RAVN
Chapter 1
Raven Lenoreah
Raven Lenoreah had arrived early to the Vale aerodrome, and was beginning to lament the fact. The airship wouldn't leave for another hour yet, and wouldn't open its doors to student hopefuls for another ten minutes. He ignored everyone else, wallflower that he was, and walked over to the corner furthest away from anyone else and leaned against it, crossing his arms over his chest.
He wasn't the only early arrival, as dozens of armed young men and women were present, human and faunus alike, though he noted how the latter were outnumbered by the former three to one.
As with any gathering of the two races, the air was thick with tension as glares and nervous glances were traded back and forth. Some people tried to break the tension with small talk and idle chatter, but those who attempted to speak up inevitably fell into awkward silence.
Normally he wouldn't mind waiting, he was a patient man, but the tension was getting to him. He normally spent weeks at a time away from society on mercenary work, partially so that he could avoid situations like this one.
Raven pushed away from the wall and went to leave the aerodrome. If this tension continued on the entire airship ride to beacon, then he was going to fly his private bullhead there.
He had plans to have it sent to the garage at Beacon after his arrival to the hunters college, but he could always cancel those plans and fly there himself. It wasn't against the rules per se, the airship ride was more of a method of mass transit for potential students than the only way.
Technically, personal vehicles weren't allowed for students, but he could always surrender it on arrival and use it only as transport for missions and such.
But then the doors flew open, and in walked the monkey wrench in his impromptu plans.
A young woman had burst through the doors while shouting her arrival to the world, her exuberant voice cutting through the tension in the air and sending everyone reeling in confusion, annoyance or both.
Where people were glaring and whispering amongst themselves just moments prior, now they were laughing and talking animatedly. They were now acting like the children they were rather than the veteran warriors ready to jump at the slightest provocation that they would probably end up as decades down the line.
She was clearly an... interesting individual, if she was able to ease everyone's minds with a simple statement that everyone should rejoice at the arrival of the sexy and single Yang Xiao Long.
Beneath his mask, Raven's eye twitched in annoyance at her overly flamboyant entrance before moving to stand in his corner again. The tension was gone, though the noise wasn't any better, but with the absence of hate and bitterness in the air he supposed he could deal with a few eccentricities.
He was wrong. The noise was getting to him, worse than the tension had, though he supposed he had to be thankful that the airship doors would open in another minute or two. When they did, he would find a private room and take a nap until they arrived at their destination.
Though it didn't look like he would be allowed to do so, as he had unfortunately seemed to catch the eye of a certain obnoxious blond.
She started to walk his way, grinning from ear to ear and scaring the living daylights out of him.
Raven anticipated an immediate future of the girl talking his ear off. Briefly, he considered leaving as an option, but then he saw his saving grace.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the doors open and a girl in black and red come in, the blond then let out a shout of joy and ran over to greet her. Crisis averted, for now.
He sighed in relief when a buzz rang out through the air, signalling the end of the longest ten minutes of his life as the airship doors opened, and without hesitation he pushed off the wall and headed toward the doors.
Unfortunately he wasn't the only one in a rush to get in the doors, as a young man with orange hair in knightly armor with a mace attached to his belt not so accidentally bumped into a lion faunus next to him with enough force to send him off balance and into Raven, the faunus' body weight sending Raven too falling and knocking the both of them onto the ground.
The 'knight' laughed manically before stepping on board the ship.
"Watch where you're going you big bully!" Came a shrill voice as the girl in red came bounding toward them followed by the blond.
She was a pale young girl with silver eyes and black hair that faded into dark red at the tips, and was cut in an asymmetrical bob style.
She wore a long sleeved black blouse with a high collar and red trim, a small black waist cincher with red lacing up the front, and a black knee-length skirt with red trim. She also wore a pair of high black stockings and black combat boots with red laces, red trim around the top and red soles. Slung around her hips at an angle was a wide black belt with also bullets and a pouch attached, a silver rose shaped pin attached her belt to her skirt. Her outfit was topped by a red hooded cloak fastened to her shoulders by cross shaped pins.
Raven sighed from his spot on the ground. 'I suppose I can't avoid her forever.'
Speaking of which, she was standing over him and wearing that insufferable grin.
Yang was a pale girl with lilac eyes and long golden hair that fell to her waist in a collection of loose waves. She wore a short tan denim jacket with golden brown piping on the hemlines, short puffy sleeves with black cuffs fastened by two gold buttons. The lapels of her jacket were pulled open wide to show off her large breasts, covered only by a low-cut yellow spandex shirt that was either a tube top or a crop top with a black blazing heart emblem over her left nipple, itself barely covered by the lapel of her jacket.
She also wore a brown belt with a pleated brown denim open skirt, with her blazing heart emblem emblazoned on the right-most pleat in gold. Underneath her open skirt was another open skirt, but longer, asymmetrical and made of a sheer white material. Underneath her open skirts she were black spandex short-shorts. She wore brown leather knee-high heeled-boots over her orange knee socks, the right sock folded down and a gray bandana was tied around right one.
