Shane is walking home after a hard day of training. It's the same path he always takes the one he's been taking for as long as he can remember.
Shane makes a turn onto his home street but when he does it doesn't look right. His street was always paved but now its just a dirt path. Shane keeps walking but as he does some kids run past him. One knocks into him and falls down and their hands and knees and Shane bends down to help the kid up
When he does the kid turns to face him. He is met with a face of a very familiar looking girl. As he stares at her longer a very visible scar appears across her neck and soon after it begins to spill blood. Shane drops the girl as she begins to cry for her parents
Shane stumbles back but when he does he trips and falls on his ass. The girl, blood spilling everywhere and crying crawls onto Shane screaming at him. He is unable to throw her off of him and the blood coming from her neck starts to drown him.
Shane jerks awake in his bed in a cold sweat. He sits up and looks at his shaking hands. He clenches them into fist hoping to make it stop but it does not. Shane then glances to his left looking at a clock on a bed side table. The clock reads six thirty in the morning leaving Shane with two and a half hours to get ready and eat before class.
Shane goes ahead and crawls out of bed. He considered doing some form of morning exercise but he was still sore from yesterday so he decided he would just try and squeeze one in at the end of the day. So he takes a shower instead to help calm him and wake up a little. While taking his shower he thinks about his dream from so many years ago.
After a quick second he then just does his best to forget and hops out of the shower. Shane then dries off and gets dressed. Shane then walks into his room and opens his closet. Its filled with what he assumes is the schools uniform so he takes one out and lays it on the bed.
Shane looks at it with the enthusiasm as he would looking at paint dry. This would be the first time in Shane's life that he would ever have to wear something suit like and try to look professional in a civil manner instead of warrior or soldier like.
With just wanting to get it over with Shane throws the thing on and looks at himself in the mirror. While there is no dress code on hair he still doesn't want to walk around with his flying it the wind like some child so he sits down for a bit and puts his hair back into a braid like he's always done.
When he is done he walks at and decides to go knock on team RWBY's room door to see if anything are awake yet. Its now just five past seven so they would be right?
He gives the door a couple of knocks and no one answers so he takes a wild guess that there sleep asleep.
Out of curiosity Shane knocks on the door across from team RWBY's just to see who it is. After a short wait to Shane's surprise the door indeed does open with a feminine greeting behind it.
Out of everyone in the whole school that could have been put in that room it was none other than Pyrrha of team JNPR
"Oh Shane, didn't expect you. What are you doing up this early?"
Shane gives her a look
"This isn't early and I was just curious to see who was living across from my team"
"Oh right, I saw that happen. I have to say that come as quite a shock."
"Yes and to me as well. I'll be on my way thought, no one on my team is awake yet and I am hungry. I'll leave you to it"
Shane begins to walk off but after a couple of steps he is stopped by Pyrrha's voice
"Actually, im in the same situation" she replies as stepping out the door already in uniform and closing the door softly
"It seems im the only one on my team that wakes up at this hour as well"
She fidgets a bit with her hands and then looks up a Shane
"You wouldn't mind if I joined you would you?"
Shane takes a look a Pyrrha
After yesterday Shane saw how well of a fighter she is. It's a pity she was put on a team with the Jaune guy thought, he will really hold her back. Other than that she isn't half as annoying as the other girl on her team and doesn't seem to like talking that much. So Shane sees no harm or annoyance as to why not let her join him
"Sure, I see no problem feel free"
Then they both make their way to the dinning hall
After finding a table and getting what the want to eat they both sit down opposite from one another. Shane went with a lot of sausage patties and eggs this time and only four glasses of water. Even thought he didn't get a lot of different food he did stack his plate full of what he did get
Pyrrha looks at him and looks at her plate of just two eggs, a waffle and bacon with a glass of milk. They both start to eat but after five or so bites into her food Pyrrha strikes up at her attempt of a conversation
"So, is the food any different form here than Sparta?"
Shane looks up and raises an eyebrow at her. He swallows his food
"Yes, most of our meat was fish and the only other thing was bread. So unless you had connections outside of the country to bring you food you either had to wait for the merchants to come by or go to a local village and bargain."
Pyrrha is intrigued by his answer no matter how dry of a reply it was. After he was done talking Shane went right back into eating his food. Pyrrha chose to wait until he was done with all of is eggs and then asked him another question
"They don't have you roomed with team RWBY?"
