Glynda checked the time after reading the scroll messages. She sent a message to Velvet saying she would like to speak to Blake first before speaking to Velvet, but that she would be recommending that she take the makeover offer. She did add if there was anything new that Velvet needed to tell her urgently, she could make some time. Velvet had replied that it could wait. Corkran had specified that he wanted to see her before the ceremony, and she sent him a message that she could give him ten minutes if he could be in her office in five minutes. She reached her office in two minutes to find him waiting outside it.
She invited him in and went straight to the point. "What is so urgent that you asked to see me immediately after finishing your initiation test?"
He replied, "I understand that you know I have worked with Winter Schnee and that I met Blake Nightshade during that work."
She answered, "What leads you to believe that is the case?"
He laughed and said "When Professor Ozpin sent me the message from Winter, he asked me to speak to either of you about any other concerns I might have before raising them with Winter. If I believed Professor Ozpin had clearly made the wrong call, I would have asked to talk to him. I have been told that you have more day to day involvement with the students than he does and there is some information which may be of assistance to you. First, I do not believe that I was the only person who identified Blake as being a disguised Faunus– I am almost certain the photographer did as well. If she has not already spoken to you, I suggest you talk to her. Secondly, it may help ease your concerns to know that, at least when I met her, Blake argued in favour of actions which ran little to no risk of civilian deaths. While senior members of the SDC were considered legitimate targets, she spoke against targeting their families or junior employees on the basis that it was both wrong and likely to be counterproductive. She did so even though her close friend and, I assume, lover, Adam Taurus took the view that there were no innocents in the SDC and berated anyone who disagreed with him, including her. Third, her disguise is not quite good enough and I do have suggestions for improving it."
Glynda nodded "Thank you Mr. Corkran. What would you say if I told you that she reported you as being a potential White Fang undercover agent?"
Corkran smiled, thought for a moment and said "Good. I am happy to talk to her if she needs reassurance about my bona fides. Please do not discuss my background with her in any detail before she talks to me."
Glynda replied "All we have said is that your position is similar to hers and that we know about you. I will recommend to Professor Ozpin that if she asks, he suggests that she talk to you."
Corkran nodded and said, "Fine. We both have a ceremony to attend and then I have an evening of bonding with my new teammates and working out how to manage my new leader. Lydia Travers has indicated that we will have to sing a karaoke duet together after we have consumed sufficient alcohol. Are there many like her in Vale?"
Glynda replied "I am yet to make her acquaintance properly. However, I can assure you that the two of you deciding to enjoy yourselves by Grimm hunting after collecting your relic rather than boarding the airship suggests that neither of you are typical. By the way you did not answer my question as to why this could not wait"
He laughed and said, "First, I do want to get on with team bonding and not have to worry about anything else this evening. Second, Blake is a worrier and now initiation is over, I expect she will want to talk to you or Professor Ozpin tonight." He turned and left the room.
Glynda sat back for the moment. He had not wasted her time and his reasons for seeing her immediately were plausible, but she had a feeling that he had deliberately chosen to introduce himself to her when she was short of time. She wondered whether she should investigate the possibility that Miss Nightshade and Mr. Corkran were running a double bluff on her and Ozpin by denouncing each other. She doubted it, but she would double check with Winter how long Mr. Corkran had been undercover. She was also certain that Miss Scarlatina would not have been involved in a plot and both her and Corkran commenting on the disguise gave her some comfort. She wondered whether he knew that Miss Nightshade was Miss Belladonna – perhaps not. Bart had told her that in general Vacuoans took little interest in the outside world and the desert and the Grimm were so clearly the enemy they had little time for hating each other.
She sighed and checked her urgent to do list. Peter had already offered to investigate the cave which the Death Stalker had been in to check that there were no more alphas in there while she would be spending much of tomorrow repairing the temple complex before the Vale Heritage Society could complain about the damage. She hoped that one day it would collapse by itself.
