RAVN
Chapter 6
The Badge and the Burden
Warning; there is a bit of body horror in this chapter.
Revan Lenoreah opened his eyes to see an unfamiliar ceiling. His eyes widened in panic before he looked around and saw where he was, and remembered all that had happened. He sighed in relief before looking to the side to see three empty beds. 'I guess they must have left already.'
He sat up, but looked down in surprise. 'What is going on?'
He swung his legs to the side and stood from the bed, almost falling over as it took a second to regain his balance when he realized that he felt heavier than he was used to.
He groggily made his way to the dorm bathroom to start his morning routine, but stopped when he noticed his reflection. His eyes widened in horror as he ran to the mirror and threw his hands against the wall to either side.
His eyes... the right one was as it should be, white sclera, blue iris and a snakelike slit pupil. But the left... he saw a burning, bloody red iris surrounded by a pit of inky black, and the pupil was more rounded on the sides, making it more catlike than snakelike.
His skin... while he had always been a bit more pale than was natural, he now wore a ghastly white pallor interspersed with unhealthy and unnatural crimson and purple veins. His horror filled eyes followed the veins just beneath his skin to his right shoulder before he felt his heart stop at the sight.
His entire right arm was covered in smooth obsidian colored scales, with bone spikes protruding from the shoulder and elbow, with bone claws forming the tips of his fingers. 'What is?!'
He backed away from the mirror and looked down to see that the lower halves of his legs looked the same as his arm, complete with bone claws and spikes.
He backed away from the mirror, stumbling in horror at his demonic reflection as he felt bile rising from his throat. His tail waved and thrashed uneasily behind him, uncaring in his terror gripped mind as it tore through the bathroom furniture.
He screamed his horror to the world as the demonic version of himself sprang forth from the mirror and swung a black bladed longsword at him...
Raven Lenoreah bolted up in bed, screaming at the top of his lungs in horror, waking Vergil who took the bed to his immediate left, Agni who jumped in surprise at being awakened so suddenly and Nefartem, who immediately fell back to sleep, so unused to being woken up at the crack of dawn like this.
"What is it! What's wrong?" Vergil yelled, trying to calm the normally taciturn Raven, but only panicking the young man further when he tried to touch him. "Well, I'm up" Agni sighed, rising from the bed to help Vergil calm their thrashing leader.
"What's wrong with him?" He tried asking, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with the back of his hand. "I don't know! He just woke up and started screaming!"
Agni aided Vergil in trying to pin down the white haired boy, not an easy task given his surprisingly scrawny frame, while they tried to calm him down from whatever night terror he must have been experiencing.
"Come on Raven, wake up! You're just dreaming!" Vergil tried to reason with the thrashing teen, but his words fell on deaf ears as his own screams drowned them out.
"Nefartem, will you please give us a hand over here?"
Yang woke herself with a sneeze, looked around her dorm in confusion, and then promptly fell back to sleep.
The lion faunus' only response was to raise one arm in the air and flip Agni the bird.
Agni cursed when the metal stump of Raven's leg slammed into his thigh, and his right hand fell away from the other teen's shoulder before falling to his tail, finding a soft spot on the underside near the base and pressing into it with the tip of one finger.
Raven, face down on his bed at this point, went completely still with his back bowed and his eyes wide as he was yanked out of his dream.
"Raven, you're okay!" Vergil cried out in relief upon seeing his friend no longer thrashing in terror on his bed. Raven remained completely still for a full second before collapsing to his bed, exhausted.
Agni stared in disbelief at what just happened, what he just did, before hiding his hand behind his back in mortification.
His face adopted a solemn expression as he looked down at the panting teen.
Flashback
The door to their dorm opened, as the newly formed team RAVN walked, or skipped in the case of the ever exuberant Vergil, before without a word, Raven walked to the bed nearest to the far wall and sat down.
"Well then," Agni began, "let us introduce ourselves again as teammates, shall we?" He proposed with a winning smile. Nefartem sighed, flopping down on a bed, but relented. Vergil skipped toward the bed to Raven's left and sat down, nodding with a cheerful noise of agreement. Raven, tired out from the day, just nodded his head.
Chuckling at his team's behavior, he lead the charge, saying "well then, I am Agni Vermilion." He withdrew a leather bound wallet from his coat, and removed a photo of an ebony skinned woman roughly ten years his senior with her long hair in cornrows, with small silver rings fixed to the end of each braid, wine red eyes with slit, snakelike pupils and a slightly rounded belly. "This is my lovely wife Kali Vermilion, and in eight months time I will introduce you all to our adorable baby girl Parvati!"
Raven looked up to see the exited look on the young man's face at the thought of his wife and future child.
Vergil jumped up from his bed and enveloped Agni in a bone crushing hug, "congratulations, I'm so happy for you!"
Nefartem however, just had to pop Agni's bubble. "You said you have eight months to go, so how do you know you will be having a girl?"
Agni's face fell and he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment at getting ahead of himself in his excitement. Raven shook his head at the other faunus' lack of tact, "well" Agni started to say in response with a light blush "I've always wanted to have a daughter some day. I have ever since I was little, when I used to play games with my own mother."
