Atlas Dorm, unlike that of other academies, were integrated directly within the school building itself. Again, the main reason of which being heat retention efficiency. Built in the coldest place in the country proper, the whole complex need significant amount of dust to sustain and remain comfortable.
Essentially, the entirely of the Atlas Academy is a gigantic, labyrinth shaped igloo.
Fortunately, the issue of navigation were solved by virtue of signposts. Unless someone is exceptionally bad at direction, they're unlikely to be completely lost.
"So this is the dorm room." Neptune whistled, "A lot more shiny than I thought."
"Most of the floors are covered with ceramics." Ciel said. "Also, the windows are permanently shut and laminated, so please don't open it with force."
"You seems to know a lot about the academy." Jeanne quipped, "You guys have been here before?"
"Alsius was practically the same anyway." Neon shrugged, couldn't care less about it. "From one boring school to another."
And Weiss, in her usual fashion, explained in greater details. "This was originally Alsius school complex. However, as government, companies and eventually scientific communities moved in for security reason, Alsius expand from simple combat school into combination of Hunter Academy, Military Command, and Federal government headquarters. So the second building that become Alsius now was built based on the technology developed in this one as replacement for the old one. And the old Alsius become the Atlas Academy we're standing on."
"I'm not from Alsius though." Ciel said, "Actually, I will have to inform you all just in case you don't know, the architecture of the dorm is a bit quirky."
"Quirky?" Jaune raised his eyebrow.
"Instead of room of four students, each dorm is divided into rooms of two. Each two rooms shared a toilet and a shower, so a team would be divided in two and connected only by the small spaces where the door to the main corridor present." Ciel shown them on her Scroll, "For each section of eight dorm room there's shared kitchen and a lounge."
Neptune raised one of his eyebrow in confusion, "That doesn't sounds efficient at all. Smaller dorm and bigger bathroom huh?"
"It was a mistake in planning, originally it was patterned after Atlas Military barrack. However, it seems that this arrangement works better for student's comfort and privacy, so the academy decided to keep it. They simply removed the doors that divide two room, so now they're connected."
This time around, Ruby was the one perplexed and waved her hands exaggeratedly. "What? What about bunk beds? I always want to have a bunk bed! I mean, this is military right? Where are the bunk beds?!"
"Bunk beds are for ship deployment and outpost, I believe." Ciel said, seemingly don't understand Ruby's reaction when the younger girl crouched down and pouted. Weiss was about to say something, then decided not to.
"Ruby, you need to watch less Great War movies." Jaune put his hand on the girl's red head, "That sounds like Vacuo Militia than anything else."
"So let me guess, the issue would be dividing teams about who sleep with who?" Jaune blurted out, which made the girls except Ciel and Penny stared at him with shock, which in turn made the blond man confused, "What? Why are you staring at me like that?"
Neon burst out laughing enough to send her on the floor rolling, Ruby just looked away in disgust, and Weiss clenched her fists before yelled. "How could you say that with a straight face?!"
"I don't understand." Penny tilted her head, then looked at Ciel. Ciel just sighed in disbelief.
"Phrasing." Neptune told him at last, with emphasis.
Jaune wondered for a couple of seconds what's the problem was, before he realized his mistake, "My bad. I mean who share a room and all that."
"That's better." Weiss crossed her arms with audible "Humph."
You girls are perverted as hell. Jaune cursed inwardly, not that he will say that out loud. "I'm fine with anyone as a roommate, Militia, remember?"
"Barracks in my old military school is similar, I have no specific preference as well." Ciel said straightforwardly, "Like I said, the two rooms of each team still connected."
"I don't mind, myself." Penny raised her hand. "It sounded interesting."
"I, well..." Ruby leered at Jaune warily as the scenes in her cousin's apartment comes to mind. It's not that she afraid of him, Ruby just feel it would be uncomfortable for either of them. "Penny, how about we share a room? I mean Ciel doesn't seem to mind sharing with Jaune so yeah. Dibs on the left wing?"
"That's, wonderful." Penny nodded, "We will take the left wing, if you don't mind."
"Sure, I'll take the right wing." Jaune nodded, then switched his attention to their neighboring team. "How about you guys?"
Weiss and Jeanne both looked at Neptune with demeaning eyes, much to Neptune's protest. "Ladies, I don't appreciate the silent accusation."
"Meh, pussies." Neon said mockingly as she dragged Neptune inside, "You're with me, playboy. We can have fun all day, everyday. Rrowr~!"
"Hey, careful with the buttons!"
Which leaves Weiss to share a room with Jeanne. They quietly get in their room without exchanging a single words, and immediately dropped their tired, battered body on the bed after changing to their pajamas. Today, it has been too tiring, too many things happened at once.