Ozpin then called her to his office where Blake Nightshade was seated.
Professor Ozpin said to Blake, "I do not believe that you have met Miss Goodwitch who is deputy headmistress and oversees combat training and discipline. I have explained to Miss Nightshade that her supposition as to the composition of her team was correct, but she would like a word with you about Mr Corkran"
Blake said, "The Faunus calling himself Leslie Corkran is someone I met while in the White Fang who called himself by the code name Stalky. He was regarded as one of the most effective fighters and espionage agents they had and was particularly useful at dealing with Atlas targets. They recruited him after an Atlas officer hit him and insulted him in public for simply doing his duty and giving advice. While not a real radical, he was interested in hearing how differently Faunus were treated outside Vacuo and seemed genuinely angry."
Glynda said, "With your leave Professor Ozpin, Leslie had his own reasons for leaving the White Fang and we have as much reason to trust him as we do you. In the same way as we have not told him your story, we will not tell you his. He has offered to speak with you to allay your concerns. If it gives you any comfort, he recognised you as well and instead of either trying to kill you or denying it he reported directly to Professor Ozpin in the same way you did"
Blake considered this and said "I will think it over, but it probably would be best if we cleared the air"
"I should mention that another student and one of the Professors spotted your similarity to your mother." Glynda showed Blake the photographs that Oobleck had given her. "Both are prepared to say that it is simply a resemblance and have agreed not to draw it to anyone else's attention. The student, who is a Faunus, and Mr Corkran both spotted your bow twitching yesterday and I should mention that it also twitched a couple of times in combat this morning. I have edited the tapes to remove the evidence and as far as we can tell none of your teammates noticed this as they were all focused on the Nevermore. The Faunus student has offered to introduce you to her team captain who has a certain talent for fashion and can offer tips on how to better disguise yourself including a more robust bow. On my own knowledge of the person in question, she can be trusted with secrets if told that they are secrets. As far as she is concerned, if you say that you are a Faunus who has been badly treated by humans in the past and were nervous of revealing yourself immediately, then that will be enough for her."
Blake nodded and said, "In principle that sounds fine although I would like to know who they are first before finally saying yes."
Glynda looked at Ozpin who indicated she should go on. "The Faunus who spotted you was Miss Scarlatina, the second year who I suspect you have seen taking photographs. She has avoided taking any of you after spotting the resemblance and alerting us about it. Perhaps I can suggest that she approaches you either tonight or tomorrow morning and you can take it from there. The friend who she would ask to advise on disguise is Coco Adel who you must have noticed over the last two days with the sunglasses, beret and handbag"
Blake thought about it and said, "I will be happy to meet with them tomorrow."
Ozpin then said, "I would suggest that you consider telling your team that you are a Faunus without necessarily discussing your past or family. You can, if anyone raises it, merely say that it a passing resemblance and in part explains why you hide the fact you are a Faunus in public"
Blake said "In the case of Ruby and Yang, I would probably do so once I was happy that they could keep secrets. However, before revealing that I am a Faunus to Weiss Schnee I will need to be a lot happier about her likely attitude."
She then excused herself saying "I should return to my new teammates and get to know them"
Glynda went back to her office and sent a scroll message to Velvet saying that in principle the disguise idea would be followed up and asking her to speak with Glynda after the Team naming ceremony. She sent a scroll message warning the bar staff that Ruby was only 16 and should not be served alcohol. She also warned them that they should keep some milk in the fridge as that was what Ruby had drunk last night at dinner. She wondered if she could make a start on repairing the ruins this afternoon after speaking to Velvet and before dinner rather than waiting until the morning. She decided instead on an early start on the basis that most of the first years would not be fit for human consumption before the early afternoon.
She looked again at the drawing which had been made based on her description of the woman in the bullhead. She decided that it was as good as it was likely to get. She then finalised her description of the semblance, prepared a covering letter to the headmasters of the other academies asking if they had any idea who this person might be and arranged for the request to be sent out.