An orange infinity scarf and black spandex fingerless gloves completed her outfit.
She bent over in an... overly provocative manner and held out a hand to help him up from the floor, and he went to take her hand, but then she spoke up.
"So, you have a nice trip?" She grinned widely at her pun, and the hooded girl and the lion faunus both groaned in discomfort, "I guess I'll see you next fall!".
"Yang, no!" The hooded girl chastised the blond for her bad jokes, but was caught off guard by the snickers coming from beneath Raven's mask. "See Ruby? Someone thinks I'm punny!"
"Please don't encourage her" Ruby said in dread, "statistically, someone has to" the lion faunus said, standing up without assistance and brushing off his mane and outfit, muttering angrily about being knocked onto the filthy floor.
"Why is everyone so mean to me?" Yang asked with a pout, bending at the waist so that her arms were hanging were hanging limp in front of her, the movement emphasizing her abundant cleavage.
Raven shook his head, grinning despite himself, he was beginning to think that this girl took any and every opportunity she got to emphasize her sexuality. Why not? She was clearly blessed and at the age where she was starting to experiment with herself and those in her age group, so she dressed and acted in a manner that cast a wide net to lure in as many potential partners as possible.
Before he could psychoanalyze her further, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. "So, are you going to take off that mask?" Yang asked, leaning uncomfortably close to to him. Raven backed away from her, but she only leaned closer. He squinted at her (not that she could see through the black lenses of his mask) "and why would you want that?"
"I want to see if you're hot enough." Yang said simply.
Raven was hesitant to ask her meaning, but for curiosities sake he asked her in a deadpanned tone "hot enough for..."
"To see if I want to drag you off to a broom closet, kick the school year off with-" "Yang, please don't!" "-with a Yang!" She cocked her hips to the side and threw up her arms to emphasize her pun, and the lion faunus, who strangely hadn't left yet, facepalmed and groaned loudly while Ruby yelled with a red face, "eww Yang you're being gross! Stop being gross!"
Raven on the other hand, buried his face, or his mask rather, into his hand and laughed.
Yang didn't care, as long as she got one person to laugh she was happy. "So, what's your name?"
He took a moment to lean back against the wall of the airship before answering "Raven Lenoreah" he said, making her freeze up. He raised an eyebrow behind his mask, wondering what could make the pun loving chatterbox freeze up.
She must have know someone by that name, and judging by her severe reaction, she must have had a strong emotional attachment to this person. A distant relation perhaps?
"So..." Ruby spoke, trying to fill the sudden awkward silence, but when she couldn't find anything to say she reached over to the blond's wrists and pushed a button on the sides of the gold bangles she wore, causing them to expand into layered yellow gauntlets covering her hands and forearm, with two gun barrels just above her knuckles.
"Ruby!" yelled a scandalized Yang, moving to collapse Ember Celica back into their bangle form, but Raven grabbed her gauntlets before she could. Raven pulled them close and seemed to analyze them for a few seconds before letting them go.
"These are a custom design of an already existing mass produced weapon," he said, surprising the girls with his abrupt, though accurate, statement. "5160 steel for the armor and a softer alloy for the inner workings, iron or copper perhaps, maybe both" he continued with the certainty of a experienced metallurgist, "and twin... shotgun barrels? No, vibrations would cause trauma from multiple shots.
"Energy weapons then? Dust ammunition for bursts of energy rather than traditional gunshots. Conclusion, you-" he pointed to Yang's chest with a clawed finger, "-are a fist-fighter who uses bursts of kinetic energy from your gauntlets to empower your attacks, and perhaps also for self propulsion."
Yang, Runy, the lion faunus and a new arrival, a wolf or a dog faunus about a little shorter than Ruby with gray hair all stared at Raven wide eyed. Raven hesitated, realizing he did it again. Whenever he saw interesting tech he sort of zoned out and analyzed it. He looked off to the side and scratched his chin awkwardly, realizing that he had probably creeped them out with his rambling.
"That was so awesome!" Ruby yelled while bouncing in place, startling everyone present. "Me next! Me next!" the girl insisted, taking the red and black folded up weapon off of her back.
"Um," Raven hesitated, nervous that he may have offended Yang with his assessment. He didn't want to upset her, she may have been a bit too loud for his liking, but she was beautiful, and...
'No!' he clamped down on those thoughts before they could get out of hand. She was loud and outgoing from what he had seen, and he was quiet and introverted, not to mention the fact that he wasn't even human. Such a thing would never work out, so he shouldn't even try.
"I should go," he said, gesturing to the the side with his thumb, "I actually wanted to get some sleep before we arrived at Beacon anyway."
Pushing off the wall, he hurriedly walked away, ignoring Ruby's disappointed groan and Yang attempting to call him back. Raven sighed resignedly, he was going to be stuck in the same school with those girls and he hadn't made the best first impression. Still, Beacon was reportedly a large school, a castle in fact.
So long as they had dorms far away from each-other and different schedules, it would be only moderately hard to avoid them.
Raven stopped at the doors and was tempted to look back, wanting to see in they had followed after him, but shook his head and forced himself forward into the private rooms.