Ruby stared wide-eyed at Scarlet, causing the young woman to suddenly become very confused. She expected some sort of reaction at the very least, not to get a thousand yard stare from her teacher. For what might have been the first time in her life she felt self conscious. Why was she looking at her like that, it was almost like she was afraid, or anxious about her for some reason… Was it the voice? Crap, had Jet been right? Of course the only time she actually cared about making an impression would be the time he knew better than her about how to approach someone.
Ruby's mind was similarly racing. She couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before, the face, those eyes, her mother's eyes.
In an instant she's fifteen again, running up Beacon Tower, her leg muscles burning and her aura straining as she hurriedly makes her way higher. She doesn't consider stopping, both because she'd fall and because Pyrrha needed her help. That thought kept her going as she reached the top, taking just a moment to breathe as she landed, looking up just in time to see a glass arrow fly from Cinder's bow into Pyrrhas chest, the wet crunch of the arrow punching through her friend's sternum echoing throughout the office. Cinder walked up, placed her hand on the Amazon's head and reduced Pyrrha to naught but ash. The only thing remaining was her headpiece, which clattered to the ground as Cinder lazily looked over her shoulder at Ruby. Those amber eyes looking almost bored at her sudden appearance, as if she was little more than a nuisance, a pest to be exterminated. And then, everything went white as the memory ended, Ruby suddenly finding herself looking up at the confused bull Faunus. The same amber eyes that once bored themselves into her very soul now looked at her with confusion, desperately trying to hide how they glanced at Jin in hopes of a way out of the increasingly awkward encounter.
"Uhhh… M-Miss Rose? Scarlet asked, trying, and failing, to maintain her deeper tone, losing total control as her voice broke. Her face flushing pink as she coughed to try and hide her heightened pitch.
Then, both of them were pulled from their thoughts, quite literally in Scarlet's case as Jet took hold of herleft horn and pulled it back. She whined and slapped Jet's arm away, yet the damage was already done and the illusion had been broken. With that, any remaining tension was sucked out of the conversation in an instant, like a metaphorical vacuum. Ruby sighed, she had questions, and Glynda would certainly be getting an earful, but this girl was her student now. Cinder's daughter was her student… Yeah that was never gonna sound right to her.
"I am so, so sorry about her." Jet sighed with no small hint of second hand embarrassment over the small scene. He loved Scarlet, really he did. But creeping out the teachers with her weird succubus voice was where he drew the line.
"Oh, N-no it's fine, I just wasn't expecting that is all. You umm, you're good at that voice, actually had me fooled for a second there." Ruby said quickly. Eager to move past her episode, she turned to her nephew and began speaking in a pace that for anyone other than her would have been considered rapid.
"Well Jin you and your friends have fun, I'll check in on you guys later but right now I have to get things ready for tomorrow!"
All three teenagers stared in various states of confusion as one instant she was standing there waving at them awkwardly and then the next she was gone, a trail of rose petals falling to the ground leading up to the podium being the only indication that the woman had even been there. Scarlet remained staring the longest, and while the boys seemed fine to just write the interaction off as an awkward introduction, something about the way she looked at her bothered Scarlet, like she considered her a threat or something. As she thought, she realized that was exactly how she had just looked at her. Almost like she was a Beowulf in a fake mustache trying to sneak in. The hell was that about? She'd literally just said hi!
It didn't take the boys long to realize that Scarlet was starting to get heated, especially when she started tapping her foot. Jin took a step forward, feeling a little guilty, given that it was sort of his fault for introducing them and all that. He walked up, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Hey don't worry about it, my moms say she's always been bad with new people." Jin said, hoping to defuse the bull but only getting an annoyed huff from the girl in response, his towering form deflating a bit as Scarlet's scowl turned on him.
"So you guys wanna go look around? I mean, she said we should get used to this place right?" Jet suggested gently, finding his friend's frustration at her less than stellar introduction not that unusual, but as far as he could tell the incident didn't exactly warrant genuine anger. But still feeling more than a little bitter, Scarlet grumbled and turned to leave.
"You guys go on ahead, I'll meet up with you later." She said, walking off before either boy could get another word in, leaving them both standing there confused.
"Is she okay?" Jin asked first, hesitantly watching the orney woman walk off.