Team PLUM and Team CFVY had met just after lunch had finished to discuss the next steps. They had checked that all the weapons had been stored in the lockers following initiation and that no one had any wounds which required a visit to the infirmary.
Mulberry had given them the names of the team members together with a provisional list of team names with a promise that the final team names would follow shortly. Officially no one had announced which pairs where with which other pair, but most students knew or had worked out that they would be teamed with the duo which had picked up the matching relic. No doubt, at least among the Vale students, scroll messages were being sent to try and identify the students they would be spending four years with and they could see people introducing themselves. It was clear that not all attempts to use the crib sheets had worked – it appeared that at least four sets of friends had targeted the black pawn as being the least popular piece and the two pairs which had picked them up had been very surprised to see who they had been teamed with. They had received the dorm allocation and had divided escort duties among themselves. As there were four dorms on each of the corridors allocated to first years, it was agreed that each set of partners would guide the four teams on each corridor.
The second, third and fourth year students were gathering in the main hall to watch the team naming ceremony, to cheer the new students and watch the highlights. Team PLUM and Team CFVY had agreed not to give any spoilers, but that it was permissible to spread the word that some of the footage was well worth seeing. The teams went backstage and sought to reassure the new students. They were fairly certain that they could predict the last three teams to be called up as they had the most spectacular footage, but otherwise to judge by last year the teachers just drew lots to decide the order in which teams were called up.
Coco had talked to Weiss who was excited and asked whether Coco had seen them fight the Nevermore and that she was looking forward to leading the team. Coco took a breath, clearly Weiss had worked out the significance of the white knight pieces, but she suspected that Weiss's expectations would not be met. She was able to say that the fight had been exhilarating and that it augured well for the team that they had been able to work well together at such an early stage. She noticed that Ruby and Blake were talking about books and Yang was talking to her friends from Signal
Velvet was taking more photographs. She had taken a few of Coco and Weiss together. She had then gone over to Pyrrha who had called on Jaune, Nora and Ren to pose with her. Pyrrha said "That it had been great fun to fight the Death Stalker with the others and she hoped that they would all be on the same team" Nora had given the other three a hug while Jaune and Ren had shaken hands with each other and Pyrrha.
Velvet then went to take a picture of Brede who had a quick word with Anne who shook her head. He replied to her, "Fair enough. I sometimes wish I could say the same thing." He was back in the white flannels and monocle rather than his combat tweeds. After posing for a few pictures he said to Velvet, "Thank you. For the avoidance of doubt, I did agree with Miss Goodwitch that after the first course of dinner no further photographs would be taken tonight and my charming and brave partner does not wish to be photographed at all." Velvet confirmed that was her understanding as well and she would avoid having Anne in frame during any further photographs of Brede.
Brede had then called Weiss over and they had posed for a few photographs in the same way as he had posed with Coco when she had last met him. Velvet had used Fox's semblance to ask Coco what that was all about. Coco replied "I don't know for sure, but they may have an arrangement whereby they cover for each other in social events. A picture of them together fuels the gossip columns and distracts from anyone else either might be talking to. She is after all a wealthy heiress and he is an eligible younger son of the ex-nobility." Velvet nodded, that did fit in with some of the trashier papers she read when she saw her father in Atlas.
Velvet asked Anne whether she knew who the other pair on their team was. She said, "Not yet. I gather from what people are saying that it was whoever picked up the other twenty-sided dice, but we do not know who they were."
Velvet nodded and wished her luck with her teammates.
At last the ceremony started. The first years were seated in the first few rows in their known pairings although some had already gathered in the expected teams. As each team was called on stage, clips showing them at their best were shown on the screen – sometimes a split screen showing their landing strategies for those who had had an uneventful journey to collect their relic, for others highlighting an efficient dispatch of Grimm encountered on their way to the temple. Somehow the librarian and the Professors had found a colour for each team although some seemed to be stretching it rather.
