Sorry for the short chapter! I really appreciate all of your support and thank you all so super much for reading and I promise that this filler chapter will absolutely be made up for with the next one. It's pretty epic. But yay, two new characters! Leave a review telling me which characters you ship! Atticus and Mel? Luther and Mel? Thad and Mel? Something bizarre? Let me know which ships you want to be canon and I'll see what I can do to make them so! ;-)
~ Saffron
"Excuse me, please." A gender-ambiguous Faunus with floppy beagle ears and messy teal hair said kindly when Atticus was blocking their locker.
Atticus stepped out of the way and looked at them, never quite seeing someone who's gender was so unclear. "Um, this might be rude, but um, what gender are you?"
The Faunus hummed slightly and winked, making a cute pose. "Oh, well, I'm genderfluid, so it's usually a surprise every day, but today I'm both, and my pronouns are they/them." They smiled.
Atticus looked a little timid, almost like his brother. He had never met anyone who had to tell people their pronouns. "That's pretty cool. I don't think I've ever met someone like you. I mean, now I have, but before this, I haven't."
"A genderfluid Faunus with turquoise hair who has such high self-esteem?" Atticus didn't get the high self-esteem part, until he saw their shirt, which read "adorable" in bubble letters.
The redhead smiled and shook their hand. "My name's Atticus, it's nice to meet you."
Their beagle ears twitched and they smiled. "Cricket. It's nice to meet you too!" They shook his hand and sprinted away.
Thaddeus was a furious shade of red as he walked over to his brother. "Who was that?" He asked.
"Cricket, a genderfluid Faunus with surprisingly high self-esteem. Do you like them?" Atticus smirked, fixing his hair.
The younger twin looked at Cricket, who was wearing all white The bell rang and Mel rushed outside, where only the characters important to the plot were.
She stood at the edge of a cliff, where launchpads were arranged in a line, presumably to launch the students. How was the school board okay with this?
Trying to decide the best landing strategy, Mel stood in between Thaddeus and Atticus, a common thing. When they were younger, they found it unfair if one person got to sit by Mel and the other didn't, so she was usually in the middle.
She saw a familiar face on the other side of the launch line, one of her surrogate cousins, examining her nails. "Hey, Marina!" Mel shouted, waving.
Yang and Neptune's daughter was the coolest person Mel had ever met. She was downright badass, fortified by Coco Adel, confidence injected into her bottle milk. Her strength was legendary, her coolness rivaled only by her parents', and her pun game was strong.
Marina winked, shooting finger guns at her and smirking. She held her quarterstaff confidently and flipped her hair.
Everyone's weapons looked pretty awesome. Adelaide with her pistols, Cricket with their halberd and Luther with a bow and arrow and a compartment filled with dust in the quiver.
And the Arc twins. Thad had a highly practical weapon, an iron shield with two rifles attached to the sides. He was a defensive fighter, and usually let Atticus handle the big strong enemies, but he could hold his ground.
Atticus, however, had a mace. A big, swinging, spiky, mace. He took great pleasure in killing Grim with it. The spikes also could come into the main ball, increasing the weight and making it better to fight humans.
Ruby began the launching, flicking a switch and sending Marina Vasilias flying. They launched one by one, and once it got to Mel, she braced herself and was suddenly somersaulting through the air.
She landed gracefully onto the top of a tree, looking through her scope to find either Thad or Atticus.
"Who am I to break them up?" Mel asked herself, lowering her launcher and frowning. "Their teamwork is legendary. They'll probably find each other by twin telepathy anyway."
Mel jumped down from the pine, running. Maybe she'd find Adelaide? She was nice enough. Or Marina?
Or...