The Schnee Black Sheep
A/N
MERRY CHRISTMAS GUYS! This will be my last update before the new year as I do have a family to satisfy.
I hope you all enjoy this chapter although I did struggle to write it. I hate the downtime segments and I wanted to get straight back into the story, this really is just setting the ground work for when the teams how some downtime or will be chilling out or whatever it is they will be doing so please bear with for it.
Also as my xmas gift to you I have officially opened to Poll for Coals pairing which can be voted for on my page so if you want to have your say get to voting. I have not included Wiess for OBVIOUS reasons and Nora will also not be in the poll as well come on who can really compare to Ren! Seriously!
I have also made a choice for you guys to vote for an OC if you want me to do that route but I haven't got anything planned for later chapters regarding that. And personally, I would prefer either Blake or Pyrrha for his pairing as well Blake would fit well into what I have planned and Pyrrha does have a one-sided crush on Coal if you haven't noticed already. To be fair she doesn't really know what it is yet either so let's see what you vote for.
Chapter 9: First Day of School
Coal sat in the classroom with his face resting on the desk in front of him. He had received his standard Beacon uniform and only wore the shirt and tie and left the jacket in his room. The formal attire made him itch and the tie seemed to choke him slightly, he couldn't wait for the day to be over so that he could remove the monkey suit and get back into his casual shirt and combat pants.
Coal wasn't in the best of moods either with being unable to get any sleep at all the night before. He was just beginning to fall asleep against the cold wood of his desk when both teams RWBY and JNPR ran into the classroom making enough noise to prevent him from actually dropping off. Well since he was awake he may as well crack a few jokes at his friends for being late.
"tut-tut-tut you just made it to class on time baby sis. What were you doing anyway? Making out with Jaune?" he teased with a tired shit eating grin.
"you look terrible Frosty did you get any sleep at all?" she asked, ignoring her brothers remark. Unlike Jaune who's face turned slightly red.
"didn't sleep well let's leave it at that" Wiess nodded in response as she sat down to her brothers left as her partner sat to her other side. The professor for the class walked into the room and stood in front of his new students. He was an older and quite porky fellow with grey hair and a huge moustache. This was professor Port.
"Monsters, Daemons…"
*THUD*
Wiess heard a loud thud sound come from either side of her. both her brother and her team leader had fallen asleep seconds into the first class of the semester. She still didn't know Ruby very well and since the girl had woke her up via a high-pitched whistle to the ear earlier that morning, one could say that Wiess was already ticked. She vowed to have a quite word with the younger girl to express that she needed to take this seriously otherwise someone would end up hurt. She expected this kind of thing from Coal. She was actually surprised he had attended the class to begin with.
As the professor droned on about something or other, Wiess had lost interest when he started telling questionably stories about his own adventures, she looked across to her still sleeping brother and breathed a small sigh of relief. She had been given quite the scare yesterday when she though that her twin would be kicked out of the Beacon having not found a partner but she realised that the role he had been given suited him quite well. He was always the kind of person to help people out whenever they needed it and knowing him, being able to rotate the people in his team meant that he could spend time with all his friends at the academy and help them through their own issues. Sometimes he was to thoughtful for his own good.
As she heard the professor ask the students if any of them thought of themselves as a true huntsman or huntress, Wiess remembered something that her twin had told her when she first started training four years ago when she asked him what it meant to be a hunter. "you're asking the wrong person sis. To me, being called a huntsman is just a title. I don't do it for the title I just want to make sure that no one has to go through any pain or suffering. One day you'll understand why you became one too." Right now she knew she wasn't a true huntress. She had just followed her twin so that they could stay together. She didn't know what she would do if he left, she had relied on him so much during their childhood. Once she was able to stand on her own like him, she would then called herself a true huntress.
The rest of the class went by relatively quickly with none of the teens learning anything but how loud Coal and Ruby snore.
(Lunch Hall)
It was lunch time, much to Nora's enjoyment there were pancakes served for lunch, and the group of nine teen were sat around on of the tables. They had all opted to sit together and get to know one another due to the fact that they would most likely end up working together through team VOID. They figured it was best to know each others skills and personalities before heading into a fight. Having gone around and formally introduced themselves, all eyes fell on the twins as Yang had begun to question their relationship.
"So you to are actually twins?"
"for the millionth time lass, YES!" Coal exclaimed while eating a chicken leg.