"Yeah, she just has a tendency to get worked up easily. She probably just needs to cool off."
Orientation had been rather dull for the Schnee girls and their aunts, well aside from almost being late due to them waiting for Belka to finish eating of course. Now, they took Professor Rose's advice, getting familiar with the grounds of the school, or rather, Belka did as Lumi and Liz were dragged along. Lumi watched in boredom as her Aunt Goose led Belka around on the exact same tour she had given her and Elizabeth.
While Goose didn't mind going through the whole thing once more, the two other Schnee girls could have gladly done without the repeat. Belka had knowingly accepted Goose's offer "on behalf of the group" before they could actually answer, and neither girl was willing to leave her alone with Goose.
Even now, as they walked in a group, there was a deep uneasiness in her gut as Goose happily chattered away, not seeming to notice the glances back from the Gele woman or the lopsided smirk that she gave upon seeing her nieces unhappy with being dragged around. What was she planning? Was she just trying to get to Goose? To annoy them? Gods above, it wouldn't surprise her. If not for Goose's misguided enthusiasm at their unfortunate encounter, she'd have already told Belka exactly where she could go off to.
Elizabeth, however, hadn't even remotely attempted to hide her disdain for the older girl. In fairness, it had been Belka who had started it, commenting on how the library was "surprisingly small and that her study back at Gele manor was larger". Which did nothing but goad Elizabeth into rapidly shooting back;.
"I'm sure Jacques made sure it seemed like he was an intellectual."
It sort of just spiraled from that point, with both girls entering a duel of endlessly spitting thinly veiled insults at one another, both completely ignoring Goose's disapproving stare that came soon after their little competition began. Thankfully the pair both decided to give each other the silent treatment not long after. Good thing too. It was exceedingly grating to be quite honest, even Goose was hurrying through the little tour she had been so excited about just minutes earlier.
It was once again time for them to pass through the firing range and workshop area, the area was typically used by Professor Rose for her classes, but was open to the students outside of class hours for modifications and general maintenance. In fact, there were several students there already, incentivizing them to avoid making a scene even more.
"That's the workbench, across the room is the range. The school has a deal with the SDC so all the ammo you could need is provided right here for us." Goose hurried along with her explanation, keeping things simple so that they could get to the next area, and if her intuition was right, doing so in a way that left no room for her younger relatives to start an argument.
"Well it's nice to see the family business is still going strong despite the setbacks." Belka said almost offhandedly, but a hint of satisfaction in her tone indicated she knew what she was doing.
Needless to say, Goose was wrong, she was very wrong. It wasn't really a surprise that the comment had rubbed Lumi the wrong way, with her mother being the acting CEO, it was hard to see the comment as directed in any other way. Especially considering it wasn't Belka's family business anymore.
"The family business? You mean our family business." Lumi bit back almost immediately in a hushed tone. The sudden aggression caused Belka to flinch, but before anyone could notice she hardened herself, stepping right up to the blond fencer.
"Yes. The business my father ran more efficiently than Weiss ever has."
Lumi's blood boiled at the audacity of her aunt to say such a thing, stomping her foot petulantly and leaning in with a slight growl. If she had any less self control she would have slapped Belka for bringing her mother into this. What gave her the right? Because she was her mother's half sister and the bastard daughter of an adulterous abuser?
"You mean by using actual slaves?" Elizabeth asked pointedly, unintentionally cutting Lumi off before she could repeat her thoughts to their relative. Only to get a scoff in return.
"As if he'd had the time to fret over every little mine. It was blown far out of proportion and you of all people should know it."
"Guys really, we can talk about something else…" Goose whispered, looking around and seeing that they were beginning to attract the attention of nearby students.
"Bullshit we can, did you hear her just now? I knew I was right about you. You're just as bad as your father!" Elizabeth no longer seemed to care about volume, or the various heads turning in their direction.
"Guys, seriously!" Goose protested, trying to get in between them to break them apart but was promptly ignored, pushed aside by an irate Belka.
"Oh, so when my side of the family does it, you have a problem? Because if you looked at the numbers, the fact is, while my father was CEO, there was significantly less utilization of indentured workers when compared to your oh-so-beloved Nicolas!"
Elizabeth opened her mouth to retort but instead just let out a frustrated groan at her aunt passing off the blame, and taking zero accountability. Just what Mother had told her to expect from a Gele.