"What about your father?" Vergil asked with a tilted head. Given his past with his own parents, it was clear that he was expecting a sad story about Agni not having a father, or his father leaving him. But the answer couldn't be any more different, and he honestly felt a little jealous for it. "My father was there too, but we were never as close as me and my mom."
Raven smiled, leaning his chin into his hand, at least he had one teammate with a happy upbringing. Vergil introduced himself next, raising his hand high into the air and yelling "and I'm Vergil Argento! I hope we can all become good friends!" Agni smiled endearingly at the boy and ruffled his hair.
Since it seemed that was all they were getting out of the boy, Nefartem decided to go next. Standing from his bed and putting hes left leg behind his right and pointing to his heart with his thumb in a cocky, flamboyant pose, he shouted "and I am Nefartem Gild of Vacuo! Sorry to say," he lowered his hand, and rested both his fists on his hips, "but we can only get along if you have a decent sense of fashion."
"You got that!" He threw out one arm and pointed at no one in particular.
Agni sighed into his hand, Vergil cocked his head in confusion and Raven rubbed the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
Figuring that it was his turn to introduce himself, he stood and said "I am Raven Lenoreah. I was born in a small town in western Mistral, and I spent the last four years traveling Remnant as a mercenary."
He sat back down, having finished telling them all that he was prepared to tell them for now. The three of them looked at him intently as his introduction was the most curt.
Vergil's introduction had been shorter, but was said in a cheerful manner, while his own was monotone and said in a matter of fact manner.
Raven lied back down to prepare for bed, but just as he was about to cover himself up, the voice of Vergil bore into his ear "Raven?"
When the young man turned to look at the boy, he followed up his inquiry with "aren't you going to take off your armor first?"
Raven stiffened as the others turned to look at him. Vergil with innocent, questioning eyes, Agni looking off to the side uncomfortably as he had figured out Raven's secret earlier on, and Nefartem looking on with an eyebrow raised, incredulous that he would try to go to bed in full armor.
With a sigh, Raven sat back up and grabbed the large briefcase that lay under his bed.
After the students had left the forest, Headmaster Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch had recorded the order in which they had passed the initiation, as well as the teams they would be on. Thus, they had organize which teams would be assigned which rooms within the castle, and had the students luggage carried up to the rooms by the castle staff.
Withdrawing the briefcase, he opened it to reveal four empty hollow spaces, three of them elongated and oddly shaped and the fourth small and round, with more hollow spaces filled with tools.
Taking a screwdriver and an odd tool resembling a thick, blunt knife, he got to work on his right shoulder. Removing the outermost paultron, he started to unscrew four screws on the front of his shoulder.
Vergil chewed on his thumb as he watched his new friend, curious at the unusually complex armor. Nefartem,on the other hand, realized exactly what was going on and was looking away uncomfortably, Agni had his book in front of his face in an attempt to draw his focus elsewhere.
Raven put down the screwdriver and the four screws on his bedside table, and took away a small, square shaped plate from his shoulder to reveal a small slit shape underneath.
The young man inhaled through his nose, taking a deep breath in preparation as he fitted the knife shaped tool into the slit. Holding his breath in anticipation of the pain to come, he twisted the tool a quarter inch to the right, moving the inner mechanism in his prosthetic arm, disconnecting the wiring and servos in his arm from the delicate mechanisms and nerve endings in the housing system that was his shoulder.
A scream of immense pain tore itself from his throat, muffled by his clenched teeth has his prosthetic arm went completely limp as it was no longer being supplied with bioelectricity.
This was a process that needed to be repeated every time he attached his prosthetics to his body, or removed them, and the accompanying pain was similar to having his limbs severed from his body all over again. This process needed to be repeated every time his limbs were damaged in combat, and whenever he needed to preform maintenance upon them.
Maintenance needed to be preformed upon his prosthetics twice a week, once a week if he was having a good week.
Vergil gasped in horror at his friend's pained expression while the others tried not to notice.
Raven straightened his back, and with another deep breath he lifted his right arm off of its housing system and away from his body, he bent it at a right angle at the elbow and fitted it into one of the hollow spaces in the brief case.
When Raven moved to pick up the screwdriver again, Vergil realized that Raven wasn't finished his macabre 'disassembly'. "Do you... want any help?"
Raven paused, no one had ever offered to help him with this task before, at least none wanting to honestly help. Whenever someone had discovered the truth about his body, they had always turned away. Either in fear or disgust, he didn't care about their motives for turning away.
Worse were the ones who didn't turn away. Unlike Vergil who seemed to genuinely want to help, the ones who didn't turn away upon discovering the truth always assumed him to be a helpless cripple, offering to help him out of a misplaced sense of pity.
"No, that's alright." He didn't want to be rude to the boy, as the look in his eyes weren't one of pity or disgust, but he wasn't comfortable enough around people yet to let them touch his prosthetics in such an intimate manner.