"You actually have white hair, it's just dyed black?" ruby asked through a mouthful of cookies.
"Yes! For the last damn time!"
This had been going on since the introductions ended almost 15 minutes ago. The twins had taken a lot of questions from mainly Yang and Ruby. They had already met Pyrrha a couple of years prior so the Spartan didn't ask many questions. Ren was silent for the most part and only raised a question when he didn't understand something, he preferred to just listen. And Nora had only asked one questions: did the twins like pancakes?
Jaune had his own 20 questions for the twins, mainly since he saw the video of the male twin fighting in the forest. "So how come your able to make swords from nothing?" he asked.
Coal looked up to the blond who had just saved him from the pestering girl and answered his friend. "I can combine different types of dust I carry with my glyphs to do all sorts of things."
So, there's more to it than just making weapons?"
"Yeah, me and Wiess have the same semblance, it's a family thing before you question it, and we use glyphs to enhance and enchant our abilities. So long as the glyph is structured correctly pretty we can basically improve anything. Hell we can even summon Grimm we had defeated if we get good enough."
"You can summon Grimm to fight for you?" Jaune shouted a little too loudly.
"Yes its possible." Wiess answered while gesturing for him to keep his voice down. "I'm not strong enough to pull it off yet and I've never seen Coal try it before."
Coal felt all eyes on him, waiting for him to clarify why. "I don't like the idea of it. In my mind, to summon a monster I would have to become one first. So I just stick to enhancing anything else that my body can handle."
This prompted Yang to raise her eyebrows at the twins as she said with a sly smile "anything?" Coal answered her.
"nope cant improve that. Glyphs don't really affect anything that's living."
"you speaking from experience there?" Yang suggested. For some reason the whole group was suddenly interested in what Coal would say at this point. Except for Ruby she was just confused at what her sister was referring to.
"not me. Wiess doesn't like her flat che-"
*Bang*
"OW!"
Wiess had grabbed the back of her twins head and slammed it into his plate of food before he could finish what he was saying. Her cheeks red with either embarrassment or anger, no one could tell which. As Coal lifted his head back up he was met with a round of laughter from his friends, minus his sister who had her arms crossed and her back to him, and soon joined it with them. Wiess joined in after a moment having seen the funny side. She had been around Coal long enough to know that it was better to laugh then to hold a grudge.
After the group had finished laughing at the twins, it was Pyrrha's turn to question them. "So how come you both aren't attending Atlas?" the smiles on the twins faces immediately disappeared upon hearing the question. They took a quick look at each other before Wiess cast her gaze downward and started playing with the skirt of her dress.
Coal sighed before starting what was obviously going to be a difficult conversation. "it's a bit of a story but no point in hiding it. Basically, we came here because I'm no longer a Schnee… according to some document somewhere or whatever me and Wiess aren't related anymore."
This caught the group's attention and the all shifted their eyes towards the twins, even Blake looked over her book indicating that she was also listening. Coal continued and told what he told Yang back in the forest. About how he and his sister were going to be attending Atlas together until their father had refused his sister to go. About how he lost the duel and ended up with a hole in his shoulder from his father's sword and how he and his sister had gotten a place here from General Ironwood.
After the explanation Coal looked at the faces of his friends and they all held an expression of shock. None of them could understand how he could have been exiled from his home by simply standing up for his sister. They each put it down to the fact that the Schnee's were a high-class family and that was how they had always been.
It was Jaune who broke the silence. "so, what now?"
Coal turned to look at his sister who was still looking down at her feet clutching the hem of her skirt and softly spoke. "don't know… probably graduate here, kill a few hundred grimm, wipe out the White Fang and die peacefully in a fiery explosion… you know, life?" he got a few chuckles from the teens at his summary. He cast his eyes to Blake for a brief second to see her reaction when mentioning the White fang but she had her face hidden behind her book.
"so have you figured out a way to counteract your weakness" Pyrrha asked Coal in a means to bring the conversation back around again. She got a questioning look from her partner as he couldn't understand what she was referring to… the video they had all seen didn't seem to show that the boy had any weakness at all.
Coal's typical childish grin came back stronger than ever as he faced the Spartan with determination overflowing from his eyes. "of course I have lass! I haven't exactly perfected it yet but it should give you a fair amount of trouble."
"What weakness?" Jaune asked both Pyrrha and Coal not liking being in the dark.
