Chapter 13

Team SPGL took the liberty of rearranging their room on their second day of classes in the early morning before sunrise. They'd of course turned three of the four bed frames into Beacon's storage facility. Clayton anchored a hammock to the corner wall and ceiling. Pale kept his bed to the far right corner, and maintained a militaristic level of order in how he tidied his sheets and blankets. Siniy, with Halcyone and Clayton's extra mattresses, slept on all three of them stacked up under Clayton's hammock. Finally, Halcyone slept underneath Pale's bed on the floor with no more than a few sheets and a pillow. Just how she liked it… That and she replaced all the skirts she was provided by the school, with the men's uniform pants. Ain't no way she was dancing around one of those things.

Eventually Clayton put up a "King Wong" movie poster near his bed, before stacking his reloading kit against the nearest desk. Halcyone left her headphones and outdated "Walkabout" mobile cassette player on the nightstand by Pale's bed. Siniy owned next to nothing, and Pale... Well...

"What the fuck, man?!" Halcyone asked, as her teammate unrolled a tattered, ragged old 3 foot by 6 foot Battle Flag of the Volunteer Army of South Anima from his bag, hanging it above his bed.

"What?" Pale asked, as he nailed the last corner in place with a tack.

"Cunt, you're in Vale now, that's not cool." Halcyone said with a face palm.

Pale shrugged. "Ain't nothin' wrong with the flag. It's an Anima heritage thing. My forefather carried this up Yank hill under cannon fire in The Faunus War." He reasoned.

"Did he also happen to participate in the war crimes against faunus that the Army of South Anima committed during the war?" Halcyone asked.

Pale scratched his neck. "Actually he died about half a year in."

Clayton groaned before settling the matter. "Pale, I don't care if you hang the racist flag in the room, but if this is going to be a problem with the others, take it down." Clayton said.

"Alright then. Siniy, you care if I hang this up?" Pale asked the other known faunus in the room.

Siniy sighed. "I'd have torn it down if I took issue with it." He said.

Pale shrugged at Halcyone. Halcyone puffed a breath through her teeth. "Keep it up then. But I swear if you get us in trouble for this, I'mma kick ya' ass." She said.

As the hunters in training filed into the school's combat classroom and took their seats, their instructor, and school dean, Professor Glynda Goodwitch entered from her office, waving her riding crop, slamming the shutters of the room with her semblance, cutting off all natural light sources one by one as she stepped up onto the stage, the above spotlight keeping the room's focus on her. "Students, though this is your dedicated combat class, there will be no brandishing weapons, or negligent discharges of any kind when not participating in exercises. I, as you should already know, am Professor Goodwitch, and I expect to be addressed as such." The class remained silent. "Before we begin propper lesson fit for first years, I'd like to start class with a refresher on what you already should know from either life experience, or from lessons learned in your Primary academy teachings…" Glynda scanned the room. "You, Mr. Winchester, tell me, what is an aura?"

Cardin chuckled. "That's too easy Professor, an aura is a human soul manifested and controlled through willpower. How much we have to burn depends on the individual."

"Human and faunus." Clayton corrected with an eye roll.

Glynda accepted the answer all the same. "Very well… Mr. Garnet… Can you tell me if the protective field created by aura is passive or active?"

Siniy sat up straight in his chair. "It's active, Professor Goodwitch. It requires the user to keep it up to be effective."

Glynda looked over at Jaune. "And if it were to be broken down or be fully exhausted, Mr. Arc?"

Jaune tugged on his hoodie. "Well, uh, Professor Goodwitch, we'd get really tired from overexertion, since aura kind of… Pushes us to the limits our body can handle."

Glynda nodded. "Miss. Xiao Long… How does aura heal us?"

Yang scratched the back of her head for a second. "Uuuuuh… It hyper spikes our metabolism to incite cell growth?" Yang nearly asked. "You know if we focus on it, with like, breathing and stuff for blood flow."

