Team SALTY

Chapter 3

Before Toshika could say anything needling, though, another voice cut in from the side, causing everyone to look at the newcomer.

"Of the Seolfor Conglomerate," the black clad girl began. She was dressed in black and purple with an oversized bow perched on her head.

Malachite noticed that she had at least gone through Disguises 101, as the black bow was disguising a pair of Faunus ears, but hadn't made it through Disguises 102, as the bow didn't at all match her outfit. Still, if wearing an ugly bow made her feel better, he wasn't going to bother her about it. He also noticed that she was holding Weiss' vial of fire dust in her hand.

Blake was so obviously a Faunus, especially right next to Toshika, it was almost painful. A couple of Toshika's tails started wagging subconsciously as she imagined how many hugs this particular Kitty would be receiving later.

"It's nice to be recognized, sometimes," Malachite said.

"Which is infamous for its heavy handed business practices, near monopoly in several sectors, and," the hidden Faunus continued, as though Malachite hadn't said anything, "there is the matter of the re-education camp you call a school."

Toshika snickered under her breath. "It's such a scam, right?" she deadpanned, eyeing Malachite with a smug, knowing grin.

"Hey now!" Malachite refuted, mock indignantly, raising his hands in defense. "Seolfor College is a fine school, and I would trust its headmaster with my life!" Internally, he smirked a bit. Somehow, over the years, they had managed to keep the identity of the college's head a secret. Malachite also made a note that this black clad girl most likely had sympathies for the White Fang. It wasn't necessarily a problem, but it was definitely something to look out for.

Stupid drawback.

There was also something about how the other Faunus, the woman with way too many animal traits, had looked at him while making that comment, but he couldn't quite place what it could be.

Ignoring him, the bowed Faunus turned toward Weiss. "And Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, one of the largest producers of energy propellants in the world." She finished with a lilt to her voice that fairly well indicated she was not the SDC's favorite fan.

Weiss, apparently, didn't notice the other girl's tone. "See," she said, turning toward the little red slightly gothic girl, "I'm not that difficult to recognize."

"The same company infamous for its controversial labor forces and questionable business partners," the dark themed girl finished, causing Weiss to sputter indignantly.

"As much as I hate to agree with her accusations," Malachite began reluctantly, "you do have to admit, Weiss, some of your father's 'friends' are rather unsavory."

"Complete and total ingrates who don't deserve to live, more like," Toshika mumbled under her breath.

Blake's eyebrows rose slightly and she glanced at Toshika. Whatever she saw must've been good, because she just shrugged and went back to staring accusingly at Weiss.

"Now, you all know who the two of us are," Malachite said, gesturing between himself and Weiss, "but would you be kind enough as to introduce yourselves as well?" Arching an eyebrow at the black haired Faunus, he added, "Unless you'd like to do the honors for the rest of the class?"

"I'll wait," Blake declined, stepping back slightly.

Toshika shrugged and locked her eyes on Malachite with a nearly feral grin. "Toshika Hana Corona, Floofimus Maximus, and local gravitational master," she introduced herself, bowing momentarily. With another shriek, she pulled Ruby around in front of her with her tails and put her hands on her smaller shoulders. "This is the cinnamon roll with a weapon fetish."

"BORK!" Huey barked from his little gravitational eddy.

"Oh right," Toshika said, nodding to the side. "That's my dog Huey."

Malachite nodded toward the fox and the hound. "Pleasure to meet you, especially now that the arguing has stopped." He turned toward the 'cinnamon roll' and asked, "I'm sorry, miss, what was your name again?"

Next to him, Weiss nodded stiffly. Considering he had half expected the Atlesian native to stomp off by now, or lose her cool and actually try and skewer the fox Faunus, he took that as her attempting to be friendly. She probably didn't have much practice doing so, after all.

Ruby collected herself and brushed down her hair. She sent a momentary glare Weiss' way, but it didn't last, and she was back to her normal lovable self. "I'm Ruby Rose!" she cheerfully said. She reached to her back where her weapon was packed away. With a series of mechanical clicks, the weapon folded out of its storage form into a massive, lethal looking scythe. "And this is Crescent Rose!"

"See? Cinnamon roll," Toshika repeated.

Ruby narrowed her eyes and jabbed her elbow backwards into Toshika's stomach. "Ruby Rose," she declared again.

Toshika just snickered.

