"Glynda?"
"Yes Jaune?"
"Do you mind telling me what is on my desk?"
"Incoming mail."
"I see." A few seconds passed as Jaune loudly sipped his coffee, not the heavenly teacher's brew, unfortunately. "As in, that's literally I can see. Do you mind helping me get this off my desk?" Indeed, Jaune was blocked in by a mountain range of mail. To be fair, he hadn't been checking it for a while now. Also to be fair, he was really busy with the equally intimidating mountain of paperwork.
"Even with four hands, that'll take a while."
"I meant with your semblance."
"O-oh, right." Quickly, she used her semblance to have all the mail fly into neat and orderly piles across the floor. Now, Jaune could actually breath without accidentally causing an avalanche.
"So, we have half an hour until the staff meeting. Could you help with reading some of these?" Jaune already pulled Croeca Mors to use as an overglorified letter opener before wisely putting it down in favor of a bayonet that was in his desk. Say all you like about Atlesian interior design, but the secret compartments full of weapons were a pretty good call on the military's part. Only partly because it allowed him to pull a gun on Neo during their last sparring session.
Though, that turned out to be a mistake when she started using the compartments as well to pull out absolutely ludicrous things to bludgeon him with. Seriously, he had a bruise from a frozen fish she pulled out of nowhere!
"Shouldn't you have Sienna do that?" Glynda asked.
"She's off today. Don't worry, already consulted her about the meeting."
"You still haven't told us what it's about."
"I'd rather keep it to my chest for now. Anyways, let's open these letters." And so the two got to work, Glynda glancing over each before putting it on Jaune's desk or shredding it. Working fast in the way only a seasoned profesionnal could, he signed papers, read over progress reports on efforts to build academies in Shade and Menagerie, and other such things.
In fact, in the fifteen minutes it took to get through those, the veritable forest of letters had been reduced to nothing. Jaune, dumbfounded, looked up to see Glynda panting from exhaustion while wiping sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief.
"Oh, sorry. Were most of them scam mail?" he asked.
"No. They were all, how do I say this? Letters from your admirers. Half were poems on par with Peter's in terms of length and fluff, and the other half about as subtle as Miss Xiao Long, Miss Rose, and Cinder in what they want," Glynda said, currently exhausting her semblance a bit more in order to spitefully compress and further shred the remains of those letters. "Ask your secretary to do it next time."
"Ah," Jaune gave a good natured laugh. "That reminds me, were any of those from team RWBY?"
"No, actually," Glynda said, thinking cap on as she thought about how odd it was. Before she could tire of that subject, Jaune already found the answer as he checked his scroll.
"And there it is. Does Yang not know that there's a limit to how many y's she can put in hey before it becomes incomprehensible? And also, didn't I block Cinder!?" he said, looking at a not so subtle picture of Cinder sitting on her throne in her still-a-work-in-progress throne room.
Before Glynda could say anything, Jaune's alarm went off, alerting him to the fact that the staff meeting was in a few minutes. And that was time he needed to get to the staff room.
-
After roll call (Only Sienna, Port, and Tsune were absent)
"Alright, we have a problem," Jaune said, turning to face his beloved staff. All of them seasoned professiona- Wait, no, half of them were unqualified for the job (him definitely included) and the other half slacked off so often he wasn't sure why there weren't fired! The only one who was deserving of their vaunted and lofty position was Glynda! And Jinn.
"Aww, thanks," said spirit of knowledge said, filing her nails. As per usual, the rest of the staff ignored the statement.
"What is it this time, kid? Are you going to say the budget doesn't balance? I'm not falling for it again," Professor Torchwick said, trying to light a cigar but finding that both his cigars and lighters were being tossed out of the window by some invisible force.
"I think what Professor Torchwick is trying to say is that you're being rather vague. Is it Salem?"
"Nope. Remember how last week I went to a council meeting?" The staff gave various responses in agreement. "Well, they provided me with an ultimatum: Stop catapulting kids off of cliffs or our budget is halved. We have a summer to prepare for a new initiation ritual, so let's think about what a new one needs, alright?"
"You know, I'm amazed we've only been stopped now. You'd think we'd get more complaints." Roman finally got a cigar lit after holding on to it for dear life while using Melodic Cudgel's weird lighter mode to get it blazing.
"Ozpin had his ways of keeping the tradition. Mostly by way of insisting that it's Beacon Tradition paired with his considerable influence on the Council," Glynda answered, having given up on trying to stop Roman from smoking and instead opening a window nearby him.
"My, my. It's not everyday we get to change something like this! Beacon's initiation is one of the first experiences all students get, so we must create something memorable while also keeping it educational! This is the first experience our future students will have, after all!" Bart said, excitedly jotting down notes while sipping coffee.
"Agreed. Now, let's go over our criteria for what our new initiation shall be," he pulled out a whiteboard and marker and began to write. "First, it has to create the teams. Second, it has to encourage teamwork. Third, it must involve the Grimm. Fourth, a sense of danger without risk. Fifth, it must emulate what being a hutner is like. Anything you'd like to add?" None of the staff could think of anything, so he continued.