Shane chokes on his food for a bit and downs a whole glass of water to help him recover. Pyrrha was slightly taken back by this
"Something wrong Shane?"
Shane looks at her slightly blushing
"No. I am not in the same room as team RWBY. It would be way to small anyways, they have me down the hall alittle."
"Oh I see, I guess that makes sense"
They both then continue to eat. This time to Pyrrha's surprise Shane was the one to speak up
"You know, your fame has even reached my country too. Your hellenic armor and fighting style also made you popular among our people. Who knew I would run into you here thought?"
Pyrrha smiles a bit
"Yeah, it is quite a coincidence isn't it?"
"But tell me Pyrrha how did you learn out to fight like that? The style isn't exactly of my people, but I do like the aggressive and defensive nature of it" Shane complimented
"Ah well, my teacher was actual from Vacuo. He was in the military and actual worked somewhat close to the Spartans along the border of your countries." She said while focused on cutting her waffle
"He said that got along well despite him being a faunus"
"Well of course" Shane cut in "even if faunus are extremely rare in our population doesn't mean we hate them" he said matter of factly "the discrimination of faunus is a waste of time and last time I check they can hold there own in a phalanx just as well as me"
Pyrrha smiled as she continued her story
"Well as it turns out he made great friends with some of them, and was invited into their camp sometimes to watch them spar or eat with them. So he took what he learned from them and passed it down to me"
Shane looked up at her
"Huh, that's quite a story. But I do have one question. How come you went with a half shield and not a fully one like mine, its just been bugging me?"
Pyrrha looks a Shane with a small smile
"Well, my teacher said with my agility it would probably suit me better to go with a half shield."
"That… makes sense. It does suit you too I guess."
After their small conversation they both just sat idly eating their food and just enjoying one another's company. After a while they both finished the rest of their food and walked out the dinning hall back to their rooms
"So Shane, I will see you later in class. Thank you for the invitation" Pyrrha said with a polite smile
"It was no problem, talking with you was more interesting than I would have thought. Maybe do me a favor thought and pass on your training to your teammates. It would be sad seeing you fail because of them."
Pyrrha looks at Shane
"I believe that my team will do just fine. They may have their quirks, but they all seem capable fighters"
Shane raises an eyebrow
"If you say so, ill leave you to it. See you in class."
With that said they both depart and Pyrrha walks back into her room with her now just barley rising teammates. Shane walked into his room and sat a desk. On the desk was some school books that ranged from Remnant history to dust chemistry. Out of curiosity he opened one about grimm.
He wasn't reading anything he didn't already know but he did like seeing pictures of grimm that he hadn't yet met in battle. After going through the pages for a while he looked at the time. It was around eight forty now. Time flew by kind of fast Shane thought so he closed the book and headed out the door.
He went down the hall to his teammates room but before he would knock on the door he hear a loud whistle blow and what he thought Weiss's voice yelling. He sighed and decided not to check up on them and to instead walk to the class alone.
When he got to the class seeing it mostly empty he walked down to the front row and found himself a seat. When he sat down he found a notebook on the desk with a pen and pencil for him to use. He looked up at the board seeing various drawings off grimm with a brief description written next to them along with how to fight and identify them.
While waiting he pulled out his scroll to check the time. He was still a little bit early to class and some other students were just now coming in but he still didn't see his team or Pyrrha's. While thinking to himself an older man with all gray hair and in a red suit came up to him
"Ah ha my boy! Are we ready to learn about the creatures of grimm?"
The man he guess had to be the professor of the class asked him rather over enthusiastically
"Well um… yes?"
"Great my boy! I'll do well to teach you all I can and you do all you can to learn! By the end of my class I'll have you asking for more!"
"Right…."
"Why you don't sound so sure my student"
"My name is Shane professor and I can assure you I doubt you will be teaching me anything that I don't already know"
"Is that so? Mr Ozpin told me about you Mr Moon. Trust me I know how you spartans can be, so just for you I whipped up a little treat."
Shane didn't know what to think of what he said but when they were finished talking both teams RWBY and JNPR burst through the doors. When they came in it seemed class was about to start because the professor headed Infront of his desk. Ruby looked around and saw Shane sitting at the front so her and the rest of the team followed her down.
Shane looked at all of them with a raised eyebrow
"Running late on the first day are we team RWBY?"