He removed the diamond shaped plates covering his 'knees' and pulled his leather pants out of the metal plates on his legs, he took the screwdriver and started to remove a plate to the side of where his knees were supposed to be, revealing more slit shapes. Picking up the knife shaped tool, he inhaled deeply once more before he disconnected his lower legs from his body, one after another, once more biting back a scream of pain as he felt his legs be cut in half.
A few tears escaped from his right eye, but not the left at his pain.
His teammates reactions were varied at finding out the extent of their leaders disfigurements. Vergil was close to tears and looked like he wanted nothing more than to throw himself at his leader in comforting embrace, Agni had completely turned away, his nose buried in his book, his left hand clenched in a tight fist at his side. He had heard of cyborgs before, but never thought he would meet one with how rare they were outside of Atlas. Nefartem's reaction was somewhere in the middle, he was clenching his the bedding tightly in his fists as his lion ears were pressed tightly to his head. On one hand he wanted to comfort his leader, and on the other he wanted to burst out of the dorm and run far away.
Raven picked up his lower legs and fitted them into the two empty hollows in his briefcase. The last hollow, which would fit his prosthetic eye, remained empty. His eye was very rarely damaged in battle, and more work went into it than his arm or legs, so maintenance was relegated to once a month.
Now, with his prosthetics removed, he was free to take off his clothes. Out in the field the need to disrobe was tertiary to anything else, so he designed his limbs to lock his clothing in place.
He pulled up the sleeve of his coat, revealing his gauntlet to go all the way up to his elbow, secured to his arm with leather bands. He unbuckled them and removed the clawed gauntlet, setting it down on his nightstand. That done, he shrugged the coat from his shoulders and let the heavy garment fall to the ground.
Vergil, the only one still looking at Raven, squeaked in surprise. The coat in question had a lot of padding, making Raven's body look more robust than it really was. His body free of the heavy coat, was revealed to skinny, in fact, while it was difficult to tell due to Raven's turtleneck, it didn't look like he had much muscle mass at all.
Raven removed his breastplate and pulled his turtleneck over his head, and... he was right. Very little to no muscle mass to speak of. In fact, with his skinny torso, the long white hair falling over his shoulders, his missing limbs and his heart-shaped, girly face with those thin rectangular glasses... He understood why that coat had so much padding.
Raven, as he really was, was not intimidating at all. Definitely not the body of a fearsome mercenary.
Suddenly the mask made sense.
Raven's strong, obsidian scaled tail coiled on the floor by his bed and lifted his body off of the bed so he could take of his leather short pants. The tail itself was long, roughly equal with Raven's total height when standing with his prosthetic legs, and was very think, almost five inches at the base.
The young man, physically and emotionally drained, collapsed upon his bed and dragged the covers over his body, covering his head. Vergil, Agni and Nefartem, heads spinning from this newest of developments, crawled into bed themselves and lied there in silence until they were safely under Merpheus' spell.
Raven lay in bed, panting as he recovered from his nightmare and his... awakening.
Wordlessly, he lifted himself into an upright position with his arm and grabbed the hanger holding his Beacon academy uniform with his tail, grabbing the handle of the briefcase containing his prosthetics in his hand, and he jumped awkwardly from the bed and shuffled into the bathroom for a shower.
Vergil and Agni were left standing there, awkwardly staring after their leader, wondering just what they had gotten themselves into. Nefartem, on the other hand, was free to catch up on his sleep before classes began.
Thirty minutes later saw Raven, fresh from his shower, dressed in his uniform, attaching his arm to his body. He had already done his legs, so all that was left was his arm before his team could leave for their first day of class.
He twisted the knife shaped tool, sealing his prosthetic arm to the housing system, fusing the wiring in his arm to the mechanisms in the housing systems which in turn were fused to his nerve endings, allowing the arm to receive bioelectric signals from his brain. This function served the dual purpose of powering the arm itself as well as telling the servos and actuators within what to do, just as the brain would tell a flesh and blood arm what to do... only with a split second of a delay, as cybernetics have yet to catch up with natural biology.
Raven, once again, was forced to bite back a scream of pain. If anything, attaching his prosthetics hurt more than removing them.
Vergil felt that it was safe to speak again now that now that Raven's morning ritual was finished, and now the uncomfortable, oppressive air that accompanied it was no longer pressing down on their heads.
"So..." he gulped, he wanted to ask but he was scared the question would bee too tactless, "what was your dream about?" Agni and Nefartem looked at the boy out of the corner of their eyes, their eyes saying you don't just ask someone about a dream that had them screaming in terror!
It was clear from his tone of voice that Vergil was expecting an explanation along the lines of how Raven's body was damaged to such an extent in the first place.
Raven looked up at his teammates for a full second before looking down at his lap. "It was..."
He shuddered as he recalled his demonic reflection in the dream mirror.
Raven clasped his head in his hands as he remembered his life as a mercenary, the things that he did.
He lifted his head before looking at his clawed, metal right hand.
"It revealed me to me what I really am."
Vergil cocked his head to the side as the others looked on questioningly. Raven closed his eyes as he saw the faces of all the people who had ended up victims in his wake, as he had selfishly decided that his own survival was more important than theirs.
"And... what did your dream show you?" Agni asked in a solemn voice, noting Raven's tone.
