Chapter 09: First Classes

Ozwald and Fae sat in their dorm room as they awaited the return of the remaining two team members. Faerien nervously fidgeted about her desk while Oz had started to prepare for bed. The sound of her tapping of a pen had started to annoy Ozwald, but he knew she was trying to relax so he let it go. The door opened as Liseran proudly strutted into the room with a wide grin on her face. With a exaggerated bow she spread her arms to the open doorway she declared, "I present to you~ our no longer upset but still pretty dour leader!"

Glaring at the sniper, Warren entered the room and shut the door behind him with a little more force than strictly necessary. It was then he realized that his reaction supported her claim. A scowl started to cross his features when he noticed the rest of his team closely observed his reactions. He dropped the scowl and sighed as he realized they wanted some assurance from him that he was better.

"I'll be fine. There is, of course, more to the story but that was not how I wanted to bring up my past. I'm not ready to say more. But for now," War looked over to his partner and nodded, "I'll be alright for now."

Satisfied, Oz nodded in response. The team moved about the room to their respective sections of the room. Warren stepped over to his dresser and started to pull out a set of pajamas when a thought occurred to him. He looked over to his two female team members before he cleared his throat and stated, "So! Uh, changing clothes."

Everyone turned to face the faunus as he scowled, "That didn't mean for you all to turn and look." Liz chuckled while he continued.

"What I meant is how are we going to deal with changing clothes? Are we just not going to care? Should the guys leave to be nice, or should the girls leave so there is no worries about walking in on you two while under dressed?"

"I vote for not caring!" Oz's jaw dropped as he turned to Liseran but Fae beat him to the punch as she all but shouted at the other girl. "You can NOT be serious!"

Somewhat defensive, Liz leaned back onto her desk as she crossed her arms. "And why not? If I get injured I'd be much happier knowing my team isn't squeamish about undressing me to treat my injury. It is not like they are untrustworthy. Plus-"

She grinned and leaned forward as she stage whispered to Faerien, "You didn't see Oz walk in shirtless this morning did you? Those abs!" She squealed and winked teasingly at Ozwald who stared at the ceiling and repeatedly muttered the word 'why' over and over again.

Fae blushed to the roots of her hair as she fidgeted. She jumped when Warren placed his hand on her shoulder. He raised his hands in a silent apology as he spoke, "Look. Despite the point that Liz raised, we are still pretty much strangers to each other. Sure. We all talked some, shared about our semblances, and talked about our families. But we all just meet yesterday-"

"I met Fae the day of the orientation."

Warren rolled his eyes as he continued despite Liz's interruption, "So we all just meet one or two days ago. Trust takes time to build. Liz DOES have a point. We are Team WOLF now, you should reach the point where you are comfortable enough to change in front of us. Our very survival may depend on our cooperation. But that doesn't mean it has to be right now. We have four years to learn to work together and trust each other. Don't force yourself to say something before you are ready. Trust takes time to build, we'll get there eventually. And at least learn to tolerate Liseran."

"Yea-HEY! That was mean!"

Liseran pouted as Ozwald laughed and tried to console the girl. Fae sighed and briefly made eye contact with Warren. A small knowing grin crossed her face as she noticed that he purposefully used parts of their earlier talk to convince her. After all, she'd be arguing against herself if she disagreed now. "Thank you. Truly. I vote for-" she took a deep breath, "f-for not caring."

At their worried looks she quickly added, "It is fine. I promise. She made a good point, I DO trust you all. Just..." she fidgeted slightly as she voice grew smaller, "...could we all just agree to not stare while someone changes their apparel?"

"I vote not caring." The attention of the room shifted to Ozwald as he shrugged. "I worked for my family's company on and off for a few years now. We have mixed locker rooms. Some people will change without a care who is watching. Sometimes when you are running late, you learn not to care that much either."

"Well since I vote for not caring I guess we reached a consensus." With that that said Warren proceeded to remove his shirt and get ready for bed. Fae tried relax and will her blush away as she collected a change of clothes. A quick glance around the room showed her that everyone was getting ready for bed so she started to change when she hear Liz speak up in a strange tone.

"Wow Fae. Black lace. How...bold."

Lost and completely confused Faerien looked over to her teammate with a questioning look. "What are you..." She started to inquire as the meaning of her words clicked. Her gaze snapped over to her other teammates as her face flushed crimson. "Liz! Don't joke about that!"

"Who says I'm joking?"

Warren had frozen with his shirt covering his face. Ozwald was facing the wall but they could tell he was blushing as well from the redness of his ears.

"I say you are joking!"

"Well now it is your word against mine. Since they probably believe you are just embarrassed they only way for them to know the truth is to look for themselves-"

"LISERAN MATHEWS YOU WILL BE SILENT!"