Team Cardinal was fourth from last. It appeared Dove Bronzewing and Sky Lark had encountered a pack of Beowulf and had dealt with them well. Coco decided that it did make sense for Cardin to be leader as he had clearly planned with Dove that they would be on the same team and she presumed that the report from Pharos had made it clear which was the alpha male of the two.
Ozpin then called up Leslie Corkran, Lydia Travers, Anne Harker and Brede Campion. The clips started off with Brede and Anne fighting Grimm and then moved on to Leslie and Lydia double teaming Boarbatusks and Ursas. This was greeted by a mixture of loud cheers and laughter. Ozpin announced that they would form team LLAC, known as Team Lilac and would be led by Leslie Corkran. Brede was the first one to congratulate Leslie and both Lydia and Anne seemed happy about the choice. Leslie seemed the most surprised, but shrugged and saluted Ozpin.
His surprise was nothing compared with that of Jaune Arc when he was announced as leader of Team Juniper which was not helped when the surely congratulatory clap on the back by Pyrrha sent him sprawling. Still that did not detract that much from the clip showing the last minutes of the Death Stalker which had drawn a standing ovation from the other students. It also had been edited to clearly show Jaune directing Pyrrha to throw her shield and Nora to drive the stinger into the skull of the Death Stalker. Ren's contribution in weakening the connection of the stinger to the rest of the tail was also shown in full.
Last of all Ozpin called up Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Nightshade and Yang Xiao Long. There were audible murmurs when the audience saw how small and young Ruby was. However, this was swiftly replaced by gasps of excitement when they saw the group attack leading to the decapitation of the Nevermore and a sustained round of applause. Ozpin eventually motioned for silence. He repeated their names and announced that the team would be team RWBY pronounced Ruby and would be led by Ruby Rose. Coco was watching Weiss closely and considered it was just as well that Yang's congratulatory hug of Ruby and Ruby's own astonishment took everyone's attention away from the look of puzzled disbelief and anger which crossed Weiss's face.
After Ozpin remarked thar the year ahead promised to be interesting, Glynda announced to the students, "You will now be shown to your dorms by members of Team PLUM and Team CFVY. Your keys will be handed over to you when you reach the room. Your luggage has already been delivered to the dorms. You have just under three hours to unpack, rest and generally make yourselves at home before dinner in the ballroom to celebrate your admission to Beacon. At dinner you will be seated by team and extended highlights of this morning will be shown on the screens. If you wish, after dinner there will be drinks and karaoke in part of the college bar which has been reserved for you."
The teams had been delivered to the dorms and Team CFVY and Team PLUM had some time to themselves now, and most had taken advantage of this to prepare for the evening. The two teams were not required at the dinner for the first years, but Loretta and Beau had volunteered to run the karaoke and were checking that the equipment was working perfectly. Yatsuhashi was meditating and Fox was in the gym working out and practising his moves. Coco and Fox had agreed they would help Loretta and Beau kickstart the singing if there were signs that people were reluctant to get up. She was thinking which one would suit them best – possibly one of the duets from Dust or maybe Argus by Johnny and June Lien.
Coco had noticed that Velvet had disappeared. When she came back had asked Coco if they could for a walk to discuss something. Coco had been happy to do so and after they had got away from other people Velvet had explained what it was about. "Coco, one of the first year's is a Cat Faunus who is nervous about admitting she is one. Glynda says that she has had some bad experiences with humans and would like to feel more settled before admitting this. She also resembles a famous Faunus and that would add to the problems. Glynda has asked if you could help disguise her. The cat feature she has inherited are the ears…"
Coco said "Is it the girl with the bow?
Velvet nodded and said "The problem is that the bow is not that strong and when her ears twitch, the bow sometimes moves as well. Two of us spotted it yesterday and while both of us have agreed not to talk about it, it will only be a matter of time until someone else notices. I was wondering whether you would have any suggestions on whether there is a material which is stiffer so would not move so much, but would not hurt her ears. In addition, when we meet her could you have a look at the photograph of the person she resembles and see if there are any make up hints you could give her which would disguise the resemblance."