Raven's hand fell to his bed as he spoke.
"A monster."
Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long, Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrah Nikos and Lie Ren found themselves running through the halls, uncaring as to who was in their way, as their first day as official students of Beacon found them late for thier very first class.
Their brilliant leader, the afformentioned Ms. Rose had thought it a good idea to spend the morning of their first day converting their beds into very precariously positioned bunk beds.
This well concieved early morning activity had drawn on entirely too long, leading to Ms. Schnee realizing their tardiness which in turn lead to their mad dash through the halls.
The other team rushing alongside them did not have such an excuse, however strange said excuse was. The newly minted team JNPR were simply unused to such a schedule and had overslept.
The two teams, in their hurry, almost did not notice as they sped past the headmaster of their school Professor Ozpin and his right hand woman Ms. Glynda Goodwitch. Glynda harrumphed at the potential troublemakers running through the halls and looked at her watch condescendingly at their tardiness, while her coworker simply looked after them and sipped his coffee.
It was only a little later that they actually did crash into somebody.
Raven Lenoreah, Vergil Argento, Agni Vermillion and Nefartem Gild had actually woken up on time. Not due to being accostomed to their new schedule, but due to their leader's violent awakening from a nightmare. Upon getting showered and dressed for the new day, the young man had revealed why his dream had him so out of sorts, as his dream had shown him his true opinion of himself personified, and what he saw was a horrid demon.
Thus, their walk to class was a quiet and uncomfortable one. With each of them contemplating their leader's words, brooding, or questioning why the snake faunus hadn't simply killed himself already if he tuly thought himself such a monster. Of course the air of tension around them was broken when, as they had almost reached their destination, eight idiots running through the halls and causing a ruckus that should be illegal so early in the morning crashed into them, and sent them tumbling to the floor.
"Oof!" Raven gasped as the air left his lungs as he collided a blond figure and sent to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
Yang Xiao Long simply lie on the floor for a second, too dazed to question why the ground was so lumpy, as she regained her wits. Shaking her head and pushing herself to her elbows, she looked at the young man underneath her, in a very compromising possition with herself no less, and grinned half seductively and half jokingly.
"Falling for me already?" Raven chuckled quietly as a chorus of groans echoed back at him. He grabbed Yang's waist and she almost let out a yelp, not expecting him to take her up on her flirting. He managed to get his legs underneath him and stand and set her on her feet, immediately backing a few paces away from her.
Yang blinked owlishly, she had expected him to blush and flail uselessly like the other young men she had ended up in such a compromising position with in the past, but this one seemed... not into her. Like the way an artist would admire a sunset or the sky after a storm, it was an aesthetic appreciation, but not a sexual attraction.
She had to admit, she was a little intrigued.
As everyone else was getting up from their spots on the floor, Yang's eyes were drawn to Raven's arm. Or rather, by the question of why he was still wearing armor even after having changed into his school uniform. Her eyes falling lower in her examination of his figure that she noticed that he wore armor on his legs as well, but only from the knees down, oddly enough.
They were also out of proportion to the rest of his body, creating a somewhat uncanny look. There must have been some padding in that coat he wore yesterday, or in whatever he wore underneath it, as he didn't appear quite as imposing as he did yesterday. His armored arm and legs were thick and strong looking, but the rest of his body was thin and lanky. She also noticed that there was a long, thick, scaly black and grey tail behind him, also previously hidden by his coat.
Not only that, but he still carried his weapons on his person.
A large ornate revolver was srapped to his left thigh in a black leather holster, while his warsword hung from the right side of his belt, ready to be drawn by his unarmored left hand at a moments notice.
Noticing her questioning look, Raven supressed a sigh and elaborated, at this point all but succombing to the inevitability that he would never be able to avoid these girls during his stay at Beacon, as the universe itself seemed to be against the very notion. "It's not against the rules to carry weapons on your person during school hours, but doing so will put you under scrutiny by the school staff as a potential troublemaker."
Yang nodded, his explanation didn't seem far fetched, seeing as this was a school for warriors. But if it wasn't true and it was against the rules, she was in trouble. Her weapons were a fashion accessory, and it would be odd to keep them in a locker all the time. In a burst of rose petals, Ruby appeared in his face, causing him to suppress a gasp and back away a step, his hand grasping the hilt of his sword, his tail swishing nervously behind him.
"Is that true? You mean I didn't have to lock my baby away in a locker!?" Question after question spilled from the mouth of one Ruby Rose at the older boy's words regarding her favorite subject. "You didn't read the rulebook, did you?" Ruby ignored the question, instead daydreaming about her weapon... and Raven forcibly turned away from her.
Even having taken his chemical castration pills, anxiety medication and mood elevators, this girl was starting to creep him out. Instead he payed attention to the conversations between the rest of the group.
"Hello again" Pyrrha exclaimed happily upon recognitoin of the other redhead present. "Good to see you Ms. Nikos, you look in top form," the two respective redheads teams turned to the two in surprise at their apparent familiarity.