"And a pleasure to meet you as well, Ruby," Malachite said, reaching behind his own back. "And, since you were so nice as to introduce us to Crescent Rose, I figure the least I can do is introduce you to Verdant Wedge." With a series of clicks and snickts, the green bladed knife extended to its full six foot axe form.

Toshika shrugged. "My Dusty Balls are above my head," she announced, gesturing to the halo of roughly fist sized metal orbs spinning around her foxy ears. She also wasn't even trying to keep a straight face while she gave their name.

Ruby looked up at her and frowned. "You really named your weapons… that?" she deadpanned.

"It seemed fitting," Toshika fired back. "They're metal balls that use Dust to cause effects." Her voice said she was being serious, but the almost literal twinkling eyes she wore belied her true motives.

Ruby groaned and rolled her eyes. "You're just like Yang," she grumbled.

Toshika grinned and closed her eyes. "Yep!"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Kids," she muttered. When Malachite gave her a subtle prod with the end of Verdant Wedge's shaft, she rolled her eyes and added, "Fine. I suppose it is pleasant enough meeting you, as well. So long as you don't fall on any more of my things."

"I said I was sorry," Ruby complained quietly. "And didn't we," she gestured around the group, "decide it was the workers' fault? Where are they, anyway?" A quick look around showed that, not only were no porters visible, they had somehow managed to clean up the spilled luggage and leave without being noticed. "Oohhhh, they're good," Ruby decided, her eyes narrowed.

"I'm Blake," the black haired Faunus in bad disguise finally intoned.

Toshika turned to Blake and actually looked her up and down this time, tilting her head and ears to the side curiously. She also sniffed a little bit as her eyes widened. She didn't know she could smell a Faunus, but it did make a lot of sense now that she was one.

Well, more or less.

"...Huh," she mused, ignoring how Blake froze under her gaze. "A bow? Really?"

Blake suddenly found herself on the defensive and hugged her arms around her middle. "...I like it," she attempted.

Toshika narrowed her eyes and grinned. "Suuuuuuuure," the fox faux agreed. "I won't say a thing."

Blake narrowed her eyes in return, but nodded. "Thanks."

Toshika nodded back, then turned her gaze to Malachite once more. Her grin only widened. "So, how many bricks did Ironwood shit when you told him? I just need to know so we can sketch out the dimensions of the statue dedicated to him we'll make out of them."

"I'm sorry," Malachite began, "but what are you talking about?"

He was honestly confused. Other than the regular reports he sent the general and occasional meetings about prospective students for the school, those who weren't able to handle the discipline of a military academy even with the allowances given to huntsmen, he rarely spoke with the man. Ironwood had always been calm and professional, rarely even raising his voice when a subordinate did something boneheaded enough to get immediately expelled from Atlas Academy. None of which explained why a random Faunus he just met would be asking about the general in the first place.

"You knooow," she prodded teasingly, leaning forward without any care for how her chest rested on a suddenly blushing Ruby's head, "how'd he react to the news that people capable of much, much more than sufficient velocity were… showing up?" She waggled her eyebrows at him, still grinning far too knowingly.

It took a moment for Malachite to parse the hidden message, what with the decade that had passed since he had last visited that particular website. He felt like executing a facepalm at how perfect a password that was, since it'd be very blatant and memorable for anyone in the know, but would only be seen as odd at worst for those who weren't. Apparently, he had found the first of his fellow transplantees, or, rather, she found him. Odd, though. He thought the others had all been male.

"One," Malachite began, figuring he might as well confirm that he had caught the fox's message, "I am not going to denigrate one of my family's biggest clients in front of a business rival's daughter. No offense, Weiss." The Schnee nodded her understanding. "And B… I may have glossed over a few things over the years."

Toshika's knowing grin gained an inch. Her eyes almost sparkled, and the laughter she was laughing inside her head was obvious for all to see. "That's fair," she agreed, nodding along. Her guesstimate had been correct, which was always nice to have outright confirmed even if it was over ninety percent likely. "However I'm much more partial to the idea that while one is nice, the only true way to go is to nuke it from orbit, with another thousand rounds, at the least, standing by just in case the first one didn't take out the terrain," she counter confirmed, simultaneously confirming his confirmation of their particular methods of arrival on Remnant… and also, if he was smart, cluing him in to her identity.

She made sure to watch his face to see the reaction. That botched dice roll might have been unexpected, but being hot as hell and messing with one's fellow Jumpers was more than enough payment to justify it. Plus, fluffy tails! And who doesn't like fluffy tails?