-x-x-x-x-

Morning came quickly and almost as if in spite of actually setting an alarm Warren awoke before it even went off. With an internally resigned sigh he sat up. His scroll buzzed with a message, and glancing at the device displayed CANA as the sender. Probably concerned as to why he was awake already. Quietly as to not disturb his still slumbering team mates he made his way over to his closest and changed into the school uniform. His night clothes were deposited in his hamper, [Now that I think about it...scrolls, furniture, meals, education, I'll have to inquire about munitions and modification fees but overall...I'm pretty well off right now.]

With a shake of his head to dismiss the thoughts he stepped from the room. He placed his earpiece over his ear and activated it.

"Good morning Warren."

"Ello, CANA. I am assuming Coco is still in her room?"

"Affirmative. If I may, what it the impetus for your inquiry?"

"I need to clear the air. Even if they aren't on my team we will be around the other teams a lot."

Silence followed his reply as he approached Team CFVY's door and knocked. He heard groans and complaining. Coco demanded someone to answer. Velvet voted that Coco answer due to her being team leader and before she could offer rebuttal, Fox and Yatsu seconded her vote.

Warren bit his lip to keep from laughing as he heard her grumble and make her way closer. The door swung open,

"Alright, who the hell has-Warren!"

Stunned into silence she openly stared as the faunus raised his eyebrows at her apparent sleeping apparel. Short shorts and a very distractingly tight tank top. "Hello Coco. Can we...talk?"

Wordlessly she nodded woodenly as she stepped from the room and closed the door behind her. Warren heard a flurry of motion and shushing as her teammates attempted to silently scrambled over to the door.

"I wanted to-"

"I'm sorry."

She took a deep breath and looked over at him and to his surprise she looked truly contrite, and on the verge of tears.

"I'm so sorry for what I said last night. I was already mad at you for Velvet, and was quick to assume. There really is no excuse for saying what I said. I'm-"

"Geeze Coco. Take a breath."

Coco's gaze snapped back up to his face and to her astonishment Warren looked...embarrassed. Shuffling his weight from foot to foot he gestured wordlessly before he spoke. "Look. I'm an asshole. I get it. I'm not a people person, and I'm sorry I snapped at you like that."

Her eyes went wide as she tried to speak but he cut her off, "No, just let me-listen!"

A loud sigh escaped him as he waited, eventually she nodded and he continued. "Yeah, what you said was harsh. But I regret bringing up my parents like that. I only did it because of how certain I was that it would leave you feeling mortified. But...I never wanted to use my parents memory like that. I was being an ass it lead me to lashing out in on a level I never thought I'd sink down to. So, I'm sorry."

He stuck a hand out before him and asked, "Can we agree to try and put this behind us?"

Shell shocked she stared at his offered limb before she reached out and accepted his handshake. "I'm still going to be awkwardly self conscious around you, I hope you know."

Warren shrugged as he raised his voice slightly, "That's fine. Can you let me in though? Now I need to talk to Velvet."

Coco gave him a weird look when he raised his voice but as soon as he finished they both heard a muffled "Eeep!" followed by quiet scrambling noises from her team's room.

"Oh, they did not just-!"

In a heartbeat she was at the door scroll in hand leaving Warren to wonder where the hell she pulled the device from. She flung the door open and stormed in as Warren followed with a small smirk.

"Now before Coco has a chance to go off on you three for eavesdropping, Velvet!"

The bunny faunus meeped once more before she hesitantly replied, "Y-yes?"

"Sorry I teased you so candidly. I honestly meant it as joke. Crass, suggestive, and wildly inappropriate, but no malicious intent."

"Uh, thanks? I mean, it is fine. Not that it was okay! P-please don't say something like that again, just...um...thank you."

"Great! They're all yours Coco." He waved goodbye as Coco cracked her knuckles and glared at her team. "Remember we have classes today~!" With that he let the door shut behind him and made his way to the cafeteria.

"That was very considerate of you."

Warren glanced around to ensure the hallway was deserted before he turned and took a detour for a long route to the cafeteria.

"Like I told you earlier. I needed to clear the air. Liseran and Ozwald are big on friends and are going to try and befriend everyone. Plus I don't know much about Beacon's curriculum. I don't know how many, if any, projects are multi-team deals. How are things progressing on that front?"

"Slowly. There are several layers of security throughout the school. It would appear that each professor have their own hand crafted security measures. They manage their curriculums on private servers, that can only be accessed in limited areas. Additionally there appears to be no monitoring within each dorm room that I can detect, while every hallway and classroom is monitored with at least one camera. Whether or not the feeds are reviewed or actively monitored is unknown. Also, I have an inquiry."

That prompted him to roll his eyes before he replied. "Go ahead."

"Was your apology to Miss Adel sincere?"

Warren considered his words for a while as he continued down the scenic route.