Pyrrha answered him. "he may be strong with an estoc and that revolver but he will tend to only be able to strike from a small distance. If you get close enough to get past the length of the estoc then he is pretty much defenceless." Jaune made a understanding noise and nodded.
Coal didn't like the fact that she had just given out his biggest weakness but payed it little thought. As soon as he had perfected this new style of fighting he would be almost invincible. Or so he thought to himself.
Ren spoke up before anyone else could ask any more questions. "Come guys we have classes in a few minutes." The teens all got up and left for their next class.
The teens made it through the rest of the day's classes, with Coal having slept through them all, and were now sitting in Coal's room much to his confusion. During the day, the group had been getting to know each other to some degree and had decided among themselves, when Coal had been sleeping in one of the classes, that since he only needed one bed in his room that they would ditch the other three bed and make the rest of the room into a small common room for both teams.
The 9 teens had finished removing the beds when Wiess spotted a single luggage bag in the corner of the room. It was still closed and obviously had yet to be unpacked. "Why haven't you unpacked yet?" she asked her twin. The response she got was questionable, Coal had stiffened up and seemed to be trying to avoid answering his sister by fumbling his words. Wiess took it upon herself to get her brother settled into his new accommodation and unpack for him. The rest of the group had quickly realised that the girl was the more responsible of the two twins.
Wiess had thrown the suitcase on her brother's bed when the zip burst reviling what it contained… lots of beer. She instantly turned on her brother, face red with anger as she began shouting at him. "WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU ONLY PACKED BEER!"
Coal held his hands up defensively as he edged past the enraged girl to get to the suitcase. "Now Wiess calm down it's just a few cans…"
"A FEW CANS! YOU PACKED A CASE OF BEER YOU DOLT! YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO CUT DOWN!"
"well I did only pack half a case of beer…" Coal tried.
Wiess blinked confused. "only half a case?" she questioned. The case was brimming with cans of beer so what else was in there. Coal's eyes widened as he realised his mistake.
"yeah em, only half a case. I did promise you that I wouldn't drink as much." Coal said while sweating buckets silently praying that his sister wouldn't dive further into the case. The rest of the group were watching the show that was taking place with the siblings. Neither dared to look away in case they missed what was to happen, Yang had produced a bucked of popcorn form somewhere and was eating with a sly grin. She and Coal would definitely get along, not that she was a major drinker or anything but it would be nice to have a drinking buddy at the academy.
"what else is in there?" Wiess asked.
"nothing at all just half a case of beer and my underwear that I'm pretty sure none of these guys would want to see." He said trying to stop his sister from looking under the beer mountain.
But she did and Coal couldn't react in time to stop her. she reached under the cans of beer and pulled out a magazine… an adult themed magazine. Thankfully her back was turned so that the rest of the group couldn't see what she had held in her hand before she quickly replaced the book and quickly walked out the room with a crimson red face without saying a word.
Coal sighed in relief before he turned to the rest of his friends. "think I dodged a bullet there." As soon as he finished, Wiess came back into his room with rapier in hand and drove it deep into the case of beer and magazines, activating the red dust inside the chamber of her sword, burning it all to ashes.
"NOOOOOOO! ~" Coal cried falling to his knees while trying to reassemble some of the ashes of a magazine. "They were innocent… Well kind of innocent."
(Friday Evening – End of the First Week)
Wiess had just finished looking around the training facilities the academy campus had with her team, she was currently carrying a tray full of snacks and a bottle of water through the corridors of the dorms to her brother's room where she expected he would most likely be pulling another all-nighter planning some kind of mad scheme or studying.
She didn't bother knocking when she reached his door, she had learned a while ago that when Coal started working on something there was very little that would be able to interrupt him, which is why she brought the snacks. Food would always work and she figured that he could use a break since he had probably began working on whatever he was doing since both teams RWBY and JNPR left his room almost 4 hours ago. When she opened the door, she was met to an all to familiar sight to her, Coal was sat on the floor hunched over reading 3 books at a time, surrounded by tools and components for some kind of weapon or other. He hadn't even noticed that she had entered his room or that she had walked right up to him and placed the tray of snacks over one of his books.
"You should probably eat something if you're going to work through the night again." She told him with a small caring smile. Coal looked up and returned the smile with one of his own. He liked it when his sister tried to look after him and she was usually always right on time when he started to feel hungry.
"Thanks snow angel." He said as he started eating away at the plate of small sandwiches. "let me guess, you didn't make these."