Ruby was watching Toshika with a look of starstruck awe. "So cool," she quietly squealed.

Toshika just smirked, though her ears rotating to point at the little red reaper indicated she'd heard her.

Malachite watched Toshika watching him. That last statement was obviously some form of a clue, if only he could decipher it. Probably something to do with which of the others she was, which wasn't as helpful as one would think… considering he had never actually met any of them before, at least not in person. That didn't sound like a reference to Russia, so probably not that one… who was the most likely to destroy a planet again? Destroy a planet… planetary annihilation. Ah. That one. Figures.

"I suppose that, if you wanted to tee off against an entire continent of Grimm or something, I can see where you're coming from," the green haired youth finally said, having had to think of a way to respond to that one. Hopefully it would confirm his guess without stating it directly or unduly worrying the others. After all, part of the reason he was here was to meet people his physical age, check out what other schools were like, and try to stop… or help… whatever was going on that he decided he didn't need to know so long ago. Oh, how he continually kicked himself for that decision.

Weiss poked Malachite in the side, saying, "You're taking her seriously? What kind of a mad woman would talk about 'taking out the terrain'? And what does she mean by nuking? And fighting a whole continent of Grimm? That's suicidal madness! No one can pull that off!"

Malachite patted Weiss' arm placatingly. "No, I'm not taking her seriously, we're talking in hypotheticals. Or at least I am," he began, answering her questions in order. "As for talking about whole scale destruction of the landscape… I've had serious, though hypothetical, discussions about glassing a planet before. That's where the entire surface of the planet is heated to the point that it becomes glass. Just talking about it doesn't mean we're planning on doing it or think we can actually pull it off, of course. And nuking… nuking is a reference to causing a large amount of damage at one time, based off of a theoretical weapon that, to my knowledge, has never been built on Remnant. It's also a reference to a specific movie. The full quote is "nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.' As for fighting an entire continent of Grimm… I can think of a few ways to try it, but I'll agree, doing it alone would be a very bad idea." Malachite shot Toshika a warning look as he finished speaking, as it wouldn't surprise him if she was planning something that foolhardy.

"I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually," Toshika confirmed, her grin morphing into a self-satisfied smirk. "Pretty much all of it, actually. Except the glassing. I kinda like this planet."

Malachite sighed as his worries were pretty much confirmed. Hopefully she'd allow the entire group to help plan the assault and wouldn't just run off half cocked or something.

Ruby stared at her with her eyes wide. Take on an entire continent of Grimm? How powerful was Toshika?!

She looked at Malachite, who was clearly exchanging super secret codes with Toshika at the moment, and gulped. How powerful were both of them? And what was that about a theoretical weapon? That sounded neat.

"As for Ironwood," Toshika continued, "when you say 'glossed over', just how in the dark is the poor dude?" she asked. "What tonnage did you end up telling him?"

"I've never been the best at determining that," Malachite admitted with a shrug. "And it's not like he got the reference at the time. Kilo."

Toshika blinked at him, then snorted and shook her head. She almost broke down laughing, but held herself back for the moment. "Poor Ironwood," she lamented. "That's not remotely enough."

"Tonnage?" Weiss asked.

Deciding to humor her, and not seeing the harm, Malachite explained, "The first time I had an important meeting with General Ironwood, he asked why he shouldn't just lock me up. I mentioned I had friends who would be showing up, like Toshika, here, and that they would be upset if something major happened to me. I mentioned they would be capable of creating significant damage should they need to."

"And you think they'd be a match for the Atlesian military?" Weiss asked, waving her national pride flag.

Toshika snorted again and found herself unable to hold back the laughter she'd previously stopped from erupting at Malachite's total lack of clueing in the Professional Paranoid.

Weiss' face darkened. "What."

"Both of us are," Toshika informed her, waving up and down her own body. Her smug grin never left despite the small laughs she managed to keep herself to. "We're just nice."

Ruby's jaw dropped.

"Atlas has the largest and most advanced military in the world!" Weiss protested. "You cannot possibly be so arrogant as to think you could beat them."

"Taking on the entire army might be hard," Malachite admitted. "But a single airship or platoon? That's a lot easier than you'd think. I could hypothetically do it with Verdant Wedge, and I expect that anyone here could handle a group of normal soldiers. That comment on tonnage is another reference to that theoretical weapon I mentioned, which explodes with the force of… a lot of dust. Probably more than has ever exploded at a single time before."