"You two know each other?" Vergil asked the two, and Agni nodded to the boy and explained "we both took part in the Mistral tournament last year. Ms. Nikos defeated me in the finals, so while she took gold I merely claimed silver."
"Wow!" Vergil looked at Pyrrha with admiring eyes and his fists held inder his chin, his ears perked up adorably and his tail swaying happily behind him. "You must be really strong, Ms. Pyrrha!"
Fortunately, before the blushing Pyrrha could address the adorable boy's praise (or question why he was wearing a girls uniform), he was lifted off the ground by Nora, who crushed the boy in a backbreaking hug.
"Oh you are so cute!" The orange haired girl gushed as she squeezed the boy, unfazed by his whining and squirming.
"NOO! Let me go!" The boy cried, flailing his limbs desparately to get out of the girl's painful grip.
Jaune hung back, looking hesitant to get involved in the crazy antics of his teammates, and Nefartem hung back with a cross look on his face, muttering about filthy floors and rolling a lint roller over his uniform, trying to remove any dirt that clung to it from their little tumble.
Blake and Weiss similarly hung back from the commotion. Weiss, after spending so many years around so many outspoken racists, even if no one in Atlas ever called them out on their bias, didn't know what to think upon being surrounded by so many faunus. Blake had similar worries to her monochromatic counterpart, but for very different reasons.
"Umm," a strong but quiet voice cut through the ruckus in the hall like a hot knife through butter, leaving many of those in earshot to wonder how he managed such a feat. "Don't you think we should get to class now? It wouldn't do to be late to our very first class, now would it." Lie Ren questioned them, but the question had such an air of calm seriousness about it, that it felt more like a demand.
"Monsters!" Boomed their Professor Peter Port, a man apparently just beginning his transition from middle adged to elderly. The man wore an old fashioned double-breasted burgundy suit with gold piping and buttons. His burgundy trousers were tucked into high olive boots, which seemed to be made in homage to the boots of cavalry soldiers from the Great War era.
He had graying hair worn in a style popular among Vale's nobility about two or three decades ago, and a gray mustache that bore a slight shine from some brand of mustache wax. He also appeared to be slightly... jolly, as if he had let himself go in his tenure as a teacher, but he could tell even from his seat in the back of the lecture hall that the man had more than enough muscle to make up for it.
"Deeeemons..." Prof. Port said dramatcally, making a scary face and gesturing with his hands, seeming to forget that his students were higher up than himself, so the effect was ruined.
"Prowlers of the night!" The man finished the introduction to his speech in a dramatic flair. Raven had to hand it to him, he definitely had a flair for the dramatic.
"Yes, the Creatures of Grimm have many names, but I merely refer to them as prey! Ha-ha!"
The members of team RAVN, along with the two teams Raven had unwillingly acquainted himself with so far RWBY and JNPR, seated on the left side of the front row and the right side of the middle row respectively, were in varying stages of interest; Raven was paying a loose attention, Agni was paying rapt attention, far to polite to do otherwise, Nefartem had his feet leaning on his desk and was typing away on his scroll and Vergil was clinging to Raven's arm, scared by Ports introduction.
Jaune was sitting in his chair with his back ramrod straight. Blake was sitting up and paying attention, Yang had her head leaning into an open hand and was watching Port with a bored look in her eyes, Weiss was taking notes (on what? He hasn't said anything important yet), and Ruby was mirroring her older sister's posture, but was sneaking a quick nap until she was woken back up by Port's bad joke, which receives a cricket-filled silence otherwise.
"Uhhhh..." the man pulled on the collar of his suit awkwardly at the cold reception from his students, "and you shall too, upon graduating from this prestigious academy!" he announced, managing to save his presentation.
"Now, as I was saying" he started, moving on to the actual lesson. Many students in the hall, bored by Port's introduction, sat up and payed attention, eager to hear their first lesson at Beacon. Port walked around his desk to the corkboard covered with pictures of detailed grimm anatomy, with arrows to highlight the strong and weak points on their bodies.
What's more, the room could be mistaken for a trophy room, with heads of grimm of all stripes adorning the walls, taxidermied recreations of grimm in powerful poses standing on the floor, skeletons of flying grimm hanging from the cieling...
Of course the entirety of a grimm's body, save for the skeleton and bone mask, disolved entirely when they were killed. Scientists may have tried to study the bodies of grimm throughout the ages, but they had to content themselves with mere bones. Taxidermists had to use the skeleton and mask as a base, and recreate the body and fur, scales, feathers or whatever else with whatever they had lying around.
Appropriately, their first and most important class was Grimm Studies. Huntsman were many things, heroes and vigilantes, mercenaries in the employ of the kingdoms, but first and foremost they were warriors trained spacifically to fight the Creatures of Grimm and keep the people safe from them.
"Vale, as well as the other three kingdoms, are safe havens in an otherwise treacherous world! Our planet is absolutely teeming with creatures that would love nothing more than to tear you to pieces!" Here, Port gesticulated with his hands, likely remembering some truly desperate encounter from his past.
