A/N: Hello, everyone! Sorry I've been out, a lot of things happened within hours after I posted the last chapter and I was unable to publish last friday. I had two grandparents in the hospital and several large school assignments, so yeah. Stuff. Anyways, I'm halfway through the next chapter, and I'll try my best to keep posting on Fridays! I specifically made an effort to stay up so I wouldn't miss two weeks in a row. Anways, I've gotten 3.5 or less hours of sleep in 24 hours, so I'm gonna post the chapter and go to bed. Oh! One last thing: seriously, if any of you readers (I know there's a fair amount of you considering this is my first story and it's not that big) have ANY suggestions about ANYTHING, don't hesitate to PM me or review, I'd truly appreciate it. Anways, enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 3- New Beginning
Victor and Nick stepped off the airship fifteen minutes later. They both looked up at the massive building that would be their home for the year, astounded at its size.
"Woah! Nice campus, huh?" said Victor, taking it all in.
"Nice girls, too." Nick replied, looking at a pretty redhead with green eyes and emerald earrings as she walked past.
"I noticed. Hey, let's go find Ruby and-" Victor was cut off by a rather loud bang as several suitcases crashed to the ground, several yards away.
"Judging from the recent trend of being cut off mid-sentence, that's probably them." Nick joked, looking over to see Ruby arguing with another girl with snow-white hair. As the boys got closer, the girl began shaking an open glass bottle in Ruby's face, with its glittering contents scattering in the air. Nick held his arm in front of Victor, stopping him.
"Let's stay out of this one. This looks pretty fier- wait, is that Dust she's waving around?" he said disbelievingly, squinting.
"Well, I guess shaking around an open bottle of volatile magical explosives in a crowded courtyard must be such a brilliant idea." Victor said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Just then, Ruby, unable to stand any more Dust in her face, sneezed. Ruby and the girl exploded, fire, ice, and electricity crackling in the area surrounding them.
"Freakin' genius." Nick said, making a face once the explosion died down.
"Let's check and see that they're okay," said Victor, concerned.
"I'll check the other girl, she seems pretty hot." Nick said with a smirk. Victor snorted, and they both walked over to the two girls, now arguing again.
"Unbelievable! This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about!" The white-haired girl scolded, brushing the soot off her dress, which was as blindingly white as her hair.
"I'm really, REALLY sorry!" Ruby said apologetically, her cheeks as red as her namesake.
"Ugh, you complete DOLT! What are you even DOING here? Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?"
"Hey, chill out! It was an accident!" Victor said, coming up to the two girls.
"Yeah, I didn't mean to!" Ruby agreed, grateful that her friends had shown up.
"It doesn't matter if it was an accident, she nearly got me killed! If she wants to attend a school like Beacon, she needs to watch where she's going and stop being a stupid klutz!" the girl retorted, whirling around on Victor, who was slightly taken aback. Due to Victor's gigantic stature, most people who didn't know about his kindhearted nature flinched if he so much as politely asked for the time. This was definitely a rare occurrence.
Nick walked over spoke up for his stunned friend. "Well princess smart-ass," Nick said icily, "this is coming from the girl who thought shaking an open bottle of Dust in someone's face was such a good idea." The girl whipped around, cold eyes staring daggers at Nick. As she opened her mouth to make a retort as harsh as her eyes, someone else spoke up.
"It's heiress, actually."
Everyone looked over towards the new voice. A girl walked over to them, with the open glass Dust bottle in her hand. The girl had long, wavy black hair with a matching black bow, contrasting against her pale skin. She also had slightly angled amber eyes, giving her a slightly feline appearance. She was wearing a black, buttoned vest with coattails, and a white, sleeveless undershirt that exposes part of her midriff with white shorts. She also wore stockings that faded from black to purple as they ran from her hips down to her black low-heeled shoes, with white flowery symbols on her thighs. She had black ribbons on both of her arms, with a black detached sleeve with a silver band on her left arm. She also wore a detached scarf-like collar around her neck, and to cap it all off, she wore an expression of complete and absolute boredom on her face.
"Weiss Schnee, heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, one of the largest producers of energy propellant in the world." said the girl, matter-of-factly.
"Finally, some recognition!" Weiss said snobbishly, with a smug grin on her face and making a pointed look at Ruby.
"The same company infamous for its controversial labor forces and questionable business partners." Continued the girl, disapproval in her voice. Ruby let out a giggle while Nick and Victor put their hands over their mouths to keep themselves from laughing, as a now-infuriated Weiss started trying to stammer out a response.
"Wha- How dare you- The nerve of... Ugh!" Weiss snatched the bottle of Dust in the girl's hand and stormed off indignantly, leaving her personal servants to pick up her luggage.
"I promise to make it up to you!" Ruby called out to Weiss, still walking away.
"You don't need to, she kind of deserved it in my opinion." Said Nick, glaring after her.
"Funny, I thought you said she looked hot." Victor teased.
"Was I wrong?" Nick said, looking at Victor with raised eyebrows.
"No, but still."
"Hey, where'd that girl go?" Asked Ruby, looking around.