"And if you were to have your aura broken, whilst injured?" Glynda asked, looking at Clayton.

"We die." Clayton, said flatly.

Glynda interlaced her fingers. "Precisely… If you deplete your aura and are to become injured, the consequences could be fatal, which is exactly why in my classroom, we will follow the Vytal International Tournament System safety standard. If anyone is to go below 15% of their aura in this class, which will be monitored via your school issue "Scroll" phones, the exercise will end. We have medical personnel on standby in the event anyone's aura is otherwise pierced, shattered, or bypassed, and I feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but students, this is practice. Do not attempt to kill each other." Glynda said, looking around the stands. "Now then, allow me to lay out the roadmap for this class… Combat classes at the secondary level no longer focus on the one on one style of spars that are standard in primary academies as those were designed to teach self defense and build confidence. Here at Beacon the majority of your training is going to be fighting within a team, so that while in the field you can work with people you may have never met before efficiently and effectively. While it's often true that Huntsmen act alone after graduating from an academy, it is essential that each and every one of you learn the basics of small unit combat before moving forward into your next year… And so begins our first lesson…" Glynda scanned the room, seeing Ruby and Clayton whispering to each other before Ruby giggled. "Miss. Rose?"

Ruby pulled away from Clayton and sat up straight. "Yes ma'am?" She asked, hands in her lap.

"Do you know what Talking Guns are?" Glynda asked.

Feeling relieved that the question was so simple, Ruby gave her answer. "It's when two or more people with guns take turns shooting at an enemy."

"And why would this be done?" Glynda asked. At that Ruby closed her mouth, unsure of what to say. Siniy raised his hand, and Glynda looked at him. "Mr. Garnet?"

Siniy cleared his throat. "Keeping guns "talking" Or shooting three to five rounds at a time before your partner or team takes their turn, keeps weapons from getting too hot, conserves ammo, allows people to communicate between the bursts of fire, and most importantly, because there are multiple guns involved, one can provide cover fire while another is moved forward or backwards, and reset."

Glynda raised an eyebrow. "Very impressive Mr. Garnet, as it so happens, you've perfectly segued us onto our first lesson's end goal. Buddy Bounding, where two people move under each other's cover."

Before Glynda could continue Jaune raised his hand? "Um… Professor Goodwitch, how would someone who doesn't have a gun participate in the lesson?"

Glynda smirked. "Cover is not just "covering fire," cover in it's more literal sense is anything that can stop an incoming attack. For those of you with shields, your cover is physical, and it's use extends to your teammates as well as yourself. For those of you with only melee weapons, range will inevitably be the biggest challenge you face, however with an open mind the limitations they have can be overcome. Dust application, a semblance, the environment, your team mates, all tools to be put to good use when the time comes. That being said, the core of talking guns, and buddy bounding, is attacking, moving, and communicating with as little as a team… For our most basic example, two huntsmen, tracking bandits in anima are fired upon from the woods. Recognizing that the gunfire is intentional, and that the threat is visible, they both immediately engage, and seek cover behind trees. Upon taking their positions, they would call out to each other that they are "set" and begin to make their weapons "talk." The first huntsman to advance would inform his partner he is "moving," before coming out from behind his cover, and advancing to the next point of cover, or concealment. Once he's reached his new position, he will inform his partner he is "set," then resume firing. His partner will then perform the same actions he has, informing his partner of his movement, taking up a new position, and informing his partner he is covered. The two repeat this process until one or the other is able to land a substantially effective hit. This might seem complicated, but I assure you with enough training the "communication" portion at the team level becomes almost innate. Over time, you will learn to trust your partners, trust your teams, and above all trust new people who you may be forced to fight alongside despite your differences."