"And that's where we come in. Huntsmen! Huntresses..." here, he gave a wink to someone standing in the back of the room, and a quick turn of his head confirmed that it was Ms. Goodwitch, observing the class from the back and rolling her eyes, but more noticable was the various females throughout the room, groaning in distaste as they all thought that he was flirting with them.
Raven rolled his eyes. As ironic as it was, he hated teenagers. They were short sighted, arrogant and always had to make things about themselves. It was a good thing he only had two years left as one.
"Individuals who have sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves! From what, you ask? Why, the very world!"
"Ayyyy-yep!" He heard from the other side of the lecture hall, and when he looked over he saw a student standing with his fist in the air. A strangely out of uniform (which would get him a few points docked, or whatever secret way the teachers had of grading them, from Ms. Goodwitch and/or Prof. Port) student was standing with his fist in the air, whom he remembered faintly from the entrance ceremony as Auburn something or other.
The young man simply stood there awkwardly for a moment as everyone looks at him strangely before he sat back down, crossing his arms and his head lowered in embaressment.
Nonplussed for a moment, Prof. Port continued. "That is what you are training to become. But first: A story."
"A tale of a young, handsome man... Me! When I was a boy..." As the professor frawled on, Raven raised his eyebrow, an anecdotal lesson? That was unusual, but then again there was no greater teacher than experience. And if their proffessor wanted to teach them by sharing his experiences, who was he to judge.
As the seconds became minutes, Raven found himself incresingly bored. Port's story was... minorly interestingly, unlikely to get to the meat of the subject at hand until much later. But the more pressing matter was the fact that his eyelids were getting very heavy.
Raven didn't want to beging school by falling asleep in his first class! What kind of precedent did that set? But as his eyelids grew heavier and heavier, he could at lest make sure his head was propped up in his hand to make sure it just looked like he was paying attention with his eyes closed.
He didn't snore, at least, and he wasn't a heavy breather, so he was sure he'd be okay... he'd apologize to Port for falling asleep later, though he'd probably get detention, or study hall or remedial lessons or whatever Beacon did as punishment.
Just before he dozed off, he looked to the size to see Vergil paying rapt attention. He guessed the boy's parents didn't tell him enough stories when he was little, so he was reaching out to any storyteller he had available.
"Despite smelling of cabbages, my grandfather was a wise man. 'Peter', he told me..."
It was raining. Back in his heavy coat and armor, Raven crouched in the brush of the jungles of Mistral. He slowly assembled his sniper rifle as he looked through his opera binoculars at his current target.
One hundred and fifty meters to the northwest, there was a clearing filled to the brim with tents, banners, and crates of weapons sporting the red wolf head and scratches that was the White Fang logo.
In the center of the clearing was a male tiger faunus, large and intimidating, he wore a traditional black outfit with a red cloak rather than the standard black and white uniform.
Raven gulped nurvously, his free manner of dress identified him as at least captain rank. If this didn't work then he would need to run immediately, as this was a fight that he would not be able to win, and even if this did work then there were far to many WF warriors down there for any one person to beat on their own.
Not quite ready to make the shot yet, he increased magnification and looked around the clearing at those in attendance. There were many faunus; cats, dogs, deer, bats, even a spider.
He sneered, he had seen a few of these meeting so far by different WF groups, and they all seemed to have one thing in common.
No reptile faunus, and the few exceptions that he had born witness to, not a one of them were venomous. The White Fang touted itself as a group for all faunus, but it seemed that they were just as prejudiced as humans. He could understand in a way, no one wanted to get poisoned with just a bite or a scratch or something, so they all stayed away.
But to be outcast by a circumstance of birth? Sienna Khan was no better than Jacques Shnee, which was why, when Schnee Dust Company posted a bounty for Sienna's nephew Ochre, he jumped at the opportunity.
Furrowing his brows, he increased the magnification of his folding binochulars once again to make sure what he was seering was real.
In the front row of the crowd was a cat faunus, apparently the same age as himself. It was hard to tell, he couldn't see fine features as things were kind of blurry this far away, but she seemed to be a dark haired girl. She was leaning against an older man, ox or bull faunus with reddish hair.
He gripped his opera binochulars in anger. The White Fang would stoop so low as to use children!? True, at 16 he was technically a child as well, but he was a freelance mercenary, the WF were an official organization. The standards were very different!
His resolve bolstered by this sudden revalation, he reached down to the ground where his mask lay alongside a briefcase for the disassembled parts for his sniper rifle, and picked up a titanium device that seemed to be a cage with a needle on the end. Opening his mouth, he removed a vial with a rubber top being stabbed with one of his fangs, allowing it to fill with his venom.
Some assassins carried pre-filled vials of poison ready for use, but since his venom (a deadly neurotoxin) was so potent, carrying around vials of it was extremely dangerous.
Taking the rubber top off of the vial, Raven carefully pit the vial inside of the syringe, and taking a titanium disc shaped piece, he screwed it closed.
Putting the syringe round into the chamber of his rifle, he cocked it and aimed the weapon straight at Ochre.
After roughly half a minute to account for the rain, the wind and Ochre's pacing, he inhaled deeply to calm his nerves, and on the exhale... he squeezed the trigger!