"I'm glad I shared a room with you, Weiss." Jeanne laughed, "It'll be fun school experience for sure."
"Yeah sure, we can go shopping, paint our nails and talk about boys." Weiss deadpanned, "Or not."
"Yeah, boys are crude, unrefined and tries too hard." Jeanne said, unusually bitter. "The boys can screw themselves."
Weiss wondered if Jeanne had bad experience. But she missed her point entirely anyway.
"That's not what I mean." Weiss told her, while Neptune in particular tries too hard, Weiss can't really agree with crude and unrefined being perfect adjectives to use him, and Jaune for that matter. If anything, Jaune and Neptune felt like a breath of fresh air, with their youthful simplicity and earnestness. Too many boys and men Weiss knew hid venomous fang behind their seemingly friendly act and elite upbringing. Even her own brother.
"Nevermind." Weiss decided to put a pair of earmuffs and shut her eyes, when she saw Jeanne already snoring.
On the other side of the corridor...
"What are you doing, Ruby?" Penny asked as Ruby immediately went to sit in front of the table instead of her bed, Ruby looked at her and smiled.
"Writing a letter."
Penny peeked on with her usual stiff posture, "A letter, a handwritten letter? Don't they take a long time, to reach the destination?"
"Yes." Ruby said, "My writing doesn't look that good and waiting for it to reach the person can be tiring but... I like it. It feels a lot better than just typing a message on the scrolls. You know, it feels like your effort are worthy and being rewarded when you get a reply."
"I don't follow, but it's good, to do things you like." Penny said as she sit on her bed, "I don't really have anything I particularly like."
"You'll find it someday." Ruby assured her, "I'm writing to my old friends at Signal academy, then I'll also write a letter for my brother Mercury and my cousin Yang, they're going to Beacon starting this year."
"They're going to Beacon." Penny repeated her words, "That's wonderful."
"I know right? They're so cool and so awesome, they're really, really strong and I can never beat them at Signal." Ruby wryly smiled, "Sayign that though, we're now on different schools at different continent, so it's kind of pointless."
"It is not, pointless." Penny shook her head, "There's still Vytal Festival, at the end of the school year. I am sure you will, meet them there."
Ruby blinked and grinned at Penny's attempt of encouragement, "You're right. Gotta make sure our team qualified by then."
[SHINE IN MEDIOCRITY]
The Story of Atlas Hunter Academy
By
ZeroXSEED
Chapter 09 - Days
"Feels like I'm born anew." Jaune said as he buttoned up his collar and tighten his necktie. He used to hate shirt a lot when he was younger, but after the militia experience, he couldn't just go away without buttons. Shirts just don't feel the same without outer garb, and thankfully Atlas uniform came with simple, elegant vest by default.
Even when heated up, the temperature inside the academy was kept at twenty degrees. It feels a little cold, not much, but still cold. He just spent an hour having a light workout but he already feel stiff.
"Who's the handsome one? You're the handsome one." He chuckled, only to realize Ciel stood just behind him, "Whoa, you surprised me."
"You woke up early." She said with no nonsense, unaffected by his brief display of narcissism. It seems that Ciel just returned from training herself, judging from the sheer amounts of weapon strapped to her body. "Not that it's bad or anything."
"People woke up early and punch each other to get first dibs on shower in militia." Jaune said, "In parts of Vacuo, water can be insanely precious commodity and you can only bring so many water dust without wasting money."
Ciel just chuckled a bit as she stored her training equipment, unpacked her uniform and get inside the bathroom and locked the doors. Jaune on the other hand just returned to his bed and made sure his stuff are neatly arranged in his personal cabinet, desk, and even foot locker.
He didn't really bring that much stuff from Vacuo, but his most important clothes is his old, war-torn militia uniform. He consider to ditch it few times in the past week, but it's so hard to discard a symbol of his strength, where he learned not just to defend himself but others in need. An old, rusted photo frame rested on top of his table with the pictures of his former squad. Another, larger photo frame made of wood had his younger self, all seven of his sisters and their parents.
Come to think of it, it's been three years since the last time he took a picture with Jeanne.
Ciel's looks much more formal than what he had. He wonder if she even bring anything superfluous. There's a couple of medals that Ciel probably earned in her military school, and what looks like her school graduation certificates. No photos to display outside her portrait on these certificates, progressively older yet all of them retain equally serious expressions.
"It looks quite arrogant to display something like that, right?" Ciel returned and commented idly, though without slightest bit of shame in her tone.
She wore almost identical uniform to him, thick cotton white shirt under light gray vest, with slight difference of collar shape. The only difference between girls and boys uniform were the bottom part, the boys only wear long trouser which comes in white or gray, while the girls have an option for gray pleated skirt as well.