"Shut it you! If you already left why didn't you come get us" Weiss replied
"I didn't think I would have to babysit my team. Besides isnt it the team leaders job to keep track of that? Huh Ruby?"
She meekly scratches her head
"Well, we kind of got carried away with decorating and stuff. Oh but we made bunk beds!"
"Did you now?"
"Yeah! You should totally come and look I made mine hanging up by using some ropes! Its soooo cool"
"With ropes?"
He looks at the rest of the team when he says this
"Me and Blake set ours up using some of her spare books she said she wasn't going to read" Yang said not making a big deal out of it
"I just…. dont let Ms Goodwitch. I doubt she would let that fly"
Ruby smiles and gives him a nod, just then the professor begins his opening speech and Shane before all the others was the first to tune him out, passing the time by looking at the drawings of the grimm and imaging fighting them or working out scenarios in his head of how to take them down
What finally brought him back to reality was Ruby drawing something on a piece of paper giggling the whole time while doing so. When she was done she held it up to Yang which got a giggle out of her. Perhaps too loud because the professor cleared his throat hinting at her to quite down.
When Ruby put down the paper Shane took a glance at it. It was a very childish drawing of the professor which man Shane sigh rather loudly. This was the girl put in charge of our team. The absolute child. Shane doesn't know how he is going to make it through this school but he will be damned if its under her leadership. Maybe somehow he can get put on another team or just be by himself.
Shane looked over at Ruby again still goofing off and he caught a look at Weiss too. The girl had a look that could kill a thousand men. He couldn't blame her thought.
Shane thought of saying something to Ruby maybe even just giving her a nudge to stop playing around but before he could do anything the professor called out to him.
"But! I couldn't think of anyone better today to show a demonstration of these skills than no other than one the embodies them! Mr Moon would you mind standing up?"
Shane looks around and does so
"I don't know how many of you know but this man here is a transfer from the Kingdom of Sparta! Their kingdom being rumored of producing the very best warriors known to the world!"
Shane glanced around with looks being thrown at him. He wasn't too sure if he was liking all of this attention and he sure did intend to keep his origins a secret from any who didn't need to know. Looks like that was all over now
"Shane my boy, why don't you go fetch your gear and give this people a show on how a person should present themselves in a fight with the creatures of darkness"
Shane had a puzzled look on his face but as look to what the professor was gesturing too that faded.
Shane knows for a fact that cage wasn't there when he walked in so how in the world did it get there?
"Go on now, don't tell me your getting stage fright"
Shane looked at him and scoffed. He walked off to get his gear from the nearby locker room.
He quickly changed into his full battle gear and walked back into the class at the bottom. The professor was now standing next to the cage with battle axe hybrid in his hands.
Shane opened his shield and readied his spear whilst his helmet formed over his head.
The entirety of team RWBY besides the W who was sulking cheered on Shane.
Shane merely glimpsed at them paying no mind to his team
"Wow, did he just ignore us?" Yang asked
"Im sure he's just trying to concentrate, which you are not helping with Ruby"
"Oh.. sorry"
Yang gave Weiss a frown.
The professor raised his battle axe
"Alright! Let the match commence!"
With that he brought his axe down on a lock that was keeping the cage shut. The grimm that Shane saw was a boarbatusk. Shane smirked, this would be too easy boarbatusk are almost as common as Beowolves.
Shane raised his shield and spear and braced activating his semblance and drastically increasing his weight. As if on que the boarbatusk starts charging and launches itself at Shane. When the boarbatusk hit him Shane didn't even move an inch. The boarbatusk was shot back a few feet as Shane did a slight counter charge and knocked it with his shield. Shane deactivating his semblance now was switching to the offensive.
"Ah ha! Not only a man of great defense but also knows with to go on the offense as well! But how long can he keep it up?" The professor commentates
As he says this the boarbatusk go to charge again but before he can Shane is quickly on him taking quick and powerful jabs with his spear. He manages to stab into the snout of the grimm and goes for an eye. It was foolish because as Shane thrust his spear at its eye the grimm jerked its head catching his spear in its tusk.
They both then wrestle over the spear until Shane lets go giving up on it
"Oh ho! Now what will he do?"
Shane shoots him a annoyed look as he pulls out his sword
"I see! See students take note! A backup weapon, no matter how insignificant it may seem, may prove the difference between life and death!"