"Watch your tongue when speaking about my family, unless you want to lose it!" She had no intentions of actually going through with her threat, but her aunt's besmirching of her family name had just caused her to lash out. Belka seemed shocked by the reaction, as if she didn't expect her to get upset about a woman who insulted her family as though Jacques was any better! It was like she didn't know her niece at all. What, had she just tagged along to annoy them? It wouldn't surprise Lumi one bit to learn that was the case.
"Then don't speak about mine!" Belka spat at her niece, trying to look defiant despite her voice cracking in rage and taking a step back. It didn't work, her red face clearly giving away how upset she was over the exchange.
"Guys, enough!" Goose finally yelled out. The three others looked at her and realized the amount of attention they had attracted from the other students. Lumi and Elizabeth began to begrudgingly calm down. Belka, however, only got redder as she realized everyone had seen their argument , and dozens of people were now staring right at her. Freezing up, she could hear faint whispers from the others. Were they talking about her? Judging her?
Goose watched as the girl stiffened, while her nieces seemed to cool down, Belka looked like she'd run off at any second. Taking a small step forward she reached out and placed a hand on Belka's arm, hoping to calm her, an act of kindness that Belka either didn't recognise, or disregarded.
"Don't touch me!" Belka snapped, wrenching her arm away and stomping away through the door and out into the hall.
"What was her problem?" Lumi huffed before turning in the opposite direction and walking away, not willing to spend anymore time on the matter. Elizabeth soon followed muttering to herself leaving Goose as the last Schnee standing, watching the doorway Belka stormed through for just a moment longer before reluctantly leaving Belka and following her nieces.
As they separated, a tall, blue haired woman watched from nearby, irritated by the commotion as she tried to reassemble her saber's mechanisms. As far as she cared it was just a buncha rich girls squabbling over what seemed like nothing. Still it was worth paying attention to the new blood. Even if they were all soft.
"What is that girl doing here?" Ruby began before even getting through the door, briskly walking right up to the Headmistress's desk and crossing her arms at her boss with a scowl.
Glynda barely glanced up from her paperwork, unimpressed by the silver-eyed woman's obvious anger. She wasn't going to play coy and pretend this was about anything aside from Scarlet, or maybe Jet. Either way, she had been expecting this, just not so soon, after the teams had been assigned maybe, but twenty minutes after orientation? That was some luck.
"She chose to attend Beacon Ruby, was I supposed to exclude her because of her parentage?" Glynda asked sharply, not willing to pretend this conversation would go anywhere else.
Ruby flinched at the directness of her friend and superior's question, not expecting to be called out right away. Upon further thought she knew that the idea was unreasonable at best. Had Beacon turned her beloved Uncle away all those years ago just because he was from a bandit clan, she wouldn't be the woman she was. On the other hand, the Branwens had never attacked the school, and never killed the headmaster. Not to mention her parents hadn't yet been publicly revealed as infamous terrorists Adam Taurus and Cinder Fall. It was inevitably going to come to light on who she is.
"Glynda, what about when people find out? Even if we can handle the public backlash, think about what it's gonna do to her."
The headmistress silently raised an eyebrow, was Ruby assuming she hadn't been told? She supposed it was a possibility. Not one that was particularly smart, but when it came to children, Glynda knew better than damn near anyone that most children weren't as prepared for the reality of life as they should have been.
"Even assuming she hasn't been prepared for the reality of her heritage it will be far from the greatest challenge she faces as a huntress. If she can't handle it she's in the wrong profession." Glynda said, simply flipping over to a new paper much to her assistant's annoyance.
"That's-" Before she could continue, Glynda cut her off.
"Not fair? You of all people should know that when it comes to the responsibilities passed down by our parents, life could care less about being 'fair'." Glynda pointed out, causing Ruby to wince. Despite not letting herself show it, Glynda felt a little guilty as Ruby rubbed her arm like a wounded child. Even by her standards that had been… unfair. But it had gotten the point across, and now, hopefully, they could get to the real issue. "Why don't you just say what this is really about?"
"I… feel like I should have been told about this, who else doesn't know?" Ruby hesitated, the wind thoroughly having been taken out of her sails by the previous comment.
"Aside from you, Professor Pine, and myself, no one else in the administration is aware of her heritage."
