"What factors cost Vale the battle of Ert's Point in the Great War?"
Kad didn't really need the history book currently laying in his lap, he could have taught a course on the Great War from memory alone. But he had it just in case one of his similarly uniformed and unlearned peers sitting on the white stone garden boxes in front of him in the middle of this side courtyard of Beacon in between classes questioned his perfect memory one more time…
Ohh how Jaune ahhed and ahh how he ohhed looking up to the sky like it had the answers written somewhere in the clouds or on the green leaves fluttering overhead.
Ruby nudged her friend trying to encourage him, "Come on Jaune you said you studied."
"Yeah," Her fellow team leader said, "But I just don't know what Kad wants for…"
"Literally anything," Kad half growled.
His left arm shot up and pointed at Pyrrha trying to slink by and get into her partner's peripheral vision. "No one knows what your charades mean anyway Pyrrha so don't even bother."
The red head froze in place nervously looking back to Jaune. He groaned clenching his fists flexing his memory muscles. On Kad's right his two teammates Alicia and Jaxon were secretly enjoying watching Jaune squirm, this was what they had meant by saying watching Kad try and help tutor JNPR's bumbling leader was going to be good.
Jaune slowly phrased his answer, "Mistral… outranged the old fort with their… Modern battleships?"
"Is that a question?" Kad asked raising an eyebrow.
"No." Jaune flinched, knowing he messed up.
"So what was it then?"
"The battleships, definitely."
"And?"
Jaune groaned and slumped backwards almost falling onto the budding flowers. Ruby slowly raised her right hand and a solitary finger, Kad shifted his gaze over to her.
Ruby smiled, "And the Grimm who attacked the fort after the bombs stopped."
"Very good Ruby," Kad told her.
He looked back to Jaune, "No help this time. What town sworn to Vale switched sides and let Atlas escape the coast into the heartlands at the end of the first year of the war?"
While Jaune racked his brains for the answer one more Huntress in training let herself into their secluded spot. The tall blonde brawler Yang Xiao Long, looking for her sister and team leader.
"Hellllooooo!" She sang out to the six of them,
Ruby waved in greeting, "Hi Yang what'cha doing?"
Yang started smiling more the some of the others thought was necessary. "Oh you know, Yang'in out."
The boisterous blonde stepped over to Kad cross legged on the cobblestones and leaned her right hand on his broad left shoulder, "So I hope this isn't how you nerds were planning on spending your Friday when the Vytal Festival is starting."
Kad looked up at the intruder in his personal space, "They're starting already?"
Yang casually started inspecting the manicured nails of her left hand, "Something like that, Weiss says at least."
"Well then, drop everything the Heiress said something."
The blonde let out a little laugh and Kad couldn't keep himself from grinning just a little along with her at that little noise.
"Anyway," Yang continued, pointing her fingers around the group like she was holding an invisible pistol, "Any of y'all want to come down? Warm up for the bigger party later, if you know what I mean..."
She phrased it like an open invitation for everyone Kad assumed that was true, but he still wondered why Yang was looking right at him once she got done pointing around.
Jaxon spoke up, "We kind of have plans already."
She pouted a little for theatrics, "Really? On a Friday? You're not Lion are you?"
Jaxon bristled and his round feline ears flattened backwards, but Yang just laughed, "Yeah that was bad."
"Even for you Yang," Ruby agreed.
Kad started to stand, knowing he had to stop before Jaxon did something regrettable.
"Yeah, sorry Yang. Things to do, places to be." The giant said,
Yang put in one last ditch effort for Kad's attention. But she could never pull off puppy eyes as well as her sister and Kad had already turned away from that look coming from down by his elbow.
Jaune raised a timid hand, "Uh guys…I mean, Kad? What am I supposed to do about my tes-,"
Like a Frisbee, Kad took the very thick and very heavy history text and flung it straight into Jaune's stomach. The smaller boy coughed and folded over onto his face clutching the book to his no doubt bruised stomach.
"Read up."
Yang sighed in disappointment, "All right then, catch you around?"
Kad nodded, "Sure."
Alicia and Jaxon were giving their leader quite a look as all their peers left the courtyard to parts unknown for probably the entirety of the weekend.
