Chapter 12- Orion

I woke up to the sound of the shower turning on. Looking around, I noticed that both Yellowjacket and Xavier were still asleep but Neo was missing, assumably in the shower now. I decided to get up and get ready too, so the two showers would be open by the time the other half of our team woke up. I grabbed a fresh set of clothes from my newly stocked dresser and headed to the unoccupied shower across from Neo's.

I reentered the dorm room after I was dried and dressed to find that Neo had already left (probably for breakfast) and that the other two had risen and were getting ready to shower themselves.

"Good morning you two," I greeted them as I put on my boots, coat, and sunglasses. "I'm going to the mess hall to find Neo and eat. Feel free to join us." The sister in black and yellow striped pajamas groaned a groggy hello, but her brother in red nodded and said they would. I snatched up Alnitak and headed out.

After putting together a breakfast burrito loaded with steak, I found Neo eating with team JNPR and half of team RWBY. Ruby and Yang were nowhere to be seen, so I took a seat between Neo and Blake. Neo was eating what appeared to be fruit loops mixed with coco-puffs with vanilla-flavored coffee creamer instead of milk. Blake had a plate of salmon and eggs, though she'd barely touched the eggs. I was a bit surprised when I had to squeeze and slide between the two girls' hips. 'Huh,' I thought. 'I thought there was more room here.'

Neo

Classes were hell. As it turns out, the teachers disliked me just as much as the students. Ozpin had synchronized all the classes for teams RWBY, JNPR, and ONYX so we would all have the same schedule and could work better together. However, each of the teachers somehow managed to give me double the work as everybody else. Professor Port even gave me detention for refusing to answer a question. Luckily, Orion had come across Ozpin in the hall and explained the situation. The headmaster had agreed to void my detention and talk with the professor about the fair treatment of students and equal inclusion of various psychological conditions on the students' behalves.

Now it was time for my favorite part of the day. I may not be a history buff or science major (though I could pick up on them both pretty quickly), but I sure could fight. I'd been looking forward to Professor Goodwitch's sparing class all day. When everyone was seated and quiet, the blond professor stepped into the sparing ring.

"Good evening, everyone," she started, fixing her glasses and peering down at a clipboard. "As I'm sure most of you have noticed, we have the new team ONYX joining this class. I expect you all to treat these new students with the utmost respect and fight them the same way you would anybody else in this class- ruthlessly and without mercy. At this, everyone cheered and even I had to smile. 'Now this is a class I wouldn't mind spending some extra time in,' I thought as Goodwitch continued.

"I'll explain the rules for the benefit of our new classmates. The first match of each day will be between two randomly selected students. The two will fight until one forfeits, is knocked out of the ring, or has his or her aura completely depleted. The winner of each match will choose their next opponent. The winner of the final match may choose one student to aid them in a match against one of the professors. Today, the victor may choose to spar against either myself, Professor Oobleck, or Professor Port. Now let's see the first matchup.

She used the clipboard to pull up the faces of two people on a couple of big screens behind her. Up popped a picture of Yang and a brown haired girl with gold wire-rimmed aviators and a dark brown beret. Underneath her picture was the name "Coco" she walked into the ring with a brown purse and faced my blond friend. The screens opposite us started counting down from three.

The moment they hit 0, Yang was propelled forward by a blast of her own shot gauntlets and Coco's purse transformed into a minigun. The short haired brunette couldn't even fire a single shot before Yang's fist smashed into her face, shattering her sunglasses and knocking her down. The gun quickly turned back into a purse and Coco swung around, swinging the purse at her attacker. Yang easily dodged backward and shot Coco in the stomach, causing her to stagger out of the ring. A buzzer sounded, marking the end of the match. There was a second of silence before the room erupted into cheers. Everyone seemed shocked that it'd been finished so quickly. Professor Goodwitch walked back up to the ring, nodding her approval to Yang.

"Who would you like to fight next?" She asked after everyone had quieted down. Yang smiled as she looked at me and beaconed me down.

"Come on, Neo!" she yelled. "Let's have a rematch, and don't you dare go easy on me this time!" I nodded and teleported in front of her. My mistake. Because of my small stature it took the blond a second to see where I'd gone, but once she did find me she laughed heartily and pulled me into the fourth of our awkward bear hugs. Everyone in the room burst into laughter as my face was plunged into her breasts and I was lifted off my feet, legs waving. Even Professor Goodwitch let out a light chuckle.

After I felt Yang'd had her fun (I still suspect that she made our hugs as awkward as possible on purpose) I teleported back to the other side of the ring and started twirling my parasol nonchalantly. It was little things like that, small actions and projections of confidence, that could make an opponent nervous and could make or break a duel. 'Yang may not be my enemy anymore,' I thought as Goodwitch walked away and the laughter died out. 'But as of right now she's my opponent. And I will treat her as such.' The screens began their countdown again, and my opponent settled into a preparatory stance: she crouched down, put her head forward, and held her arms back. I kept my posture as straight as ever and continued twirling my parasol in a simple circle.

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Yang was flying forward in the same way she had with Coco. I was ready for this. Effortlessly, I stepped out of the way and brought my knee into her side. She fell with a grunt, but recovered quickly. Not quickly enough, though. By the time she was back on her feet I'd teleported behind her and left a shadow smiling up at her. As she drew her fist back to punch the shadow I hooked her leg with the parasol handle and pulled it back and redirected her arm, causing her to fall on her face.

"AAAARGH!" She yelled as she spun back on her feet, eyes glowing red, but she was now surrounded by 15 of my shadows. It was costing massive amounts of my aura to create so many and animate them all with twirling umbrellas to make them each seem as lifelike as possible, but I had plenty of aura to spare. Yang punched through each of them, one at a time, until she was seemingly alone in the ring. Only the professors and Orion seemed to notice that I'd been controlling the shadows from the rafters, where I'd teleported while Yang was recovering. I rolled off of my perch and fell right toward Yang.

"Where'd she-" Yang was cut off as I dropped behind her and smashed my parasol into the back of her head, knocking her out of the ring in one swift blow. The students all started cheering for me once they realized where I'd come from. Yang stood back up and used her remaining aura to fix her broken skull, leaving her out of breath and with little aura remaining, but physically unscathed. The exhausted blond gave me a high five on her way back to her chair, but was too out of breath to say anything.

Goodwitch joined me in the ring and asked who I'd like to face next. After a quick glance around, I pointed at Xavier. After all, what better way is there to learn the abilities of your teammates then to fight them yourself? Goodwitch nodded and walked back to her seat as Xavier climbed down the stairs to the ring. Neither of us said a word as he took a stance on the other side from me. The screens once again started counting down.

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Sorry it's a little late in the week. I'll try to stick to posting on wednesdays from here on out.