"No one? Not Oobleck, or Touko or…Not even Jau-"
"If the counselor or any other member of faculty for that matter cannot look past factors that a student has no control over then they aren't fit to teach anyone let alone the next generation of our defenders!" Glynda said, cutting her off once more with a glare, her patience clearly wearing thin on this topic.
Ruby flinched once more under her superior's verbal assault, feeling as though she was once again a student being talked down to for acting out, rather than the woman's colleague. The silence was left to linger for a moment as the headmistress's gaze softened and she leaned back into her seat.
"Unless she gives us cause for concern I don't want to hear another word about her mother or father. Do you understand me Ruby?"
"Yes Ma'am." The huntress said, while it in no way sat right with her, she knew her friend wasn't wrong. Scarlet was just a normal student here, who her parents were didn't change that. Ruby turned to leave, feeling less certain than when she had walked in.
Now alone, Glynda sighed, going back to her paperwork. Her pen flowed across the page with enough force to nearly rip the form she was finishing up into scraps.
"I hope you know what you're doing Ozpin."
Scarlet splashed the cold water onto her face and immediately wondered why the hell she did that. She didn't feel any different, and now her face was wet, blowing some air upwards to get a pesky strand of hair off her face. She didn't know what her dad got out of it. He'd said it helped him cool off when he was worked up but she just couldn't get the look Professor Rose gave her to go away. In fact, with how little it changed, she'd think he'd just made a bad joke, if there was a single humorous bone in his body to back that theory up. She supposed maybe she should try not to think about it, and find something to just distract herself with.
The tired, almost over dramatic sigh next to her seemed like a good place to start. Glancing over she noticed a girl leaning against the wall, not actually seeming to need the bathroom as much as to just take a moment to decompress and groan her problems away into the aether. Relatable, maybe she could use a distraction too? Approaching as casually as she could, Scarlet leaned against the wall next to the taller girl and did her best not to do whatever the hell it was she did last time.
"So, rough day?"
Goose glanced over, a little startled, not having noticed the red-haired Faunus that was suddenly right next to her. But, being met with Scarlet's sympathetic smile eased any surprise her spontaneous arrival had created. She had just needed some space, for some reason her nieces had insisted on staying all tense and mad about earlier. She didn't get it, but then again she didn't really get the whole situation, what did their parents issues have to do with them.
"Just family drama… It's new, to me at least." Goose shrugged. Trying to just brush it off.
"Sheesh, you gotta deal with that here? Some luck." Scarlet chuckled, if anything that should have been one of the upsides of being at Beacon, no more silly drama from home. Guess this girl wasn't so lucky.
"You don't even know the half of it. I'm Goose."
"Scarlet."
They stood there for a moment in silence, Scarlet… hadn't actually thought that far ahead into what to talk about, just that she wanted to talk about something else, and that Goose seemed to be feeling the same way.
The other girl seemed far less worried about the silence, just looking up and down at her, seeming to take Scarlet in with a simple smile before happily chirping a response.
"I like your horns!"
Scarlet vacantly blinked. She'd never really had someone comment on her horns before, let alone compliment them. Hell, not even Jet did that. She didn't really know how to respond to that, and probably would have felt weird had the look on Goose's face not been so genuine.
"Oh, thank you, I got them from my dad." She responded with the first thing that popped into her mind, immediately wincing as she realized how obvious that would be. What was up with her and people today?
"Oh cool, that's how I got my feathers!" Goose said excitedly, showing off the black feather ornament on the side of her head.
Okay this was already going way better than it was with the Professor, maybe she wasn't the weird one afterall!
"Your dad a bird or something?" Scarlet asked with a chuckle.
"He can turn into a bird."
Oh okay that was actually pretty cool, must be one hell of a Semblance too. Turning into an animal had to be weird, and she'd never heard of a transformation Semblance before. Scarlet chuckled, Goose seemed cool, at least as far as Scarlet could tell, and friendly, just what she was needing right now. She just seemed, well, simple, in a good way. There was probably a better way to say it, but it worked for her right now . But before anything more could be said the door all but flew open, A petite blond girl barged in, looking around, before narrowing in on the salt and pepper haired woman, Goose immediately turned to greet her niece only to almost immediately cut off.