"What?" He asked the two of them
"You didn't see that?" Jaxon asked, his mouth cracking open in shock.
"See what? I heard her pun…"
Alicia could not believe it either, "Are you kidding me?"
"What?" Kad growled.
"She was flirting with you, you big dumb-"
He cut his partner off mid insult, "Where's Co'Balt anyway?"
"Don't you change the subject!" Alicia shouted, "You don't think we should maybe talk about this?"
"No."
So the three of them did as they had intended to do all week, collected their last Faunus teammate and got to training. They sparred and trained for the rest of that night and carried on right where they had left off early Saturday morning.
The semester was drawing to an end and despite how all of team APRC had expected the schedule to ramp up, after a few finals there was really nothing to do. So Kad was having the team spend more and more time in the gym whipping them into shape for the upcoming tournament.
Even though he had no interest in competing himself.
Kad just wondered what would be the point.
He was still undefeated in all of the class rankings. Matches had pretty much just turned into him beating up other students because the teachers said so, Pyrrha was the only other student who everyone hated to fight just as much as him. Interestingly enough he had yet to face her one of these days he knew that would happen giving him more excuses to just say over qualification as the reason he wasn't entering the tournament.
And Cinder had told him to wait.
Glory in such a controlled environment meant nothing, strength was only proven in the real world with real challenges.
Right now he was taking on the entirety of his team who were trying their best to break through his guard as Kad backed up around the practice mat, chain wrapped left hand slapping Uzipho, Keila, and Detergeo away. Knife held back against his right forearm to block cuts and other strikes.
They all worked well together, timing their attacks moving around in unpredictable patterns. But to Kad they seemed to be moving in almost slow motion. Co'Balt snagged Keila in the chain and tried to immobilize that arm until Kad flicked the chain upward and almost brought Co'Balt off his feet. Jaxon lunged, right hand on the bottom of Uzipho trying to extend his reach as much as he could Kad switched his grip on his knife and their weapons smacked together. Kad pushed back and up, Uzipho flew out of Jaxon's hand as he stumbled backwards.
Alicia jumped forward striking for this opening almost catching him with an elbow to the stomach, but Kad brought his right knee up and caught her in the chest Alicia almost doubled over coughing out all the air in her lungs. Even the strongest warriors had little protection where Kad hit her.
She half leaned over trying to catch her breath. Kad shoved his partner away with his left hand that was still holding the chain tangled with Co'Balt's axe. Alicia crashed to the ground then Kad really dug his feet in and pulled his chain right. With Co'Balt still holding tight the Faunus's feet actually left the ground. And he seemed to float right in front of Kad who spun on his right leg then snap kicked Co'Balt in the chest.
Finally Co'Balt's death grip slacked on Keila and he flew backwards bowling over Jaxon who had just regained his balance.
Kad won. Again
The three of them were groaning on the ground tasting bitter failure yet again. Kad calmly stepped over to help each of his teammates to their feet.
Jaxon growled, "Not damn fair."
"It was perfectly fair, keep trying and one day you might actually hit me." Kad replied smiling,
Maybe they could hit him. No way in hell they would ever actually beat him.
Jaxon was serious, "Come on man, you sent Co'Balt flying like he was nothing. And he makes everyone here but me, you, Cardin and that guy Yatsuhashi look small. And you make all us look freaking tiny."
"Size isn't everything Jaxon."
Alicia snickered to herself…
"Dammit walked right into that," Kad noted in exasperation.
"Still, you're not normal dude." Jaxon continued.
The giant didn't know whether to take offense to that. It was partially true…
None of them wanted to go another round, even though they had the rest of this Saturday off and a long boring week ahead of them. So the team sat down on some nearby benches and exercise machines.
Jaxon had some ideas on what to do however, "Anyone want to go to town? I heard exchange students are going to start trickling in this week."
"Where did you hear that from?" Alicia asked
"Weiss was excited about it."
"Really? You two talked?"
"Umm, not really but I hear things." Jaxon tapped his left hand near his Lion ears for emphasis.
Kad wondered if that was the reason their resident Heiress had actually wanted her team to go to town yesterday. His partner seemed to have the same thought track on responding to that little trinket of information.