"Ah-heh-hem!" Raven's eyes snapped open, luckily without making any loud noise that would have made it obvious what he was doing. Some weren't so lucky he noticed, as the fell flat on their faces or out of their chairs, let out loud gasps or groans, etcetera.
Prof. Port waited until all attention was on him once more, and his gaze passed over the students to make sure it was, before he began again.
Inhaling, he continued his lecture "in the end, the Beowolf was no match for my sheer tenacity, and I returned to my village with the beast in captivity and my head held high, celebrated as a hero!"
'Captivity? He actually captured it alive?' Raven was suddenly sorry he missed Port's lecture, but judging from Vergil's enraptured expression he'd get it all repeated back at him again from the younger teen.
The teacher took a bow, no doubt recalling that memory and acting it out.
"The moral of this story? A true Huntsman must be honorable!" Raven closed his eyes, thinking how he could go about his time at Beacon in order to change himself from a common mercenary into someone who fit that criteria.
"A true Huntsman must be dependable!" Raven nodded, adding to his mental checklist.
"A true Huntsman must be strategic, well-educated, and wise!" Raven nodded again. He'd like to think himself quite the strategist, but he was no fool and knew that he had a long way to go, especially seeing as all but a few of his known strategies only counted upon himself and no one else.
The second point was why he was here, and just to be sure he would make sure to sign up for extra lessons and as many objective classes as he could.
The third point, however, came with experience. He probably wouldn't be truly wise until he was much older, but he hoped to have as much experience as possible by the time he graduated.
"So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?" Port offered, expecting at least one person to come forward. Teenagers were supremely confident, especially these teenagers who have spent their lives training and honing their abilities.
Every year, there was always at least one, and it was always a favored teaching method of his to target those few who came foreward throughout their years at Beacon, breaking them of their arrogance and building them up into true Huntsman and Huntresses!
Raven sat back and stayed silent, knowing that he clearly didn't fit the bill. But it seemed not everyone was as self-aware as he was.
"I do, sir!" In the front row of the lecture hall, the Schnee girl was angrily raising her hand. Raven facepalmed and sighed in exasperation, but what else could he expect? From day one, she must have been told repeatedly that she was better than everyone else because she was a special snowflake.
Port smiled under his large mustache, amused by the young girl's confident proclamation. "Well, then, let's find out!" He picked up his weapon, a blunderbuss with two axe heads attatched to the stock, and with the flair of a great showman he turned to gesture at a a shaking cage with two glowing red eyes inside of it.
'He captured a live grimm and brought it into the school? Seems he hasn't lost his touch.'
"Step forward, and face your opponent!"
Weiss looked suddenly timid, as if she didn't expect to be suddenly put on the spot despite actively putting herself on the spot just earlier.
The girl inhaled deeply and replaced her nervous expression with an arrogant mask as she left her desk and walked to stand next to Prof. Port as she took out her scroll to summon her locker, and looking up he saw seven square hollows, with steel plates that would slide open to admit oncoming lockers, which as he predicted slid open to allow Weiss' locker toenter the room.
"Go Weiss!" he heard from the front, and when he looked he saw Yang with her fist in the air, she had seen that Weiss was nervous despite her bravado and was trying to cheer her up.
"Fight well!" Blake cheered quietly, waving a small triangular flag with RWBY's team name on it.
Raven's face scrunched up questioningly and the tip of his tail quircked up a bit, where did they get that? Did Beacon have little triangular flags made for people to cheer on their teammates with?
"Yeah, represent teeeeam RWBY!" Ruby Rose cheered adorably, and Raven had to smile a bit.
Weiss lowered her rapier and yelled at the girl "Ruby! I'm trying to focus!"
"Oh, um... Sorry..." the girl muttered sheepishly, and Raven had to wonder why she singled her out, as her teemmates were all distracting her.
"Allllright!" Prof. Port announced dramatically, raising his strangely designed axe, "let the match... begin!"
The professor swungs down and broke the lock, dropping the cage door and revealing the Boarbatusk, a greimm resembling a large warthog, inside.
'A boarbatusk? Not very threatening by itself, but very difficult to overcome in packs. However, it is perfect to guage the strength of an overconfident student.' Raven mused.
The boarbatusk immediately charged at Weiss. She used her rapier to deflect its attack and roll to the side, readying herself for its next move. The Grimm snorted and stood a distance away from its enemy, studying her.
"Ha-ha! Weren't expecting that, were you?" Prof. Port said to... the grimm? in an attempt to add to the drama of what was happening.
"Hang in there, Weiss!" yelled Weiss' team leader, but the girl just grit her teeth in anger.
'Ah' Raven figured out what was happening. Schnee figured that she, as the 'obvious' superior, should have been the team leader instead, but when the headmaster made Ruby team leader instead, it just made her angry, and now she was taking it out on her.
He put his face in his hand, was this the kind of teen drama he would have to deal with in his entire stay at Beacon?
Weiss was now speeding towards the oncoming Boarbatusk, aiming to stab her blade dead center between its eyes until they meet and Myrtenaster became trapped in the beast's tusks.