"Aunt Goose, come on, we're gonna be late, again. Is this really how you want to present yourself?" Lumi grumbled, walking right up to Goose with her hands on her hips. Goose smiled guiltily, not realizing she had taken so long, even if it was only "long" by Lumi's standards.
Aunt? That was weird, they looked like they could have been born weeks if not days apart. Did this have something to do with that family drama Goose talked about? The girl certainly looked pissy enough for that to be the case. Still, something about the way she just waltzed up rubbed Scarlet the wrong way. Acting all pompous for no reason as if she owned the place, and ordering her supposed Aunt around. Maybe it was because she already wasn't in the best of moods, but she wasn't letting that slide, coughing in a very obvious fashion to grab at this new girl's attention.
Lumi tilted her head taking in the girl's appearance. Speaking of presenting herself, that couldn't have been a good introduction, she blamed Belka, were it not for her, they wouldn't be late in the first place. Still she supposed she could try to be civil. If only for the sake of appearances if nothing else.
"Oh, my bad, I didn't see you talking with your goat friend."
The Faunus sputtered from that. Goat? GOAT? Oh that was it, Scarlet officially didn't like this girl. Her and her stupid ponytail and weird rich girl clothes. Not even making an attempt to mask her irritation, Scarlet corrected the smaller girl.
"I'm a Cow Faunus actually. Who're you again?"
Oh, well that probably made her look rather bad. Cow huh? That certainly explained some of her… assets. She swallowed her pride at the redhead's attitude and stood with her back straight and narrow, giving the girl a smile that was only only slightly forced.
"Lumi Arc-Schnee, eldest scion of my name." Lumi declared proudly, holding her hand out for Scarlet to take and subsequently shake, hoping to put the awkward introductions behind them.
Unfortunately Scarlet just stared, having absolutely no idea what that had meant. Great, on top of being a pompous brat, she had to act all fancy-pantsy.
"Uh, Scarlet, Scarlet Taurus…"
Lumi waited a moment for Scarlet to take her hand, but once she realized that wasn't going to happen she returned her hand to her hip. Oh so it was like that then? Fine by her, she didn't need the comradery of some uppity commoner anyway, she'd tried, even after her so called aunt had put her in a sour mood, she owed this girl nothing.
Goose once again found herself in a pretty awkward scenario, and what was worse, she couldn't even figure out the reason for this one. Scarlet had seemed nice enough, sure Lumi had a bit of an attitude but that was normal… then again she'd have no way of knowing that… Drat, okay, time to at least try to fix this.
"Well come on Lumi, don't be rude, tell her about yourself." Goose encouraged, much to Lumi's chagrin.
Oh she was the rude one here? From her perspective she'd been nothing but polite, still, she sighed, and she figured she'd try and be cordial once more. Straightening up, Lumi offered a half hearted smile up to the go- Cow Faunus.
"Well, as I said, I'm the eldest of my siblings, and I suppose, considering our mutual choice in career, I should start with my weapon. Crocea Mors has been in my father's family for generations, a blade that has served the Arc family for ages, same with my Semblance on my mother's side of the family, I'm sure you've heard of the Schnee Semblance." Lumi said, almost as though she was reciting it, unable to keep the pride from her voice.
"I thought she asked me to tell me about yourself, not all your hand-me-downs."
Scarlet spoke immediately almost as if on instinct, only realizing a moment later how that actually sounded. Well, okay, she did mean it but she could've probably worded that a hell of a lot better. Definitely not her best move. Lumi was already turning a light shade of red. And before Scarlet could even mutter a half hearted apology, Lumi stomped up into her face- er chest, the height difference between them now far more noticable. Regardless, the pint-sized- Schnee was in no way intimidated.
"Excuse you!?" Lumi was almost speechless at the audacity of this woman. How dare she! Speaking of her legacy as simple heirlooms! One thing was for sure, she'd need to keep an eye on Goose from now on. Between this rude cow-girl and Belka, Goose was proving to have a bad habit of attracting unruly ruffians.
"Ugh, I don't have time for this, Goose come on." Lumi said, turning on her heel. Only to see that Goose had seemingly just wandered off. Again. Oh perfect, just perfect. Lumi then stormed off, muttering under her breath about the horned woman, definitely under the impression that Scarlet couldn't hear her. An impression that was sorely mistaken.