"what makes you think that I didn't?"
"last time you tried to cook anything you set the sink on fire."
"hey! I was just a kid at the time!" Wiess scoffed as she puffed her cheeks like a small child, something Coal thought was cute as she had always done that when she was embarrassed about something. Coal couldn't help but laugh quietly at his sister who eventually joined in after remembering the incident. "so, what you researching this time?" Wiess questioned as she sat down next to her brother and picked up one of the books.
"I'm still looking into explosives and the properties of dust infused incendiary bombs."
"to use against Pyrrha?"
"Yeah… I can understand most of it but applying it to what I already have is a bit of an issue. I don't really want to carry round a bunch of grenades or a rocket launcher. Makes me too heavy and will slow me down." He informed. Wiess made a noise in understanding while she read over the book she picked up. It went into great detail of how different dust explosives were constructed and how they worked. After a few minutes of reading a thought came to her.
"Why not just use a glyph…" Coal stopped eating to look at her with confusion. Wiess showed him the section of the book she was reading which explained different types of landmines. "You said it yourself earlier today that glyphs can be constructed to do almost anything, so why not just make a glyph that acts like a landmine like it says here in the book."
Coal's eyes widened in realisation that his sister was onto something. Why hadn't he thought of that, it was brilliant. Sure it would put a lot of strain on his semblance and aura but if he could pull it off, it would be exactly what he needed to beat the Spartan. He embraced his sister in a crushing hug.
"Sis you are a genius!" he yelled as he released her and pushed the rest of the food away so that he could get access to the rest of his research material and continue working. Wiess rolled her eyes as she watched him indulge himself in one of his favourite pass times. Since he started training under the general, Coal had become obsessed with knowing all the information that he can get a hold of. He had read everything from Weapon blueprints to cook books. Sure there were fictional books and stories that he could read to [ass the time but he always preferred information.
As she continued to watch him she heard his scroll vibrate from the desk in the corner of the room and knowing that her brother either hadn't heard it was to indulged in his research to care about it, she got up to check it for him. It was a message from Ozpin, and he had a mission to give to team VOID.
(Headmaster's office)
"Seriously Grey I've been here one week and you're already sending me out." Coal was annoyed to say the least. Having just gotten a brilliant idea from his sister to perfect a few styles of fighting, he then gets called into the headmaster's office to be given a mission on his first week as a student. "it's like 10 pm man!"
"I know you're not happy about it but with huntsman being such spread so thin the mission has been referred to the more capable students at Beacon. This is why you have been selected."
"Fine just give me the details… I take it that the general told you how I like to get my mission briefings." Coal asked raising an eyebrow.
Ozpin chuckled having already been told and handed the boy a paper file containing the mission details rather than transfer the details over the boys scroll. "Take your time while you read it. Once your satisfied I will need to know who you plan on taking with you."
Coal didn't answer. He read through the documents with great speed, flicking though each page of the briefing to get every last bit of detail before he closed the file, pulled out a small vile of red burn dust and lit the paper on fire. Burning it to ashes.
"I want Pyrrha Nikos, Ruby Rose and Blake Belladonna."
Ozpin raised a questionable eyebrow, he had expected him to select Pyrrha but his other two choices confused the headmaster. He had expected the boy to take his sister along with him having known her skills and fighting style. "And why have you selected those three?" He questioned.
"I know how Pyrrha fights, she is without doubt the strongest out of them all, maybe even stronger than me. She is the obvious choice. Ruby is the youngest and probably has the least combat experience among the group because of her age. She is also way to innocent for this line of work, I intend to change that or at least give her a glimpse of just how dark a life like this can be," Coal informed the headmaster.
Ozpin was satisfied so far but still requested the reason for the 3rd member. "And Ms Belladonna?"
Ozpin noticed the expression on the boys smile change slightly, his normal smile had shifted into a more sinister, evil smirk. 'So James, you were right to be cautious.' He thought to himself.
"Just a hunch." Was the only answer Coal gave before returning to his room.
As soon as he returned to his room he found his sister sleeping on his bed. Wiess had been waiting for him to return from his briefing with the headmaster this whole time and the thought of it made the boy smile slightly. He sat down on the floor and leant against the side of the bed and pulled out his scroll to send a message to his current team: Gear up. Tomorrow morning, we leave on a mission. Details will be given during the journey to the mission location. Bring something warm. It didn't take Coal long to fall asleep against the side of his bed.