"I'd be surprised if I even noticed them," Toshika nonchalantly added. "My method of combat usually involves entire areas of effect and lots of firepower. I don't use those particular weapons unless I have to, they've got some nasty fallout, but equivalents that don't I'm totally okay with lobbing at something I'm not particularly pleased with." A wry grin stole over her face. "And most importantly, if I am awake and we're in the same area, my enemies are very very screwed."

It looked like Weiss was beginning to lose her temper, considering how red her face was turning and the amount of effort Malachite could see her using to remain still. "Let's stop talking about hypothetical matchups against allies," he suggested. "It's much more fun talking about taking Goliaths out at five clicks."

Alas, it was too little too late. "You… you… you arrogant, egomaniacal, deluded blowhard!" Weiss ranted, pointing at Toshika imperiously. "You're a student! There is no way you can take on a properly trained strike force!"

Malachite took a half-step forward, trying to quell the argument yet again. "Weiss, I was only talking about the vehicles and Atlas' standard soldiers. One is a matter of firepower, and the others are woefully under trained when compared to a huntsman. Our Semblances and Aura give us too much of an advantage against them, even without going into specific abilities." Giving the heiress a look over, he asked, "Have you ever sparred with the normal grunts?"

Weiss opened her mouth to respond before Malachite clarified, "Not counting those working directly under your sister."

Weiss' mouth snapped shut.

Toshika grinned and opened her mouth to make a lewd comment, but found herself interrupted.

"Excuse me, Miss Schnee?" A new voice began as a fairly normal and boring looking man walked up, "You may want to read this and consider what you were doing with that vial of Dust before you get angry at the young lady who sneezed." An SDC produced dust safety pamphlet was placed in Weiss' open hand by the brown haired man.

Weiss took a moment to get her bearings before the pride she was infamous for reared its head. "Excuse me?" Weiss demanded, glaring at the man. "What is this?"

"To be fair," Malachite jumped in, trying to keep things civil, "you were the one shaking a damaged vial of dust around."

Weiss fumed.

"That would be the club shaking I mentioned," Toshika chimed in.

"That's not the point!" she exclaimed a moment later. "She shouldn't have knocked into my luggage!"

"Why do you even have your dust stored in cases like that?" Malachite finally asked, having been wondering about it for the last while. "It's not like you dedicated each case to a specific type of dust or anything." He paused for a moment before adding, "I keep mine in an armored trunk."

Weiss apparently didn't have an answer, instead growling quietly to herself before stamping over and snatching the vial of dust from Blake's hand. Blake barely looked up from her book that she had taken out some time ago.

A brief awkward silence later, the man spoke up again. "So, uhhh… you're all first years too, right? My name's Lorem Ipsum, and since you were introducing weapons… Trace On." With that a pair of swords flowed into existence in his hands. "Meet Kanshou and Bakuya. Or at least, near perfect replications of them stored as part of my Semblance. Had to learn to use them on my own though… And to be honest, I'm fairly sure that all it takes to drop anything is one at sufficient velocity. My projectile of choice is not, however, a brick. Besides, our tonnage is, at a minimum, in the giga range." Lorem finished with a smirk directed at the multi-tailed Faunus.

Toshika clicked her tongue against the top of her mouth and fired finger guns off at Lorem, smirking.

"Gigatons? Really?" Malachite asked, surprised. "I don't remember anything about that…" Under his breath, quietly enough that he doubted even the two Faunus could hear it, he muttered, "Note to self: next time, avoid things that might make me forget the planning stages."

"You're the second person to use that phrase," Weiss noted, narrowing her eyes and glaring toward Lorem. "Is that some kind of passphrase or something?"

"Ooh… is it a conspiracy?" Ruby asked excitedly.

Toshika snorted. "Trust me Rubes, of all the people on Remnant we are the least likely to have a conspiracy."

Ruby froze. She stared up at Toshika in dawning horror. "You called me Rubes," she said, though it sounded like a complaint.

"Yup." The smug grin was back and it was legendary.

Ruby put both hands on her face and dragged them down, groaning. "You're just like Yang," she repeated her earlier words, though with a tone of suffering.

Toshika's smug grin brightened to a happy smile. "Yep yep! Gotta look after her little sister for her when she's not here!" she cheerfully said, patting Ruby on the head. "That's what older siblings are for, you know? We've got this whole pact and stuff. One so ubiquitous, so well known, we all instinctively do it."

"Whyyyyy," Ruby whined.