Shane charges the boarbatusk activating his semblance. He rams the grimm with his shield knocking it on its side and as he goes it for a jab with his sword someone yells
"Shane watch out!"
As he turns to see who said this a hove hit Shane in the head dazing him giving the grimm enough time to get up. It runs around him to the opposite side of the room putting distance between the two.
"What the hell! Don't distract me as I fight!"
As he says this to no surprise it was Ruby who gets a sad and guilty look. He quickly focuses back on the grimm who was now spinning and preparing for another but more powerful charge.
Shane wanting to end this now fully activates his semblance not caring for the strain he is enduring. With great difficulty Shane starts to counter charge slowly building up speed from a jog to a sprint. The grimm now charges as well.
The two collide in the middle of the fighting space the grimm getting thrown back into the wall.
"Shane to your left!" Ruby again yells getting caught up in the fight
Shane out of reflex glances and sees his spear. He transfers his sword to his left hand awkwardly and picks up his spear with his right. He then launches it at the grimm the spear going threw the stomach area pinning it to the wall.
Seeing as the grimm is now no longer a threat Shane walks over to it de activating his semblance and his battle gear.
The grimm still squirming around trying to get loose the professor comments on Shanes performance
"With a great defense and offence the grimm was bested ho, ho! Also he showed great proficiency with both of the weapons carried. We are indeed in the presence of a true huntsman training. Im afraid that's all the training we have today. Be sure to finish your assigned reading and stay vigilant. Class dismissed."
With that and a finale squeal from the boarbatusk Shane thrusted his sword into the grimms heart killing it. He then turned to his team.
Shane shakes his head and recovers his spear scoffing. He then quickly walks up the stairs past his team not bothering to grab his notes or assigned work. Jaune said something as he passed but he didn't care to listen.
As Shane is walking down the hall to the next class Ruby catches up to him
"Shane!"
"What could you want now?" he says as he turns
"What wrong with you? Why are you being so me-"
"What wrong with me child? What about whats wrong with you! Not only did your distracting yells
make be put on a shameful fight, you have no leader qualities at all!"
She rolls her eyes "What did I even do?"
"Lack of discipline, no self control and even after yelling at you once to let me focus on my fight your continued distractions caused me to possible put on the worst fight possible Ruby! I could've killed that grimm ten times over if it wasn't for you!"
"Shane were is this coming from?" she asked meekly "I thought we were a team"
"Team? First off our team is possible lead by the most unqualified leader and the other fact is I don't even want to be here Ruby! I was forced against my will into this joke of a school!"
"Wha- whats that supposed to mean Shane?" she ask defeated
Shane turns his back
"Ozpin made a mistake with me and more so you. I don't deserve this, while im here my brothers back home are learning how true warriors are supposed to fight."
Ruby reaches out for Shane looking for any words possible to say
"Im going to Ozpin and asking to leave this school. This will be the last time you see me." And with that Shane storms off to Ozpins office.
"Sh-shane wait…"
While walking to Ozpins office Shane comes across Ms Goodwitch. She picked him up so she also might also be in charge of helping him leave.
"Uh, excuse me. Ms Goodwitch"
She stops and turns to him
"Mr Moon. Im surprised you would have the nerve to talk to me after that stunt on the cliff"
He rubs the back of his head
"Right… I apologize for that. My adrenaline was running high and I… Im sorry." He says while looking at the ground
"…..Its quite alright, but that will not happen again. Right Mr Moon?"
"Right…. But that's not why I came to talk to you. Its something more urgent."
"Alright" She says as she looks at her scroll "Make it quick"
Shane takes a deep breath
"Im quitting this school and going back to Sparta. I find my skills being wasted here and would rather support my country than this school"
Ms Goodwitch looks up at Shane and meets his eyes. She sees that his resolve is strong and that he is serious.
"Mr Moon walk with me" she begins to walk and he follows her "So tell me, what exactly do you think would happen if you went back to your country? You do know of the deal between them right?"
"Of course straight to the threats. Find another damn spartan then! Why does it have to be me?" Shane asked
"It doesn't "have" to be you Mr Moon. You just so happened to be chosen by your king himself. That's what I was told at least." Ms Goodwitch responded with annoyance
Shane looked at the ground for a long moment while walking. He then stopped and Ms Goodwitch did too as he looked up at her.
"I uh… I assume you know of the three thousand right?"
She nods
"So just because of something that happened a lifetime ago. I am doomed never to reach my full potential."