Coco replied "Of course, I will be happy to help. When does she want to meet?"
Velvet said, "Tomorrow will be fine so if you could give it some thought before then that would be helpful"
Coco said, "Do stop me if I start channelling my mother. She can be very blunt when doing a makeover and I have inherited the trait."
She then asked Velvet if she had any comments from her own experience on ear sensitivities, considered what would be sensible for night wear and what make up tricks could change the shape of the face.
She thought about checking out the web site of an ex-employee of her mother's. He was a Faunus who had designed a range of clothes designed to help Faunus hide their traits. He had been an employee for twenty years, but Coco's mother had decided that the potential for bad publicity from having such products marketed by the Adel company would soon outweigh the profits. She had advanced him the money to start the business and had licensed his designs to him. She had explained to Coco that while the interest on the loan and the income from the licences meant she still made money from the business; he was doing well and occasionally did freelance work for the Adel company. Coco's mother had taken a practical view on employing Faunus designers in that they were less likely to be poached by competitors, they found it more difficult to get finance to set up by themselves and she only had to pay half way decently to be the best game in town for those who wanted to see their designs worn by humans as well as Faunus. She said she also tried to avoid making a song and dance about the issue – she acknowledged she was still exploiting the Faunus who worked for her, but less blatantly than her competitors.
Team CFVY had dinner together in the main dining hall, although before joining them Velvet had taken a few more pictures in the ballroom of the new teams as well as some of Pyrrha with Ozpin. They also showed highlights from the day on the screens and the first years did seem to have a high level of competence. She also noted some of the landing strategies used to deal with landing in trees rather than the ground for future reference.
They wandered over to the college bar ten minutes before they expected the students to start arriving. Last year at their equivalent dinner, Glynda had given the speech. Ozpin taking the view that hearing him talk three times in two days was quite enough. He merely at the end of Glynda's speech directed them to the bar and exhorted them to celebrate sensibly.
Yatsuhashi had opted out of joining in the karaoke, but had agreed to meet in the bar with Tom, Michelle, Port, Oobleck and the librarian and to act in effect as security to keep the celebration to the new students. The librarian had also in exchange for free drinks agreed to use his semblance to dampen the noise from the karaoke so that people in the rest of the bar could speak to each other, but could still catch the music. They also checked that the students were not carrying scrolls – the unofficial motto of the Beacon students was that what happens in the Beacon bar stays in the Beacon bar. Velvet had been co-opted to take photos of the karaoke singers, but it was made clear that each photograph would be sent only to the singer and that the negatives would be deleted afterwards.
As expected, some of the first years preferred to spend time in the main bar to the karaoke, particularly those with friends and siblings among the older students. Yatsuhashi heard Coco and Fox singing Argus and it sounded as though it had broken the ice. Weiss had performed one of her own numbers to loud applause although she did announce that she would be devoting her time to training. Ruby and Blake had stayed for just over an hour and had then left together saying that they were tired and wanted to read before bedtime. Ruby muttered something about strengthening the bunk beds. Weiss had left a little later, apologising to Yang, but saying that she was tired. She did have a ten minute talk with Brede and Coco in the main bar, where both had tried to reassure her that it was not a sign of failure that she had not been appointed team leader. It seemed to help that neither Brede nor Pyrrha had been appointed team leaders.
Team Cardinal had chosen to sing the tree sapper song, with Cardin singing the main lyrics and the rest of the team the chorus. There had been a cheer from the Vale students as he started off with "I'm a tree sapper and I'm OK." Coco hoped that this was a sign he was taking himself a little less seriously, although she suspected not.
Brede and Anne had decided to acknowledge the Goliath in the room and sang "Let's call the whole thing off" with both exaggerating the languid drawl and the plebian twang.
