very unscrupulous people.
"This gasoline you talk about sounds very similar to burn dust. Except tapping on it makes you explode." Her cat ears ever so slightly twitch underneath her bow. I cautiously lightly flick her bow, making her grab my hand, shoving it back into my face. A resounding smack was what I heard, followed by my small laughter.
"Damn, kitty, I see you still got those claws there." I tease her cat nature. There were missions where we were just waiting for Adam to signal us or reconnaissance. Boredom became common for us, especially in uncomfortable positions that don't allow us to stretch out. Hence, I name affectionately coined the term 'kitty' for Blake. She's part cat, after all. Aside from the occasional punch or side-glare, she never told me to stop.
I've seen her laugh at the occasional cat pun I've made, meaning she at least finds them enjoyable.
She doesn't respond immediately. Instead, her eyes are fixated on Beacon. The shining towers above wide boulevards and a small statue slowly become bigger and bigger. I've seen this place on the CCTV network. While spotty compared to the internet, pictures and blogs noted how this place is much larger in person. I believe them now.
The college I wanted to attend pales in size and scope compared to Beacon.
But while I see Beacon as a second chance, Blake probably considers the academy another challenge. Where anti-faunus sentiment is still common despite Vale's pro-faunus laws. I wouldn't be surprised if the raven-hair teen became paranoid around the students. Not to mention if she drew the short end of the stick when we get teamed up.
I put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She tenses slightly before recognizing who's standing next to her. "Adam will understand, kitty. He might not right now, but give him time. Besides," I turn to face her. "You have a friend right here."
Blake hesitates at my statement, turning back to look at the approaching dock where the ship is descending. "Thanks." She finally says with a smile, which I return.
"Yang, we're here! We're here!" I hear a loud pitched squeal followed by a person running out at the speed of sound, leaving behind a trail of rose petals. The blonde catches a glimpse of Blake and me before her younger sister pulls her off the airship.
I must admit, Yang has been a wonderful sister to Ruby. When I've shadowed the duo, the lilac eye teen is fiercely protective of the redhead. Quick to a fight, easy to anger. She has remarkable skill in hand-to-hand fighting with those shotgun gauntlets- Ember Celica, I think she calls them. However, Ruby isn't a spring chicken to combat with her bigass sniper scythe. Her wielding what's essentially an agricultural tool on steroids makes me slightly nervous.
"She's…"
"Enthusiastic?" Blake finishes for me.
"Yeah. Too enthusiastic. I don't ever remember being excited about learning how to fight."
"You never really had a choice, however." Silence follows after her sentence. I glance at her, raising an eyebrow. "From what you told me," Blake continues, "you've always had someone telling you what to do. Now you can choose. Most humans wouldn't bat an eye at the faunus. You joined without a second thought despite the risks involved."
"I've seen terrible things," I grit my teeth at these terrible thoughts. "I won't get into details, but… they're not good memories. Every time I sleep, every time I get a moment alone, I keep going over what I could have done. What I should have done."
I feel a hand on my shoulder. Glancing over, it's Blake's hand. It's reassuring, a friendly gesture to me from a friend. Not a superior convincing me to follow orders or a drunk grunt. It's a person who I can trust.
"We all get those moments. We can't change the past. But we can change the future. Like what you said, you got a friend here."
"Copycat," is what I want to say. Instead, I reply, "Thanks."
She retracts her hand, saying, "We should get going. Otherwise, we'll be heading back to Vale." We take our leave off the now empty airship moments before it departs, the conductor mumbling something under his breath upon seeing us. All around us are potential students and actual students. They wield weapons of various types and sizes. Through my enhanced vision, I can also spot the uncommon faunus disguising themselves as human beings.
"There are more people here than I thought." Blake quietly marvels at the vast crowd of students. I count approximately 194 students milling around.
"This is nothing compared to FOBs I've been stationed at. Besides, Beacon is the only academy in the world that isn't churning out Atlesians puppets and accepts faunus. You would have to be crazy to not accept Beacon." I spot two girls walking by us. "Not to mention the pretty ladies."
Blake scoffs in disgust.
"Aren't you a thousand years old?"
"Two-hundred," I correct her. "I don't even age so what's the big point?"
She stops mid-stride, crossing her arms with an annoyed scowl on her face. "Okay, I think we should set some ground rules."
I stop to pay attention, giving a nod to let her continue.
"First, we should find other people to be our teammates. If we're paired up together, someone is going to ask questions on how we met. And we both know how that'll end."
"Agreed."
"Two, no dating."
"No shit. Why would I even want to date you?" She stops to send me a nasty glare.
"And lastly…" Blake trails off. I ask her what's going on, only for the cat faunus to point her finger at something past me. "Is that…Ruby arguing with Weiss Schnee?"
"Schnee? Ruby? What?" I spin around to find Weiss Schnee- the heiress to the fucking Schnee Dust Company, the biggest dust company on Remnant- yelling at Ruby.
I can faintly make out the words.
"Fire, water, lightning, energy! Are you even listening to me? Is any of this sinking in?" The snow princess yells at Ruby, who is rocking back and forth.
"What the hell is Ruby doing?" I ask.
The next thing I know, there's a sudden boom as the two girls are enveloped in a gray cloud. A dust crystal fragment flies over and lands next to Blake's shoe. She leans down to pick it up, studying the piece of dust.
"She made an interesting first impression," Blake says.
"Well," I start after picking my jaw off the ground. "This is an interesting start to the year."