Later that evening, Pale disappeared from the cafeteria after quickly wolfing down his food, the occurrence going mostly unnoticed by his peers. To some it might have just seemed like Pale was a fast eater, or that he wanted to use the shower first after a long day. In all reality the white sniper was using the roughly thirty minutes that everyone would be out of their rooms to go through the personal belongings of his classmates, looking for signs one of them had ties to the White Fang, aside from Blake, as he did at breakfast, and lunch.

His own team's belongings were easy enough to go through. Sharing a room, he simply stayed behind while they went down to the cafeteria in the morning before class. They all owned so little that the initial snooping was hardly worth it, with what few personal effects they had that could arouse suspicion being innocuous. In Clayton's case, he simply had a personal notebook left in a night stand that was more than chicken scratch and lewd or sensual drawings of Ruby. "My god, Clayton, get a new hobby." Pale had said, as he came across a drawing that looked like... Well it wasn't done yet... but he assumed it was supposed to be Ruby and some other girl. Siniy's only strange property was his combat helmet, which had something written on the inside. "Born to love, forced to fight." Pale read to himself. "The Hell's that mean?" Halcyone of course had essentially nothing to her name.

RWBY's room was harder to gain entry to, as he needed to use the grapple on his bayonet to scale the outside wall and get in through the window, slipping the lock with a lien card. There was no payoff to searching their things unfortunately, which to be fair, only made sense. Weiss was against the White Fang, no doubt, and it was entirely unlikely Ruby or Yang was going to have White Fang paraphernalia if Clayton didn't, unless they were faunus in hiding like Blake, but there was no evidence of that. Speaking of evidence, it didn't seem like Blake had anything laying around relating to her reasons for being at Beacon, which again to be fair, would be reasonable since she was in hiding under a fake last name. For that matter, the most damning thing Pale found in team RWBYs dorm was clearly Blake's smut... Lot's of weird interracial smut... Maybe Blake was just a pervert?...

JNPR's room, the one he was actively searching at dinner, was even less telling. From the looks of it, they were just four messy roommates. Deciding his search time was up, Pale slipped out of JNPRs room, and back into his own dorm, just in time for the rest of SPGL to come in.

"Oh, Pale, there you are." Clayton said, as Pale sat on the edge of his bed. "We were wondering where you went."

Pale spoke as he started to slip his left boot off, struggling a little. "Just needed some time to walk back at a comfortable pace." He said before grunting, his boot not budging.

"Alright then…" Halcyone said, watching Pale sigh to himself, giving up trying to remove his left boot. "You having trouble with somethin' mate?"

Pale looked up to Halcyone, then down at her leg brace, surrounding her own left leg, scrunching up her school uniform pants. "Hell, two days is a long enough time to keep it a secret from my team." Pale said, before he pulled his pant leg up to his knee, showing the three the wood in place of flesh and bone, stopping just below the joint. "Yeah, had my leg taken out from below me a few years ago."

"Oh…" Clayton said, not realizing his partner was missing a limb.

"Gnarly." Halcyone said, before Siniy reached up and smacked her in the back of the head.

"Ah…" Clayton said, unsure of how to make the situation any better. "If you ever need help with anything because of… You know, that, feel free to ask."

Pale waved at his teammate before finally kicking his left boot off with his right. "Ah there's no need for all that. I manage just fine with one leg…" Pale paused… "Just…" He needed to come up with something convincing to keep the detail under wraps from the rest of the student body for the time being. "Just don't go tellin' everyone… I… really wouldn't want a certain someone findin' out about it and thinkin' I'm weird…"

"OOOOooooh. Mystery crush… Alright then, mate, we'll keep it a secret." Halcyone said, before she tossed off her school uniform jacket, and got down onto the floor, prepared to rack out under Pale's bed. "Oh, but if we're taking bets on who Pale like's, my money's on Schnee."

Pale scoff. "Yeah, 'cause uptight, rich girls just happen to be my type." He said sarcastically as Halcyone laughed to herself from below him. Clayton playfully rolled his eyes, before the three boys went about changing into their sleepwear.