"Yeah. My apology was sincere. I can't believe that I...I used what happened to them as..as something to verbally attack someone."

"Have you honestly accepted her apology?"

Instead of answering he evasively asked, "You are being very talkative this morning. You alright?"

"...I would be better if someone apologized to me as well for so rudely bringing up the demise of my creators." Warren winced knowing full well, that while the events of that incident were seared into his memory, he was better off than CANA. Visual, and audio recording were turned on, as his father was recording a progress update during the attack. He didn't have to carry an undeletable file of his parents death from multiple camera angles complete with sound.

"I'm sorry sis."

"Of course I can't really blame you for reacting the way you did. After all I may have signed Coco's scroll up to several spam mailing lists. Something I probably should assist her with before it gets too out of hand."

A grin spilled across his features but before he could reply he heard someone echo him.

"Sis?"

Warren stopped when he heard Ozwald call out the question. Sparing a glance over his shoulder and saw the rest of his team stood confused behind his partner.

"Uh, how much of that did you hear?"

"Only your side of the conversation. We figured you were on the scroll but...you have a sister?"

Warren coughed and tried to subtly look around. A few other people were in the current hallway so Warren turned and beckoned for them to follow. A short while later they reached a deserted courtyard when Warren turned to face his team. Awkwardly shuffling in place he pulled out his scroll before he spoke.

"Alright, well. Uh, CANA say hi."

Projected from the scroll was a holographic model of a young wolf faunus with pearly white hair and light blue eyes. The projection waved slightly before she folded her hands together and gave a slight bow. "Hello Team WOLF. A pleasure to finally be introduced."

"No. Way. No way, no way, NO WAY!~~~"

Liz squealed as she barged closer, stopping only inches from the projection that flinched back from the excited sniper.

"An AI." Awe was clear in her voice as she turned to her leader. "Fully self aware?"

He nodded as CANA answered, "Affirmative. I was created under the acronym Combat And Navigation Assistant, for the prototype aura driven armored carapace, code named the War Suit. Over time my functionality was expanded to be able to assist with calculations and self delegate simulations. At some point during the continued development of my software I developed awareness."

"Are you shackled or restricted at all?"

"Yes. I cannot duplicate my core programming. I have a internal block preventing me from remotely operate mechanical hardware without explicit user permission. I also cannot lie about operation requests."

"Wait you can lie about other things though?"

"I was created tomorrow, deleted yesterday, but brought online for the first time today." Her response brought them to a halt.

Warren hit a button and the projection vanished as he stowed his scroll. "Just message me and ask for Cana to add you to her contact list. She has permission to parse my messages and has her own separate domain setup on my scroll. Basically she has a virtual scroll set up so she can call and message you without having to go through me. We can talk more about this later, when we get back to our dorm. Plus, we don't have a lot of time left for breakfast before class."

With that they hurried to the cafeteria to get their breakfast. After they settled into their seats, Liz stole all of Ozwald's dessert. Since the one in question did not seem surprised by her actions and made no move to stop her, the other two left it alone. Instead they discussed what they expected of their next class.

"I would imagine that for the first day of each class we would be provided with a course outline and probably tested on what they consider to be the baseline material."

"Awwww a test on the first day? That would suck."

"I'm not so sure. It is Grimm Studies right? They might just start with Beowolves or Creeps and go over everything. Just to make sure any misinformation we know is corrected."

"Heya~ loverboy~"

Ozwald groaned loudly as he let his head fall to the table. Already he was too tired to object he answered, "Hey Coco."

Liz snickered as Coco grinned with self satisfaction before the fashionista waved to Warren and Fae as she rounded on the bubbly girl. "So? What'd you do last night? I think everyone heard miss prim and proper shout at you."

Fae pointedly looked away. Ozwald attempted to give himself a concussion by repeatedly beating his head on the table. Warren just scoffed as he asked, "What, trying to find a kindred soul with someone who also drives her team up the wall?"

Startled that he already was talking normally, well normal for Warren at least, Coco was at a loss for words. Liseran stuck her tongue out at her leader before she replied and distracted Coco from her own thoughts.

"We discussed getting dressed in the same room as each other and we'd go about it with two guys and girls on our team."

"Yeah...I kinda keep forgetting about Fox and Yatsu..."

The other three all the table all chorused, "We know."

"Any~ways~ we decided that we didn't care too much, if someone gets hurt we want to be able to get treatment without them freaking out about having to remove a bra or something."

Surprised Coco looked at the rival team wide eyed. "Seriously? That is...not a bad argument actually. Huh. I'll have to bring that up with my team. Wait, why'd you get yelled at then?"

"Oh that? Well Fae was stripping and I said-"

"THAT IS ENOUGH OUT OF YOU!"

Oz lunged across the table as he clamped his hands over Liseran's mouth. Warren grabbed her arms so she couldn't break free while Fae just sat there her face burning at Liz's teasing words.