Ms Goodwitch scoffs
"I can very well assure you will reach your full potential here Mr Moon."
"How!? I was only a couple of years away from being completing the trails and was to be sent into battle against the grimm with my brothers! The ones I grew up with and went through many hardships with! Not just some kids who have never known what its like to sleep on the cold country ground not knowing if you will ever wake up!" Shane ranted loosing all of his composure
"Ms Goodwitch… how will I ever be able to trust anyone like I could trust them?" he said softly
Ms Goodwitch taken back by his outburst and now this. She approaches him and puts a hand on his shoulder.
Shane looks up and his surprises by her contact. He quickly backs away with Goodwitch's hand falling back to her side
"I apologize for that. That was extremely unprofessional of me."
"Mr- Shane.. it is fine. I will….. forget about this for now. But on the matter of you leaving. It was not a threat. I know Ozpin very well he would never do that."
Shane looks at her
"How do you know that you will be accepted back? Also think about the burden you will put on your people. Shane I personally don't think you were picked because of your name and the legend behind it but maybe that you showed most promise. You would also be surprise of the many hardships a lot of the students here went through just to stand where they are today"
Shane shifted around wanting to know what she means by that
"If you can build that same bond with your team and learn with them. You could very will be even better than what you could at home Mr Moon. Just think about that before you try to go to Ozpin.
She begins to walk away
"I wont tell him what happened here. So Mr Moon unless you truly want to leave you must tell him yourself."
Shane watches her leave and ponders on what she told him. Maybe, possibly she is right. The departure of his home and family has been stressing Shane out a lot lately. That and the dreams…. they have been occurring a lot now more now with Shane arriving at Beacon. Things that he had long thought he had forgotten are being remembered.
Shane skips the rest of the classes for the day and goes to his room. For now he seeks to be alone and to have clear thought. He passes the time with taking all of his gear and does maintenance on it while also listing to whatever was on the radio.
After a long while of passing the time Shane fell asleep at some point waking up to when his spear slipped from his hands. He looked at the time and saw it was getting late so he quickly showered and threw on some pants and a regular t-shirt. But instead of going to sleep he had to do something first.
Shane exited his room and headed to team RWBY's room and gave it a knock. After a while Weiss answered.
"Shane, do you need something?"
He lowered his head
"Yes…. I would uh, like to speak to Ruby please."
"I see, was it because of what happened earlier?"
He only looked up and nodded his head
"I also need to apologize to her.. I spoke to the professor after class and he… lets just say he made me come to realize I need to grow up"
"Then we both had very teaching day Weiss."
She nodded and then went to go get Ruby. After a while she come to the door and saw Shane. They both couldn't meet each others eyes.
"Umm, could we speak in the hallway please?"
"Yeah uh, sure no problem"
She exited the room and closed the door. They both stood in an awkward silence as the both leaned on the walls opposite to one another. Shane finally let his back slide down the wall until he was sitting on the ground.
"Ruby I have to apologize for how I acted today. I acted out of character and like a child."
She looked down at Shane
"N-no some of what you said was true. Maybe im not the best leader but-"
"Stop. Your not the one needing of excuses Ruby, I am. During the initiation they way you coordinated that final takedown of the bird, not many people could have done that. If it were me I would have kept going at it until I was either lucky enough to kill it or the bird same to me."
He looks up at Ruby
"What I'm saying is you deserve the best out of me as a teammate and not someone crying about how unfair life is. I am going to support you all I can and if you will still let me be apart of this team and help it succeed. I just hope you can forgive me."
They both stare at each other for a moment before Ruby speaks
"Of course I will, what type of question is that? I can understand that you feel homesick and miss your friends Shane, but I promise if you will let me try I can become your friend too" she says hopefully and with a smile
Shane stands up and meets her gaze
He smiles and reaches out a hand
"Of course I will Ruby, and thank you. It takes a stronger person to forgive one for actions like mine."
She reaches out hers and they shake
"Phfffff don't even think about it, its what friends do"
"Alright then. I will see you in class tomorrow" Shane says as they drop hands and he walks away
He then stops and turns around and as Ruby was walking in the room he says
"On time perhaps?" He ask jokingly
Ruby only waves him away in a embarrassed manner
Shane walks back to his room and lays down on his bed and looks at the ceiling.
" Maybe just maybe this could work out for the better " he thinks to himself as he drifts off to sleep