Whimsy only lasts so long.

Fantasy becoming normal wasn't as mythical as expected.

Lessons were still lessons, no matter the subject matter.

God, you forgot school could be this boring. Though you're going to an academy dedicated to teaching you how to be a badass guy that can kill monsters for a living, it was still an academy. As it turns out, having a fat guy rattle on about fake achievements he committed decades ago was boring even if he was describing himself hunting and killing literal monsters. Your new professor, a heavyset man named Port, had so far spent your first class droning on about stuff you knew couldn't be real. The guy was like, eight times your weight, and his weapon was a blunderbuss with an ax taped to it in a world where you can make any old thing transform.

You look at your notes. Seeing as you were eager to learn, you had started taking dutiful notes about the Four Kingdoms and what it takes to be a Huntsman, but less than half a page in, you were already drawing swirlies and stick figures with cool flame swords. The only interesting thing that had happened in the past twenty minutes was that a guy across the room yelled, "AAA YEAH!" which spoke leagues about Port's teaching style. Again, academia just sucks the fun out of cool stuff. You look around and see the mix of people in class with you; your eyes quickly find Ruby below you, who was busy doodling childish pictures. You're glad to see that you aren't the only one slacking, even if the white-haired girl sitting next to her was clearly annoyed. Hopefully, Team RWBY's team dynamic was good, but this girl seemed on edge. Looking over, you see Yang and that dark-haired girl she was with. Yang's notes were well organized and highlighted based on section, but were still covered in doodles. The dark-haired girl had filled her page with illustriously calligraphic handwriting, showing that she was actually paying good attention, at least to the important bits. That said, you see her sketch out a figure as she realizes the anti-lesson Port was talking about.

You need to remember to say hi to Ruby and her team. You and Yang were already good enough friends for day one, but you're very interested in seeing more of their friends. You can't shake the feeling that you've seen the white-haired girl around; even though you were still new to this world, she looked familiar, just like that redhead on JNPR, even if you don't know why. And then there was her.

Yang's dark-haired partner was still on your mind. You knew nothing about her, and she was a complete mystery. You can tell a lot about the white-haired girl based on appearance; she was stiff, rich, and overly proper. You knew more about what you DIDN'T know based on the dark-haired girl's appearance. It was easy to tell she was a bit more introspective, but she had so much to tell without words. Yang wore her heart on her sleeve (and her shirt), and Ruby communicated, "excitable but shy," pretty well, but you really want to talk more–

"Oh, Ms. Schnee! You're volunteering?"

Oh, crap, what did you miss? Damn, nice, quirky girls had distracted you from this boring class. Hopefully, it wasn't anything super useful, but you wonder what it cou– SCHNEE! She's the Schnee girl you saw on all those online articles! Weiss Schnee was all over the news as you were looking up Dust a few weeks ago! THAT'S where you recognized her from! God(s?), that was going to annoy you otherwise… Her father is famous for being the king dick of the Schnee Dust Company, so she's loaded, and also probably a rich bitch; you didn't read too many good things about the SDC, especially in regards to Faunus labor. Your ears twitch, unintentionally angrily.

Returning to the current world, you see that Weiss Schnee had stepped out to swap into a fancy white dress. She… well, she's kinda cute, but god, that outfit looks expensive. It was VERY clear that she came from money, but she looked ready to fight. Wait, fight?

How did you miss that cage!? There was a large, shaking cage in the middle of class, and you could literally feel the spite and hate coming from it. Your skin starts to crawl as you understand that there was a monster near you; no metaphors, no scary stories, a literal, deadly MONSTER was locked in a cage, and this princess type was going to fight it. This school does not mess around, though you guess the whole, "fling them off a cliff thing," should have tipped you off.

You see Weiss take a breath and ready herself with a rapier sort of weapon. You see Ruby snap into focus before you, completely wired in; everyone else looks on with interest, eager to see the heiress engage. Port opens the cage and a large, sickening black void spins out. The masked absence of light resembles a boar, the kind with large, thick tusks ready to gore the woman before it, if the massive rollout didn't flatten her. You watch as Weiss dodges and jumps around, parrying the beast, looking for an opening.