...Well technically no one forbid the boys to wear a skirt either. But that's not Jaune's style.
"Can't really say that myself." Jaune said half joking, "I mean I knew people who would frame their own giant portrait with gold frame worth of seventeen thousand lien. That's what I'd call arrogant."
"That's more like..." Ciel looks miffed at least, though she looked calm, her face twitched occasionally. "Wasteful."
"Not mutually exclusive, aren't they?" Jaune scoffed, and stood up "Class start in nine, so I'd like to grab a grub before we can start. Let's ask if Ruby and Penny if they want some too."
What's a grub? Did he mean insect? Ciel wondered.
The two of them went to their teammate's room to find Ruby and Penny trying to stack the two beds together, making a bunk bed. They managed to sucessfully place the top bed, only for one of it's legs to slip off and Penny hurriedly scrambled to catch it, preventing the bed form falling.
"This is harder than I thought." Ruby sighed, "We're not allowed to nail the wall so I can't really use rope to suspend it."
Ah, no nailing the wall huh? Atlas policy is surprisingly strict on that one. Jaune rubbed his chin then ran back to his room as he shouted, "I've got something to help, a second please?"
Jaune returned with a roll of duct tape in his hand, Ciel instead quipped. "That's twenty three second."
Jaune ignored her and then rolled the tape multiple times around the area where the legs and the bedpost connected, firmly secured them from slipping. After the four of them done, Ruby and penny now can release their grip.
"Objective complete!" Ruby raised her hands, "Thanks Jaune!"
"Wonderful." Penny nodded in agreement. "You two finished early?"
"We don't really bring much item to begin with." Ciel said flatly, "We want to ask if you want to go to mess hall right away."
"Fifteen minutes!" Ruby said, "Penny already got her shower, I haven't."
Later yet...
"Miss Rose it's already Sixteen minutes and thirty second." Ciel said in threatening tone, "If it were military school the instructor would throw a tear gas dispenser in the shower."
"A MINUTE! A MINUTE!" Ruby shouted from inside the bathroom.
"Ciel, isn't that a little too much?" Jaune grabbed her shoulder.
"One second can make the difference between life and death. You were in the militia, weren't you?"
"Ruby doesn't have any military training whatsoever, let her have fun for once." He gently told her, "A figure of speech isn't some unbreakable oath."
Ciel blinked and sighed, "If our leader said so."
And in the seventeen minute mark, Ruby jumped out of bathroom, fully dressed. "Sorry, I have to find how to attach my cloak on this."
"...coats aren't allowed, Miss Rose." Ciel told her.
"WHAT?!" Ruby balked, then slumped as she unbuttoned her beloved red cloak, neatly folded it and put it on her bed, the top one that is. "Meet you later, uuu."
"Let's eat breakfast when we have time, it's only... twenty minutes and-or so." Ciel said as she struggled to define unit of time in most vague possible. The she gave up. "Twenty three minutes and fifty five-"
"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?!" A scream came across from the opposite door, and Jaune rushed to enter SWAN Team room. He found a sleepy Jeanne stood and yawned, behind a fully dressed Weiss fumed with anger.
"What's the matter Weiss?" Jaune approached them, and found Neon curled over Neptune.
Literally, like a cat.
Weiss' glare couldn't really get wider, "Such indecent act is-"
Ciel whipped out the student book and read aloud, "-Not prohibited under Atlas Academy code of conduct. Unless it involves teachers and students, officers and enlisted, as well as people within a chain of command. Also if involves minor. That's highly illegal."
"I'm illegal!" Ruby quipped aloud for some reason, while Jeanne peeked in, "There's a rule for that?"
Weiss was about to say yes but then stopped, "That besides the point."
"Yeah, Neptune would be DYING to know." Jeanne snorted, "And I mean literally, look."
Neptune's dark skin seems to be much paler, and he's sweating badly. it was as if he got a...
"WOAH!" Neptune screamed, and thanks to uncontrolled aura burst, he threw Neon's sleeping body. Neon blinked and woke up midway, only for her to spun midair, bounced off the wall and land safely on all fours without harming herself or the room.
"Morning." She yawned.
"What was THAT?" Weiss questioned her, "Did you just slept with Neptune?"
"Literally." the Arc Twins chorused.
"Hmmm?" Neon rubbed her eyes, "Oh I might've sleepwalked again because it's so cold."
"No wonder I felt so uncomfortable, phew. That's the worst sleep paralysis I ever got in my life." Neptune grumbled, "Please do not desecrate my body without permission."
"With permission alright?" Neon pointed her thumbs, Neptune wanted to retort, but then nodded almost jokingly. "With permission."