Nora had dragged a reluctant Ren on stage and sang "Dust lightning" while Lydia and Leslie sang "Anything you can do" accompanied on screen by extracts from their Grimm hunt.
Yang sang "Another one bites the dust" and later gathered Pyrrha, Nora and Lydia to sing "I need a hunter" as a quartet. Coco had turned to Fox and said, "I still think that would have been a great team."
Loretta had then spoken to Yang and Nora who had nodded assent. Five minutes later they had appeared carrying saxophones and pretended to play while a speeded up extended version of the fight with the Death Stalker and the Nevermore was shown on the screens accompanied by the Tony Tor song.
As usual with karaoke events by the end the group songs had taken over, the librarian had stopped bothering to dampen the music and had left along with Port and Oobleck while the older students had been invited in to watch and applaud. As closing time hit, Team PLUM and Team CFVY had, where necessary, directed the students back to their rooms. They then shared a final drink courtesy of Port who had left some lien behind the bar and looked forward to a more restful day tomorrow.
Elsewhere in Vale, Roman Torchwick told Neo that he was still thinking about how he could persuade Cinder not to insist on taking her to Mistral for six months as part of a deep cover preparation for the Vytal festival without getting himself killed for questioning Cinder's judgement. Emerald worried whether Cinder might decide that Neo was the best girl and Mercury tried to work out whether winding up Emerald was worth sharing a room with a bored sociopath.
Anne Harker had enjoyed the evening and had decided that she had been fortunate with her team. She rehearsed the conversation she intended to have tomorrow with them revealing that she was a Pig Faunus and if that went down well her real identity. She hoped that she would not chicken out at the last moment.
Blake considered to herself that in light of Ruby's liking for books she would need to keep certain of her books in her locker rather than the room, she also realised that she had not focused on dorm sharing sufficiently and that wearing a bow overnight was not the most practical solution. She hoped Coco and Velvet had something better to suggest than a nightcap or a onesie which covered the head. She also should have fought harder for the top bunk.
Glynda inspected the bar and was pleasantly surprised to find that there had been no structural damage. She gave thought to the combat pairings for the first few classes and the lessons she wished to impart.
She drafted her request to Miss Xiao Long to see her to discuss her visit to the night club and to indicate that this was not suitable behaviour for a student of Beacon. She had spoken to Taiyang who had vehemently rejected her discussing Raven with his daughters. He had eventually relented to the extent of allowing her to indicate that to the best of Glynda's knowledge Raven Branwen did not spend time in Vale and had lived in the Mistralian Badlands since leaving Taiyang. She made a note to herself to talk to Qrow on his next visit to see if he could talk Taiyang into being more open with his daughter.
She also sent out meeting invites to the mustangs, Mr. Arc, Miss Nightshade, Miss Harker and Miss Rose spread over the next week to discuss what additional lessons they would need to fill in the gaps in their academic knowledge arising from not attending combat school (or in Ruby's case missing a year entirely and skipping one). In the case of the mustangs, she had a provisional timetable based on previous experience and Peter had already made a few suggestions tailored to the individual candidates. In the past there had been rather more candidates like Miss Nightshade and Miss Harker and so there were various templates for the catch-up courses. Indeed, Glynda suspected that the headmasters of the combat schools would not be happy to realise how much of the standard curriculum was seen as irrelevant or capable of being dealt with by a single lecture and an instruction to read a sixty page book. It did help in fitting things in that some of the first year lectures were not needed by the mustangs. For example, Port's introductory course on Grimm was too basic for then and instead he gave them as many seminars as needed where he spent ten minutes per Grimm setting out its attacks, vulnerabilities and suggested tactics and then fielded questions and suggestions from the mustangs. Unfortunately, among the rest of the students, many city dwellers had never had to face a Grimm in combat and the concise course would be information overload.
This is the end of this story. I would be grateful for feedback on what readers thought worked and what did not and whether there are any characters, themes or storylines which any of you would be interested in seeing developed further