Ignoring the byplay, Malachite sighed. "Weiss, I promise, I have never met either of them before in this life. And, no, Ruby, there isn't a conspiracy… at least not that I know of."

"Two Yaaaangs!"

Toshika's snort didn't really help sell Malachite's assurances, but she kept any other comments to herself. "And that's three," she declared, totally ignoring Ruby. She winked back at Lorem, whose smirk turned into a grin, then started looking around the area as she searched for the others. "Now where's the sexy spoder and the pet?"

Toshika's mention of Lorem snapped Ruby out of her complaining, her attention immediately captured by the swords in his hands. Her eyes widened, her breath became rapid, and she froze.

Toshika didn't make much progress searching for any others before the boiling kettle that was a certain red reaper exploded.

"EEEEE! YOU CAN MAKE WEAPONS!?" Ruby shrieked, jumping up and down.

Toshika's eyes widened. "Uh oh-"

Ruby immediately blurred into her rose petal swarm form and bolted towards Lorem. She caused a whirlwind to slam into Toshika as her new form catapulted away from the nine tailed Faunus.

She came out of her Semblance with her hands around Lorem's arm and legs clamped around his leg, puppy eyes on full display and aimed squarely at his face.

"Uhhhh… What are you-"

"TEACH ME!" she demanded. "I MEAN, I KNOW YOU CAN'T TRADE SEMBLANCES BUT TEACH ME ANYWAYS!"

Lorem was… resigned. He should have realized who he was talking to. "I seem to have acquired a limpet. Miss Rose, or would you prefer Ruby? Either way, I'd be hard pressed to teach you how I did that, but I can teach you other things that are quite similar."

Ruby's eyes widened and she grinned. "YESSSSSS!"

Toshika shook her head and sighed, briefly combing back her long hair to make it resemble something normal again. "The cinnamon roll is pretty intense IRL, huh?" she joked.

Lorem leveled Toshika with a very dry look. "I never would have guessed. I believe you introduced yourself as Toshika? I'd like to have a chat with you and Malachite when you both have a moment. Regarding certain ideas that could prove amusing..."

Toshika gained a very scary grin. Not because it was terrifying in and of itself; no, she just seemed quite happy.

The terror came from the implications. It wasn't a good idea to give her time to come up with Ideas if you valued your sanity or your continued evil existence, much less feed her input to make them worse.

And Lorem had just proposed a meeting to do both.

"Yes. Let's."

-[lel]-

And while the impromptu group talked, all centered around the almost-fatal accident caused by a princess, poor safety practices and an unfortunate sneeze, a faint presence hovered somewhere nearby, seeing as this was one of the few early parts of the story Yache could remember.

But something was different about this one. Something… incredibly obvious, now that she thought about it.

More people, for one thing, and the people were rather unusual, even by RWBY standards. That fox lady with way too many tails... the green-haired guy with what smelt like one artificial arm, she wasn't sure which… that incredibly ordinary looking guy who simply smelt wrong to Yache's Youkai nose… not a group you'd expect in RWBY, especially not this early.

Rationally, Yache considered that it would be a good idea to get closer to at least hear them better, or even introduce herself, even if she was technically four to six years their senior.

In actuality, though, the introverted, somewhat indecisive spider got stuck standing aside where she was. At least she looked like she was merely attracted by the commotion, instead of something that'd make her look even weirder.

And that fox lady was giving Yache the creeps for some reason. Like she didn't even need X-Ray goggles to see you naked. Brr.

"Wait a minute…"

Yache was pretty far away from what was now pretty obviously the quote unquote 'camera view', but even from that distance she managed to pick up a certain phrase. It took a moment for it to finally sink in that, yes, she did just hear those two weirdly specific yet all too familiar words, twice even.

"Sufficient Velocity? Huh."

And just like that, the fox Faunus' ears stood straight on end and swiveled towards her, locking onto her form like missile rangefinders.

"Uhh…" she said, rather eloquently, as she couldn't help but notice the sudden change in the fox Faunus' behavior.

The ears were quickly followed by their attached head, the woman looking her way and breaking out into a massive smile.

"Found you," she said, her eyes twinkling knowingly.

As she had neither the experience nor the social instincts of interacting with weird cheery people, or normal people for that matter, Yache had only one choice of words at seeing the fox Faunus suddenly concentrate her entire attention at her.

"Oh shit."

"Found who Toshika?" Lorem inquired, before looking in the same direction. "Ahhh, would that be the 'Sexy Spoder' you referred to after I introduced myself?"