Victor looked around and realized that the girl who had defended Ruby was gone and nowhere to be seen. "Huh. I don't know." said Victor, confused. "She was here just a second ago..."
At that precise moment, another loud bang, accompanied by laughter, was heard behind them as someone else tripped and knocked over Weiss' luggage, to the exasperation of her servants. The three of them spun around to see a fair-haired boy wearing jeans, a black hoodie, some light armor and a sheathed sword scramble up and begin helping them pick up the luggage. Two girls were laughing behind him.
"Oh, jeez I-I-I'm super sorry! Here, I'll help you out!" the boy said, embarrassed.
"Here, lemme help you out bro." Victor said, feeling sorry for the guy. "The name's Victor." Victor offered a hand out to him,
"Jaune." Said the boy, shaking his hand, still red-faced.
Victor and Jaune were joined by Ruby and Nick, and even the girls who had been laughing at Jaune helped out. In less than a minute, they had picked up all the luggage, the servants thanking them profusely.
"No problem, it was kinda our fault he fell into them." Said one of the girls.
Victor looked at both girls. The girl that had spoken was short, with shoulder-length blonde hair with red and black streaks and stunning green eyes. She wore a zipped-up black leather jacket and jean shorts with black leggings and combat boots, which both had daggers strapped to them. She also had metallic gold-colored bracers on her forearms, each with a blue Dust crystal embedded in them. Her jacket also featured a baseball-sized purple shuriken just over her heart, and, like Victor, had black fingerless gloves on her hands; each of them also depicted the shuriken on her palms. Victor guessed it was her symbol, like the bear head on his jacket. The other one was taller, almost Nicholas' height, with long reddish-brown hair and unusual gold-colored eyes. She wore a dark green T-shirt with white on the sides, a white leather jacket that came down just above her midriff, a black skirt that went down to her knees, brown boots, and a black belt. She also wore a silver necklace with a deep purple pendant, and ruby earrings. The back of her jacket and the sides of her boots were emblazoned with what Victor assumed was her symbol; a closed flower bud, colored the same shade of dark green as her eyes. Victor also noticed something sticking out from behind her shoulder. It looked like a sword hilt, but it had a small circular hole in the grip with a trigger inside it and and what looked like a knob on the pommel.
"Nah, I should've watched where I was going." Jaune said sheepishly.
Ruby made a badly stifled laugh and said "Wait, aren't you the guy that threw up on the ship?"
About 30 minutes later
"I'm just saying, motion sickness is a much more common problem than people make it out to be!" Jaune finished as the six of them walked.
"I'm sorry, Vomit-boy is just the first thing that came into my head!" Said Ruby, laughing.
"Oh, yeah? What if I called you crater face?" Jaune retorted, earning him a punch in the arm from Ruby and some laughs from everyone else.
"Hey, that explosion was an accident!" Ruby said defensively.
"Relax, I'm joking. Anyways, the name's Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. Ladies love it."
"Do they?" asked the taller girl they'd met earlier, eyebrow raised.
"They will!" Jaune said quickly. "Or at least I hope they will. My mom always says that... Never mind." There was a short, awkward silence.
"Well," started the short girl, "my name's Chamele Nightshade. My personal weapon of choice..." Chamele backflipped suddenly, causing everyone to take a step back. "Is Backslash." she continued, holding a set of two daggers. "The best part about these things..." She suddenly threw one past Jaune's head, making him flinch and revealing that the dagger was attached to an elastic cord anchored to a ring on Chamele's finger. Then, with a loud bang and a smell of gunpowder, it came spinning back into her hand. "...Is that they always come back!" She finished.
"Cool." Said Ruby, eyes dreamy.
"What about you? What's your name?" Nick asked the taller girl.
"My name is Luxia Whiteflare," she answered "and this beauty is my weapon." With the sound of metal pieces sliding against each other, she pulled out her weapon, which was revealed, as the blade extended, to be a sword; one easily as tall as Luxia herself. The crossguard was at a right angle with the blade and the same shade of dark green as her shirt. The grip was black, and clearly two handed. However, there was more to it. There was, as Victor had noticed, small hole with a trigger, and a small rivet along both sides as well as what appeared to be a clip-action loading system.
"Okay, I'm dying here. What does that knob do?" Asked Jaune.
Luxia simply smiled and flicked it with the edge of her thumb. The blade separated into two, slid along to the ends of the crossguard, shortened, flipped, and rotated 90 degrees so they were extending out of the sides of the crossguard. Then the small segments of the blade shifted so the blades were now curved down towards the pommel. Then a black cord shot out of the inside of the limbs towards the rivets that were in the hilt. They connected with a snap and a click, and then the grip split in half, with the bottom end rotating and attaching itself to the bottom of the top end, which extended further and opened up in the middle, creating an arrow track. It was a crossbow. This happened in the process of about a second.
"That answer your question?" Luxia asked, a smug look on her face and a crossbow roughly half her height in her hands. Everyone's eyes were wide, especially Jaune's and Ruby's.
"What'd you name it?" Ruby asked excitedly.
"Springsting." Luxia answered, smiling.
"For lack of a better word, that's a badass weapon with a badass name." said Nick. Everyone gave a small laugh of agreement.