Jet smiled as he looked down at the dismantled parts of Hephaestus laid out on the table, the handgun as always was in pristine condition. It like most weapons could always be improved upon but there would be time for that later. For now he was going to make sure everything was ready for initiation tomorrow. If there was a single part out of place that needed touching up he was gonna handle it now. It seemed like the perfect time, Scarlet was still blowing off steam and Jin went off to meet up with an old friend he wanted to introduce. To him it was a perfect opportunity to do what he loved and lose himself in the process.
Deciding to start with the barrel since he'd forgotten to clean it after his last bout of target practice he reached out, seeming to grab at the open air before a green glow sprouted from his hand. Then pulling back a thin metal rod along with a matching barrel sized brush. Jet while not intentionally started to block out the rest of the world as he worked on the weapon. In fact he actually missed the new presence beside him at the table scrubbing away at even the tiniest bit of dust or residue.
The Moth Faunus, a girl by the name of Luna watched curiously as Jet moved on from one bit to the other, letting out a quiet 'ooh ' once he used his semblance to pull another piece of the cleaning kit from… whereever he was reaching into. The green light seeming to just spit out his tools. It was cool, and pretty! The boy went to place his brush to the side just as Luna was leaning in, spotting the white haired moth just to his side Jet instinctively jumped back startling Luna who squeeked out in surprise.
The two just sort of looked at each other for a moment, Jet's face clearly a bit weirded out while Luna appeared to be flustered at being caught staring the way she had been. Jet had several questions about who this girl was and why she had been staring at him, even if she looked fragile as glass it didn't change the fact that it was more than a little creepy. But before he could question it she waved briefly despite being only a few feet away.
"Uh, hi?" The moth girl said, her voice about as small as he would have expected. Reluctantly, and more than a little awkwardly Jet waved back, seeing Luna relax he tried to do the same.
"Hi…" He spoke, attempting to be casual which Luna took as a good sign, he seemed nice, nice enough at least.
"I think your semblance is cool. Is that light making your tools?"
His semblance? Of all things Jet could have expected that wasn't one of them and she seemed genuine.
"Oh, no I'm just grabbing it, like teleporting them to me." Jet explained without really knowing why, something about the girl was oddly disarming. The way she nodded along as she absorbed the information was certainly genuine, sort of like a kid learning.
"Coool." She said before taking a look back down at the spread of parts on the table. "Is this your weapon?"
"Yup, my pride and joy Hephaestus, a high caliber handgun with burstfire and full auto capabilities." Jet said with more than a bit of pride in his voice. He could have kept going, in fact were it not for the look on her face he would have.
Luna blinked as she processed the information, looking a little confused, Jet was prepared
"It doesn't transform?"
Oh, right, that was a bit unusual for Huntsmen huh? He probably should have expected as much, it wasn't the first time he'd gotten funny looks about his weapon's lack of versatility.
"Nope, he's lame like that." Scarlet said, seemingly dropping in out of nowhere once again spooking Luna who yelped. Jet was less surprised, that or Scarlet doing it just wasn't as weird as a girl he didn't know.
"It's efficient, and your weapon doesn't have a different mode either." Jet replied, dryly defending his weapon's honor by pointing out her hypocrisy on the matter.
Scarlet opened her mouth to retort but hesitated, unsure of her words, and soon after the window had passed and she just sat down next to Luna. Giving the other girl a nod of acknowledgement. That wasn't like her, she and Jet could go back and forth for a while before one of them got stumped. That along with the bare minimum introduction to Luna told him she hadn't quite gotten the bad mood out of her system.
"Wanna talk about it?"
"Half of the people at this school are assholes." She grumbled. "Like what the hell was up with that teacher? Jin was cool, then there was this nice girl in the bathroom I was venting with then her cousin or something comes in with an attitude and is just a bitch for no reason, her and her stupid hyphenated last name." Scarlet vented unintentionally making Luna scoot back a bit and look at Jet, who just made a waving motion with his hands to let her know it was fine. It wasn't the first time something had gotten her worked up and it probably wouldn't be the last thing to do so this week, there was no reason to let it bother them, she just needed to vent.
"Scarlet, your last name is hyphenated." Jet said matter of factly.