Toshika nodded, not taking her eyes off the blue and white, or perhaps black and gold, spider girl on the other side of the arrival area of Beacon. "She recognized and repeated the totally not a passphrase passphrase we may or may not have lucked into," she explained, breaking out into a huge grin. "And I'm pretty sure she can hear us from all the way over there. Seems I'm not the only one with high powered senses here." She spared a moment to flick her eyes over to Blake, who steadfastly pretended to read her book in reply. "...Present peeps excluded."

"I really should look into getting enhanced senses at some point," Malachite mused to himself. "I don't think focusing aura into my ears and eyes will actually help, though, considering that's also what I do to protect my sight and hearing from bright flashes and loud noises… like firing Verdant Wedge without the silencer attached. Seriously, don't do that."

Toshika huffed and rolled her eyes at him. "Fire a railgun nearby your body without any silencing systems inside an atmosphere?" she scoffed. "I'm not that nuts."

"It's a mass driver, not a railgun," Malachite griped before freezing. "And how did you know about that?"

Ruby's head snapped to look over at Malachite's weapon and her eyes widened even further. "You made a RAILGUN?!" she squealed, jumping up and down while hanging from Lorem's arm.

"He made a railgun," Toshika confirmed. She then turned her head towards Malachite momentarily, grinning at him over her shoulder. "And you'd be surprised at the things I know, Malachite," she informed him teasingly. "So, so many things."

"It is not a railgun!" Malachite insisted. He filed away the suspicion that Toshika remembered far more of the planning sessions the group had had than he did, and possibly more about the world as a whole as well. Making a mental note to sit the fox down later, when others weren't listening in, and grill her on various topics, he continued his argument, "A rail gun uses an electrified rail to shoot ferromagnetic projectiles at speed. Verdant Wedge uses pulsed gravity fluctuations to accelerate a projectile down the barrel. If you insist on using electricity based terminology, it'd be closer to a Gauss gun."

"All I'm hearing is railgun in fancy wordage!" Toshika singsonged right back, sticking out her tongue.

"It's not..." Malachite began before realization struck and he had to fight the urge to facepalm. Of course the damned troll was trying to get a rise out of him. Why use accurate terminology when not doing so would provoke a reaction?

"Either way," Lorem interjected, "It's not something to fire without hearing protection. Which was the point of Malachite's statement."

"So…" Malachite continued slowly, "if I ever say I'm dropping the silencer, harden your ears." Looking directly at Blake, he added, "Especially if you have enhanced hearing."

Toshika's ears drooped and she instinctively reached up to shield them with her hands. "But my ears are so soft and fluffy! Why would I ever harden them?!" she mock complained.

"You do that often?" Blake asked, raising an eyebrow from behind her book before looking away from Malachite's level gaze.

"Occasionally," the green haired teen admitted. "It's surprisingly effective at disorienting people, especially Faunus."

Toshika dropped her hands back down and her ears returned to normal. "A railgun, effective at disorientation?" she gasped. "In other news, a plasma beam is an effective popcorn popper!"

Malachite shrugged. "I'm not sure about using plasma, but you can use an induction forge, if you tune it right. Place a bowl at the bottom and just pour the kernels in. Of course, it's a pretty good way to get the instructors mad at you, so I don't recommend it. Even if it really is good popcorn." He paused a moment before changing the subject, "Now, what should we do about our friend over there?"

"Shall we go and bring her over?" Lorem inquired, looking over at the spider Faunus.

Toshika cracked a smirk his way and held up her hand, pointing towards the spider woman all the way over where she was. "We could do that," she singsonged, twirling her hand, "or we could do… this."

Toshika flexed her Semblance on the lowest setting she'd yet tried, covering Yache in a slight purple glow and giving her a constant, ever so small, but still quite obvious pull towards the group's position.

"...Do what?" Ruby asked, finally detaching from Lorem's arm.

Yache sighed in resignation, lightly struggling against the light pull of gravity that seemed to insist on bringing her over to the quote unquote Camera View.

She was feeling slightly rebellious, in addition to wanting to practice one pretty important skill so, instead of just giving in and walking to them, she decided to do something different.

With a slight tug on her mana, she covered herself in an aura of floatiness, ending up gently hovering a few millimeters off the ground, and letting Toshika drag Yache to her if she was so insistent about 'inviting' her to the group.

While lightly pouting all the way through.