"Thanks! Oh, that's not all by the way." Luxia said, smiling at Nick. She flicked the knob into the position it was in before, now on the bottom of the crossbow handle, turning it back into a two-hander. Then, she flicked it again, in the opposite direction from the crossbow setting. The sword blades separated again, but this time, the crossguard did so as well as the grip. The blade halves slid to about the middle of their respective halves of the crossguard, while the grip shortened itself by a few inches. She now stood with a sword in each hand. Everyone was speechless. She smiled, then slammed the two sword halves together, which turned it back into a 2-hander again.
"Well that's... versatile." Said Victor, impressed and slightly unsure how to respond to that.
Ruby, however had no such loss of words. "That is AWESOME! Ohmygodohmygod how did you make it? That must've taken forever! Did you make it?" She continued fawning over the weapon until Victor pulled her off a slightly scared Luxia.
"Sorry, she does that." Victor apologized. "She's a real fan of weapons. She actually helped me make mine."
"What, those gauntlets?" Jaune asked.
"Yep. Let me show you." Victor said, smiling. He bent his elbows slightly and flicked his forearms back down, extending the swords while twisting his arms in a circle, which un-nested the minigun barrels.
"When did you add the swords?" asked Ruby, staring at them.
"I added them about a month after we forged it as my own personal touch. I thought they were a bit too similar to Yang's; besides, you can't give a non-bladed weapon a name like Hellfang."
"Ohhhh."
"Well, since everyone else is showing their weapons, I guess I'll show mine." Said Nick. He reached for the Blue sphere on his belt, and pulled it out. He pressed a button on the silver rod protruding from it, and it extended until it was a few inches shorter than him. "This is Maelstrom." He said. "It's a Dust staff."
"But... Where's the Dust loading system? I don't see any other buttons and I don't see any kind of opening." Chamele said, looking at the staff inquisitively.
"Well, that's the best part. I can charge Dust with a little of my Aura; any quantity of Dust that has my Aura inside of it, I can conduct through my staff, or through my bare hands in emergencies, but that's exponentially more difficult. I don't even need to have physical contact with it, I just need it relatively close; maybe around 50 feet away. But yeah, that's my semblance."
Jaune had a look of absolute befuddlement on his face, which nobody noticed.
"That's easily one of the top 3 most useful semblances I've ever heard of." Said Luxia.
"So, what's your weapon Ruby?" Chamele asked again.
"Well... I've got this thing!" Ruby piped up as she extended her scythe, Crescent Rose, twirled it around and stabbed it into the ground.
"Woah! Is that a scythe?!" Jaune said, doing a double-take.
"It's also a customizable high-impact sniper rifle."
"What?"
"It's also a gun." Ruby said, cocking the gun and smiling.
"Oh."
"So what's your weapon, Jaune?" Luxia asked.
"Oh! I, uhh... I've got this sword!" Jaune said, drawing it.
"Ooooh!" Ruby said, genuinely interested.
"Yeah, and I've got a shield, too!" Jaune added, getting his sheath, which unfolded into his shield.
Ruby touched the shield, and asked, "Sooo, what do they do?"
Jaune fumbled with the shield as it retracted off his arm, re-expanded, and retracted again before he put it back in place and finally shrunk it down for good, placing it on his belt. "The shield gets smaller, so when I get tired of carrying it, I can just... put it away..."
"Wouldn't it weigh the same?" Ruby asked
"Yeah... It does..." Jaune said dejectedly.
"Well, I'm kind of a dork when it comes to weapons, so I guess I kinda went overboard when designing it." Ruby said.
"You're with the girl who has a two handed sword that turns into a crossbow or dual swords. You tell me who the geek is." Luxia said, laughing. Everyone laughed at that, and Jaune just looked at them incredulously.
"You mean you made those?!" He said, looking shocked.
"Yeah, all of Signal's students have to." Ruby said, confused at his shock.
"As do Sanctum's. Didn't you make yours?" Chamele said.
"It's kind of a hand-me-down. My great-great-grandfather used it to fight in the war."
"Sounds like a family heirloom to me!" said Ruby with a laugh, trying to cheer Jaune up. "Well I like it! Not many people have an appreciation for the classics these days."
"Yeah, the classics..."
"Anyways, where the hell are we going? We've been around this courtyard like eight times." Said Luxia.
"I don't know, I was following you guys." Said Jaune.
Everyone nodded in agreement; none of them actually knew where they were going, just following the other five people.
"Y-You think there might be a directory? Maybe a food court?" Jaune asked, as everyone laughed a little bit. "Some kind of recognizable landmark?" Everyone continued laughing. "Is, uh... Is that a 'no'?"
"That's a 'no', bro." Victor said, clapping Jaune on his shoulder.
A/N: At the suggestion of my beta, I am no longer putting in character bios for new OC's. I also have a correction regarding Nicholas' height from last chapter; he's 6'2", not 5'9". I wasn't paying attention and typed the wrong thing. Anyways, I am literally half passed out and if I don't post this within the next 2 minutes I will fall asleep and end up posting it tomorrow morning. On that note, Bon soir, readers, goodnight and I hope you liked the chapter!
~VA