This does not soothe Weiss' anger in the slightest, and argument broke out between every member of team Swan. Or rather, Weiss scolded everyone and Neptune tred to calm her down and fail, while Jeanne and Neon couldn't be arsed to respond seriously to her complaint.
Ruby just Ciel and Weiss while Penny follows, Jaune looked at his teammates and chuckled. Is this what a normal college feels like?
Mess hall was a lot more underwhelming experience than some of the students expected, aside from Jaune and Ciel who felt at home more than anything else. The length of the room as immense, to the point that it has visible curve around the wall followed the contour of the academy architecture. But the low ceiling made the room felt like the inside of a giant train instead.
"Mess hall in Alsius is much bigger." Neon twitched, "Ugh, this made me hard to breathe."
"It's almost as if they made mess hall an afterthought." Weiss nodded, "This is hugely disappointing."
"It's efficient." Ciel said in the defense of military pride, "You don't need fancy space to eat, or do you?"
"Well I can't really say it's good or bad but uh... yeah, it's kinda cramped here." Ruby looked at the ceiling, so awfully low that she could hear clearly the sound of air being sucked into ventilation.
It's almost irritating.
"Couldn't be worse than eating under a tent in a sandstorm." Jaune sheepishly said, "On a table designed with eight people in mind, but with eighteen people around it-OH HEY BUFFETS!"
Everyone looked at the direction where Jaune quickly rushed to, it seems that instead of being served by multiple staff or robotic servant, the meals in Atlas academy were self serving. The robots simply took steaming pots and plate filled with all sort of meal from the kitchen which located elsewhere. The students all neatly arranged themselves on a line around the table to pick the food they want.
"Y'now what, I take it back, this is awe-sum!" Neon rushed to get in line, followed by Jeanne. "I agree, can't really go wrong with buffet."
"Actually, in case of food poisoning-" Ciel raised a finger, but Weiss pushed it down to stop her needless rambling. "That would be enemy action in the works and thats a worst case scenario."
"-So that's my number, feel free to call me anytime~" Neptune winked, followed by the chorus of girls squealing as he show his narrow, slender back to them to join his teammates. As always, he never wasted his time to flirt at every opportunity. Even before Breakfast. "Now it's time to fulfill my biological needs-"
His sight met that of Penny's eerily curious eyes.
"You, are, popular." Penny said.
"Oh, yeah sweetheart. Not to brag but I love to have so many pretty friends." Neptune said nonchalantly, "Like you are."
...Something about her facial expression seems... off. But Neptune dismissed the thought, if anything, Penny had the smoothest skin of any girl he ever meet, it's kind of beautiful and yet unreal even. Can't say she's out of his league, but something about Penny just seems odd.
"I am, pretty?" Penny tilted her head and smiled in confusion, seemingly not phased by his faint praise. "Are we, friends now?"
For some reason, Neptune's expression become softer and less flirty as he patted her shoulder. "Of course we are, Penny." He assured her, then head off as Neon and Jeanne waved their hands at his direction. "C'mon, our friends are waiting."
Penny took a few seconds to contemplate it, and it was Ruby's voice who brought her back to real world. "Come on Penny, we'll be late!"
The robot drone crawled back from her bag and sat on her shoulder and whined a couple of times.
"...Is it alright, to be friends with, them?"
The mechanical spider whined again and bobbed in agreement.
"Thank you."
And with heavy footsteps resounded on the floor, Penny ran toward the buffet line to join the rest.
"Does that mean, Jaune is pretty too, Neptune?" She suddenly asked when she finally sat down, which caused Jeanne, Ruby and Neon to spat their drinks in concert, while Weiss chocked on her food from shock. Ciel helped Weiss and gave her a glass of water.
"Neptune, I don't swing that way. Not surprised you're charmed with my pretty face though." Jaune calmly told him, his lack of hostility was oddly morbid. Jaune then gestured at Jeanne. "Instead, you have my blessing to go for my twin sister here. Just don't cheat on her, you'll be castrated."
"Oh so I'm your type huh, Neptune~?" Jeanne teased the sweating blue haired playboy, and her sultry voice freaked him out, which caused Neon to cackle madly in tears as she banged the table repeatedly while Ruby's skin grew few shades redder than her missing cloak. Weiss just popped a couple of veins in anger, and Ciel simply couldn't be arsed to pay attention any longer and just eat her food in peace.
"STOP BANGING THE TABLE, KATT!" Weiss yelled, "MISTER VASILAS!"
"I can explain!" Neptune shrieked, "Penny, help me explain!"
"Eh?" The strawberry blonde tilted her head in confusion, again. This caused Neptune to yell in anguish.
This group is like anti-cool personified, and will be the bane of his reputation and dignity. All the while, Penny was left out of the loop.
Her days... no, their days in the Atlas Academy has just begun...
つづく