The girl shrugged unapologetically while her eyes danced with mischief. With an indulgent smirk Warren whispered, "Alright, you had your fun, but I think you broke Fae and we should get to class. If we let you go, will you behave?"

With a slight pout Liseran nodded. Warren gestured for Oz to release her. They instantly regretted it for as soon as her mouth was uncovered Liz said, "I'm sorry daddy, punish me later?"

Warren faltered as Ozwald lunged for the prankster once more while Coco proceeded to laugh herself into a fit. Dancing away from them, Liz ran for the exit. Before she escaped she yelled out, "Coco! Black lacy lingerie! I'll tell you more later~~~"

With that she dashed from the room with Ozwald hot on her heels. Faerien buried her crimson face in her hands while Warren simply used his semblance to escape the attention his teammates antics drew to their table. Velvet entered the mess hall and found her leader laughing hysterically on the ground as she struggled to breath. She took one look at Fae's flushed face before she facepalmed and asked, "Alright Coco, what'd you do this time?"

"Hahaha ah haha, my sides! Ah~ You-you had to be there!"

-x-x-x-x-

Eventually the entirety of Team WOLF found themselves in attendance for Professor Port's Grimm Studies. Class was due to start shortly as Liz reclined back in her seat with a smug grin plastered to her face. Eventually Oz decided to try and wipe the grin off her face.

"I never would have pegged you for the BSDM type."

Around them the various other conversations died as everyone started to listen in. Fae tried to stifle a whine as she flinched away from Liseran. Of course Warren just ignored them all as Liz replied. "Oh? Why would that matter? Don't tell me you already want to tie me up?"

Warren muttered under his breath so that only his team members heard him. "If only to leave you behind for some peace and quiet."

Liz rolled her eyes as she turned to face Oz and placed her hands on his shoulders. She locked eyes with him and he suddenly got the feeling that bringing that up was a terrible idea.

"Ozwald. You are good looking. Heck without clothes on-" Fae made the pitiful whining noise once more. "-you are quite the piece of eye candy. But I'm sorry. You are not my type. Besides I don't like being tied up, I was just screwing with our leader. But it is nice to know you are open about your interests seeing as how you admitted it before such a large audience!"

She gestured to the other students who all sat there and stared at the pair. Ozwald covered his face and said, "Alright fine! I give up. I don't know why I bothered trying to embarrass you. Shoulda known you'd find a way to turn it back on me."

A few of their classmate gave the two concerned looks but any further conversation was prevented when a loud voice rang out. "Welcome students, and once again congratulations on your acceptance into Beacon! Please take your seats and we shall begin!"

The few stragglers around the room quickly found their way to their seats as Professor Port made his way to the podium in the middle of the room. A curious glance around the room left Fae puzzled. There were a lot more students here than where on the cliff for initiation.

[Come to think of it, the ballroom was filled with people. Who were all these other students?]

As if to directly answer her thoughts, "Now I am certain that many of the students that are NOT attending the huntsmen course are wondering 'Why do I have to take Grimm Studies'? Quite simple really, it is better to know than to be ignorant! Technology course students should know what the Grimm are capable of! If your buildings can be destroyed by a single Beowulf, they won't keep anyone safe! If you design a weapon that can't handle being dropped to the floor, how could it possibly hold up in combat? The Logistics and Political courses should be mindful of the beasts most common to their regions when they construct plans for evacuation and emergency procedures. Not to mention the Operations course students, if you have no idea what the Grimm is that you are sending a huntsman after, how can you hope to assist them?"

Warren and Fae exchanged glances. It would seem that neither of them knew that Beacon had other courses available besides training Huntsmen and Huntresses. Their other two teammates gave them puzzled looks as if to ask how they didn't already know that. Shrugging they turned their attention back to the professor. So far, this appeared to be the beginning of a very informative course.

In a sense, it was! Just not the manner they were hoping.

AN:

Yes. I did just address a huge question I've had about RWBY since Season 1. WHO THE HELL ARE ALL THOSE PEOPLE? If you re-watch Season 1, Chapter 7: The Emerald Forest Part 2, there are 20 pedestals for the chess pieces, meaning 40 students, 20 pairs, and 10 teams. Looking at the maps of Vale, the sheer size of Beacon, the gathering in the ballroom and auditorium, there are a LOT more students than just a measly 10 teams of huntsmen. Not to mention that random guy who cheers during Professor Port's speech. (I really don't think he was a huntsman in training.) It would make sense if Beacon had multiple courses and that the Huntsman course was it's most famous course. Kinda like "My Hero Academia," there is the hero course, that the school is most famous for but there are also other courses.

...and now that I've typed that I feel as if my solution was ripped from My Hero Academia.

...damn it now I feel less clever. T.T