'What!?' Raven thought incredulously, 'how does that even happen? *sigh* whoever made that rapier must have made the blade too rigid.'
Weiss was still hanging on to the hilt, and was subsequently being tossed around as she struggles to get the rapier back. Looking closely at the white haired girl's face, Weiss was scared and nervous, but was masking it all with a confident expression as she focused on not only the task at hand, but on her spectators as well.
'The lady doth have aught to prove, me thinks. But to us, or to herself?' Raven thought, rubbing his chin with his flesh and blood hand, his tail coiling in loops and betraying his thoughtfulness.
"Pah" Nefartem, as if hearing his thoughts, spat. Raven looked to the side to see the lion faunus with his face buried in his scroll, doing his upmost to avoid even looking at the Schnee girl. 'It seems I'm not the only one with hatred for the prodigal family of Atlas.' Raven closed his eyes and laced his fingers together in front of his face as his tail relaxed from its movements, 'but whereas I am ruled by reason and logic, and am apt to change my opinions when presented with new data, it seems this one is ruled by emotion, and is not one to bend his thoughts so easily.'
"Bold, new approach. I like it!"
"Come on, Weiss, show it who's boss!"
Weiss turned to glare at Ruby, only for the Boarbatusk to turn its head and rip the sword from her grip. Myrtenaster landed far away from its 'master', who was then knocked back by the creature's tusks.
"Oh-ho! Now what will you do without your weapon?" Raven nodded, anyone could kill a grimm with a weapon with enough training with it, but the mark of a true Huntsman (he was guessing) was if they could kill a grimm withought a weapon.
Weiss looked up just in time to see the Boarbatusk to charge again, rolled out of the way just in time to avoid getting trampled and made it crash into a desk instead. Weiss rushed at her sword and slid on the ground to get it back in her hand. Raven sighed, he had heard quite a bit about the Schnee family hereditary semblance, their glyphs.
He could think of quite a few combinations that could tear that boarbatusk to pieces, but it seemed that her mind was too fixed on traditional fighting to think outside the box like that.
'I suppose that's what Beacon is for.'
"Weiss!" Ruby yelled at her teammate, "go for its belly! There's no armor underneath-"
The white haired girl turned to Ruby and yelled back "stop telling me what to do!"
Ruby looked hurt at Weiss' rebuttal, while in the back row Raven sighed.
Meanwhile, the Boarbatusk leaped into the air and curled into a ball, spinning rapidly in the air and landing on the ground, consistently gaining speed until it launched itself at Weiss. It came closer and closer to flattening her, but Weiss posed with her sword and activated a white glyph and blocked the roll, leaping up into the now-black snowflake symbol and turned it white again so she could drive the blade into the Boarbatusk's stomach.
The large, piglike grimm spasmed and squealed once and then fell silent while Weiss gasped in relief. However, her anger started to build once again, as she realized that she only killed it when she started to following Ruby's orders.
"Bravo! Bravo!" Prof. Ports congradulated her, slowly clapping his hands and walking toward her.
"It appears we are indeed in the presence of a true Huntress 'in training'!"
It didn't escape the notice of anyone as Prof. Port stressed the 'in training' part of his speech.
Weiss gritted her teeth in frustration, standing at attention from her exhausted position, 'I already know I have a long way to go. Winter was very clear about that.'
Raven frowned down at the white haired girl, sensing that there was more to her than just 'Jacques' daughter'.
"I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today." Prof. port continued, breaking him out of his reverie. "Be sure to cover the assigned readings, and... constant vigilance! Class dismissed!"
Weiss glared down at the ground with tears in the corners of her eys while she clenched her fists in anger before turning away from her teammates who had come down to congradulate her, behore walking away as calmly as she could manage, trying to avoid storming off and seeming a child throwing a tantrum, walking hurriedly to the exit and away from the judging eyes of her peers.
In the back row, Raven bit the end of his pen and chewed it idly, wondering if he should reevaluate his opinion of her based on what he had seen here, before Vergil grabbed his arm and pulled him up. He shook his head, and looked to see that, lost in his train of though, he didn't notice as Nefartem and Agni rose from their seets and started to walk down the aisle toward the door.
Raven put these thoughts to the back of his mind and rose to follow Vergil to their next class.
And that's a wrap! I'm ending this chapter here, I origionally wanted to write the interplay between Ruby and Ozpin, Weiss and Port, and Raven with a different teacher (probably Goodwitch), but when I think about it, Raven has already learned his lesson (just more subtly).
Again, I don't hate Weiss. She's one of my favorite characters from the show. Her character arc is going to go the same way in this story as it did in the show (the way I saw it, anyway). It's going to be divided up between the first three story arcs, volume one is going to see her become a good teammate, volume two is going to see her become a good friend, and finally volume three is going to see her becoming a good person overall.
I apologize about the lack of drama in Weiss' fight with the Boarbatusk. That was just Weiss' being called out for her seeming arrogance, and didn't seem to deserve the extra effort.
Sory about the wait, my internet connectivity has been spotty over the past few months, and I've been having a hard time getting anything done.
Please review and tell my your thoughts, and stay awesome.