You feel… something clutch in your heart. Before, you had read about Grimm. Even once you saw on for the first time, it was on a small screen, too small to capture the gravity of it. Before you, mere feet from your body, was a monster. You hear vague shouts from Ruby instructing Weiss on how to attack and angry retorts from the heiress, but that fades away as you see the red in its eyes. You keep coming back to it, but there's a physical ache in your body as you stare mindlessly at the beast that you need to learn to kill. This wasn't just some person with bad ideals, not some dog raised improperly, not the thing that goes bump in the night when you walk when it's too dark.

Monsters are real, and you are scared.

But, just like that, it was over. Weiss stood over the dissipating corpse of a boar. The inky smoke became ashen flakes flying upwards before evaporating, and with it, your fear. In less than a minute, any evidence of the creature that truly terrified you had disappeared; nothing but a panting girl with a sword provided any proof that there was any sort of threat to anyone in this room. You let your breath out, realizing you have taken in air in minutes. The clutch on your heart fades as you pause and look at your hands; you were real. THIS was real. THOSE are real.

You find your sense as everyone around you starts to stand up. Clearly, class was dismissed, but you missed the memo in your realization of what life was in Remnant. Catching your breath, you stand and blankly move on to your next class; though you recover, the rest of the day is spent with the gnawing fear in the back of your mind. You are going to school to fight monsters. You are going to learn how to fight. You are going to learn how to win.

Bravery isn't the ability to face all opposition without fear. Instead, it is the ability to stand and face all opposition despite the fear. You renew your purpose in life; you will learn to kill Grimm, you will get stronger, and you will make your new home a place where people can live without fear. You steel your resolve and decide that you will be brave. Though monsters are real, you've only seen proof that the monsters that haunt you can be killed. With training, there'd be nothing to stop you from stopping them. Any demon you face can be faced with a sword in one hand and magic rock in the other.

The school day ends. You look at your notes and see that, despite your fears, you managed to take decent notes. Port seems to be the only teacher that wasn't worth listening to, so that's good to know. Now, while you do have homework and a test or two to study for, there were far more important things to deal with. You drop by your room, change into your gear, and head to the training area.

You unsheath Synstylae (the name you decided on for your sword after looking up cool rose/sun related terms on a web browser) and become very wary of every action. Ruby was right; you do take too long unsheathing the extra long blade. Hopefully, that problem will solve itself soon once Ruby tinkers with it, but you need to be sure to account for that in case she doesn't get the chance.

You test your sword's weight in your hands once more. Though you've been training like mad for a few weeks at this point, every ounce of the red metal felt alien to you. You've become hyper-aware of exactly what you're doing now; you've seen a monster in the… was flesh even the right word? Did those… THINGS even exist? Even with all the magic rocks and super bullets, nothing could have prepared you for a Grimm; they were physical, but barely a shadow, animal, but still completely alien, alive, but not strictly living. They spat in the face of what you realize you call life. They shouldn't exist. They couldn't exist. But they did.

At the very least, you know that what you're (planning on) doing is right. Grimm WEREN'T life, that much was clear. They were a sick disease, an unliving malicious force that you needed to help eradicate. The weight of your sword paled in comparison of that, so you lifted Synstylae high in the air and struck the dummy before you; it bounced back from the blow, absorbing the massive hit while still remaining in one piece, as these dummies were made to take heavy, heavy hits. Thus far, you've only known an unmoving opponent, so you need to start thinking in 3D; the Boarbatusk was fast, even compared to Weiss as she fought it. You weren't trained to fight, let alone fight a moving opponent, so you need to catch up.

Switching things up, you start doing your best to jump around. Fighting through the quickly building strain, you take advantage of your heightened reflexes and shadow box dodging, sidestepping, rolling, pivoting, anything to make you better at not dying. You intently stare at the dummy, reacting to it coming at you as of it could actually move; you pretend it's preparing to strike, then deftly dodge out of the way… mostly.

You fall to the ground. Again. In another bid to show you that you have leagues to go, you jumped to the side to dodge an imaginary rollout, only to slip and hit the padded ground hard. Luckily, you were able to catch yourself without injury; you realize that practicing falling actually seems to be a good idea, considering you *will* take hits, and you want to avoid landing badly, or on top of your sword. If you dodge an attack just to mess yourself up, then there's not much point in dodging in the first place.

That settles it. The second you can, you need to get a sparring partner. You can play around with a dummy all day, but you're never going to really learn what it is that separates you from everyone else around you. You already know that that difference is experience; everyone In this building has no doubt faced off against a Grimm and lived to tell about it, while your heart nearly stopped upon seeing one for the first time.

Your damn Aura needs to hurry and fix you already.