"Alright, I talked to Sienna about this and she proposed something of a 'Hunt.' Essentially, the students are dropped off into the Emerald Forest and told they're being hunted by rogue hyper-advanced Atlesian androids," Jaune silently apologized to Penny. "That will be us. And need to go into the ruins in order to reach the command center, where they can remove their names from the targetting system. That'll be the end goal. And the system is made so that four people are removed from the system at a time through use of Aura identifiers. To do that, they'll need to get past Grimm, rough terrain, hostile Atlesian knights loaded with rubber bullets, and the hyper advanced Android hunters. Teams are formed through the four-at-a-time end, teamwork is encuraged because we'd outclass any one student by a lot, the Grimm would serve as an obstacle, we'll be on standby in case anything bad happens, and it features a wide array of threats. I think it's a pretty good idea, what about you?"
Neo made some facial expressions and stabby gestures, which made Jaune sigh.
"No, Neo, it's perfectly violent enough. And no, you cannot kill students. Any real concerns?"
"Hmmm, I think the team-forming is weak. What if one guy just gets through and gets saddled with some people they hate?" Roman asked. "Plus, this seems to hinge on us getting tech from Irondick. He may not hate us, but I wouldn't want to test the waters with that guy."
"Good points, good points. Counter, why not have something block the command center that is impossible to overcome alone?"
"Eh, still skeptical. Also, we may not be bleeding lien, but this still seems a little pricey. As Beacon's financial officer, I'd advise against going too crazy," Torchwick said.
"Hmm, I agree with Roman. It seems rather complicated and very costly. As much as I'd love to have a team-formation system that makes it feel entirely natural, the forced team-building of our old initiation did well to push people out of their comfort zones with unfamiliar people." Oobleck was right as well. Glynda gave a shrot nod as well, not having much to add except her agreement with them.
"Alright, that's out. You guys think of anything?"
"What about we simulate a capture mission? Random teams are assigned to a crook each, that'll be us, by the way, and they have to capture them in an abandoned city or something. Teams are assigned, they'll obviously need to cooperate to beat any one of us excluding Jaune, we can spread some Grimm around the abandoned city, and capture missions are done all the time!" Torchwick said, counting off the criteria before giving a toothy (and smoke-spitting) grin.
"While bounty hunting is a part of the job for many hunters, Grimm are more ubiquitous. Also, assigning random teams would infringe on the agency of the students. While the eye-contact system was imperfect, it did instill some amount of choice in the students and lead to less frustration," Glynda explained.
"Well, Professor Good-" Roman cut himself off before he could give Glynda a reason to throw him out the window, "-witch, I'd say bounty hunting is important, cause the kids need to learn how to deal with human opponents beyond sparring. Jaune over here's pretty much only fought other people in uncontrolled environments and came out on top almost every time due to bullshit, cheating, and good old fashioned luck."
"Torchwick just wants to mess with the kids," Jinn said, earning a frustrated sigh from Roman and a silent laugh from Neo.
"We all knew that, evidently," Jaune said. "And what about the forced teams?"
"Think about it! We could assign teams based on who we think would compliment each other well. And also, we wouldn't have to worry about absolutely insane team names! No more obscure animals, flowers, fruits, or adjectives!" Roman really knew how to do a sales pitch, cause the prospect of no longer having to worry about making team names with the most mismatched of agreements did entice the teachers. Only for a moment.
"No, Roman. Regrettably, I must say it's for the best if we allow the students to form teams on their own. For one, if we were to manually assign them, we would be given the blame for poor team compositions. In addition, the students are more likely to accept their teams if they feel the assignment was born from fate, luck, or anything outside of anyones hands." Roman gave a huff with crossed arms and fell back into his seat, earning a patronising pat on the shoulder from Neo.
"Also, an abadoned city? Admittedly, this is a nitpick, but do you know how costly that would be?" Glynda asked.
"No more expensive than the batshit insane amount of dust we use for the environments during the Vytal Festival. Seriously! Five shipping containers worth of dust used on a field of fire and ice! Do you know how long we could power the school with that? A week at most, but it's less stupid than blowing it all in an hour for kicks!" Roman said, pulling out a record of the dust purchases they made for the festival. At this pretty good point, Glynda did back down.
"The others are right. Sorry Roman. I feel like that'd be a better lesson for when teams are already assigned," Jaune said, casually spinning the marker he used before while also having a sip of (watered down to maintain lucidity) coffee.
"If I may, it feels like we're making this more complicated than need be. The council simply said to stop launching the initiates using those catapults. What if we kept everything the same and instead dropped them from a bullhead? Give them parachutes as well, but tell them that they'd get stuck in the branches and waste time. Technically, they're given a choice," Glynda said while drinking her tea. The very good suggestion gave pause to the rest of the staff. Well, except Neo, who made some gesturest to Jaune.
"Neo wants to know if she can still terrorize the students," Jaune translated.
"She's going to be a professor." Neither he nor Glynda were sure how she was convinced to let that happen. "She can do that in her classes." Neo thought for a moment before shrugging in agreement and sitting down.
"Well, that seems cheap, easy, and council-friendly. It's got my approval," Roman said.
"Same," said Jaune.
"Sometimes, the simple solution is the best," Oobleck added.
"I cannot answer that question," Jinn simply said while scrolling on her scroll, earning an eye roll from Jaune.
"I'll text Peter and Tsune and talk to Sienna about it, but aside from that, that's the issue solved," Jaune said. He looked down at himself with shock. "Hm, I feel nervous. It feels like something wrong's going to happen and a mountain of spanners will be thrown into the works."
"Trust me kid, just wait. It's best not to worry about it until it happens," Roman said with the puff of his cigar.