"Yeah, but I don't go around announcing it and going on about how I'm Scarlet Fall-Taurus, the baroness of having a stick up her ass!"
"EXCUSE YOU!?" The shrill scream startled all three of the teens, turning to see Jin standing looking just as startled and confused. And right next to him, face burning with fury was none other than Lumi stomping closer as if she thought she was intimidating. Which Scarlet doubted she would have managed to pull off even if she wasn't absolutely dwarfed by the monkey boy.
"Oh fuck." Scarlet groaned, letting her head hit the table as the pair approached. Jin gave the new girl a wave as he sat down next to Jet, looking back and forth between the girls, the animosity between them seeming to come out of nowhere. Luna similarly looked confused, already not knowing any of the people here and now apparently being an audience to some sort of spat. Looking at Jet who shrugged as he was similarly in the dark. Luna coughed before asking.
"Have you two met?"
"Unfortunately, What I want to know is how you two know each other." Scarlet said motioning to Jin who jumped at the opportunity to change the subject.
"Oh Lumi and I go way back, my moms are practically sisters with hers." He said putting an arm around the smaller girl, his bicep being about the same size as her head. The girl didn't even bother to hide her smirk or the way she leaned back into his arm as she looked right at Scarlet almost smugly. Scarlet just raised an eyebrow at the display of what she could only assume was possessiveness. Okay, that was weird. The petite woman looked up at Jin before speaking.
"This is the bruteish girl I was telling you about, the one who scared off Goose." She said, seeming to not notice or just ignore how the others at the table seemed less than pleased that she was continuing to push the issue. Jet even started to reassemble Hephaestus, sighing as he realized he probably wasn't going to have time to finish his maintenance. Scarlet similarly didn't notice, too busy rolling her eyes at the idea that she had 'scared off' anyone. The girl just didn't want to put up with the bullshit, which right about now she understood pretty well. "You're lucky my cousin found our aunt, otherwise you'd have a lot to answer for."
Scarlet had to hold back a laugh at that, this little girl was gonna make her pay? Oh she'd like to see that.
"Hey come on Lumi, I told you, these guys are cool. You guys probably just got off on the wrong foot or something." Jin said once again trying to steer the conversation in a different direction, or at the very least keep it from escalating.
"Fine, if she apologizes for being disrespectful that is." Lumi huffed.
"Disrespectful? You're the one who came in with an attitude. Disrespectful would be if I asked if you were in the right bathroom because of that ironing board you call a chest."
"Oh please, my figure is practical and efficient for combat. You're the one attempting to fight with all that extra weight in the front."
"Wow, I got big tits, nice dig Miss Arc-Schnee you get your shitty trash talking from mommy and daddy too?"
Lumi actually growled in response, slamming her hands on the table before standing up, Scarlet narrowed her eyes in response, daring Lumi to do anything more. As the tension seemed to build Jet holstered his reassembled weapon looking over to Jin who looked lost. Sighing Jet figured it was on him to at least try to dissuade this from turning into a brawl, which if Scarlet's scowl was anything to go on this was dangerously close to becoming.
"Look, I don't know what started this but you're way too worked up over it. Can you guys at least just try to talk it out?" Jet spoke up, Jin similarly tagging in before either girl could try to counter the other boy.
"Yeah, this is silly. Are you really going to fight for our whole time here because you were both in a bad mood when you met? I'm sure you guys would actually get along if you actually gave it a shot."
The two women in question stared at each other. Lumi seemed to consider her friend's words for a moment, she hated to admit it but he had a point, maybe she was being a bit petty. She'd been in a bad mood ever since orientation, or more accurately since Jin's aunt had acted weird around her. Jin was alright, and if this girl was his friend then she couldn't be all bad. Lumi similarly seemed to pause at being confronted by the boys, Jin especially, sitting back down and crossing her arms over her chest.
"Fine. I'll try and be civil." She said taking her set once more, though her scowl persisted which Scarlet attempted to ignore. As the tension died down, at least a little. Jin taking the opportunity turned to Luna, the moth girl similarly just pleased that the issue seems to have passed for the moment.
"Hey, I'm Jin, nice to meet you." The big faunus said with a cheerful smile. Putting the young Moth and Jet a bit more at ease, even as the other girls continued to shoot sideways glances at each other, pretending to ignore the other for the time being.