"We don't need to go to Vale and spy on them." Alicia said, "They'll all be coming to Beacon to be evaluated, and qualify for the tournament. So we can just wait for them to come to us."
As the giant turned over thoughts of the tournament and his working schedule for his team during that time, despite himself Kad suddenly felt they should do something rather than just waste the rest of the weekend in Beacon doing the same old things. Life was to be lived and time would be in short supply in the next few months and who knew when they would get another long stretch of days like these. A tiny musical note interrupted Kad's musing,
Beep. Beep. Beep.
His scroll was ringing.
His scroll never rang.
Anyone who wanted to talk knew where to find him. Kad was kind of hard to miss, he brought out the tiny device
New message text only,
Coordinates, down in the Vale business district.
And a time later that night,
From Cinder.
"Well, well, plans are moving." But Kad hadn't expected Cinder to be in the Kingdom again so soon.
The prospect was exciting,
"Maybe we could still go to Vale." He offered to the others
"Why?" Co'Balt asked.
"Meh, it's Saturday and we've really got nothing better to do. And we can offload some of our books we don't need anymore."
His team's body language suggested that they were probably on board, Kad stood and rolled his shoulders, "Come on, I'll buy lunch."
The airship was practically deserted when they boarded, they hadn't brought much aside from their weapons and their books that Kad was carrying by himself in a duffel bag. Kad and Co'Balt chose to stand for the flight. Jaxon and Alicia sat down on one of the benches beneath the massive bay windows.
All four were impatiently counting down the last few minutes before takeoff when Ruby, Weiss, and Yang boarded, just seconds before the ramp slammed shut. The three girls took seats a short distance right across from APRC. None of them looked happy, Ruby and Yang looked almost frightened while Weiss just seemed more irked than usual. But one thing immediately stuck out to team APRC.
Blake was missing.
"Something wrong?" Co'Balt asked their flight companions.
Weiss glared at him clearly wanting to keep this matter private. Not seeing her partner's icy gaze Ruby answered him,
"Blake ran off yesterday." She said.
"Why?" Jaxon asked.
Weiss spoke, "It's nothing you need to concern yourselves with." turning to stare daggers at the rest of her team.
Still APRC's resident lion Faunus pressed the issue, "Running off doesn't seem like Blake's style."
"It's not your problem," Weiss insisted.
Conceding defeat Jaxon crossed his arms and dropped the issue leaving the only sound in the passenger compartment the hum of turbines pushing air and the Faunus muttering under his breath.
Kad heard the word bitch more than once.
It was only a short flight down to town, so the awkward silence didn't last all that long. And the seven of them split off immediately. Kad knew Tukson's bookstore would be open pretty late so he wanted to enjoy the day. Plus he had promised everyone lunch.
"What do you guy think is up with RWBY?" Alicia asked her companions as they walked into the city.
Jaxon scratched his blonde hair thinking. "I dunno. Maybe they finally noticed Blake's a Faunus and it didn't go so well."
Alicia stopped in her tracks mouth open in surprise, "Wait, What? She's a Faunus? Wh-?... How do you know?"
As the boys came to a stop as well Jaxon's face suddenly went red with embarrassment and he started stuttering. "Ummm, she ahhh… Smelled... different… You know…"
"You smelled her?"
"I couldn't help it! And it wasn't intentional. You know some Faunus just have better senses than Humans. And… and… Co'Balt knew too!"
"Only because you told me." Their other teammate stated.
Alicia couldn't believe what she was hearing pressing her right hand to her forehead like that would quell the little headache that had suddenly afflicted her.
"I'm surrounded by males," She muttered, "Kad did you know?"
"Yes." The giant replied nonchalantly.
That little fact was a shock to all of them. Neither Jaxon nor Co'Balt had told him. They all looked questioningly at their leader wondering how the hell he had found out.
Kad answered their unasked question, "The sunlight was hitting her bow weird one day when she was standing in front of me in the library."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Jaxon asked,
"You know I mind my own business."
Kad felt he needed to set the record straight with Jaxon. Knowing his teammate was on the verge of developing a rather harsh opinion of his callous outlook and attitude.
He only wanted people to stand up for themselves I this world, nothing else mattered.
"So what if she's a Faunus," Kad said, "So what that you two are Faunus? I don't care…"
Words from his mentor Cinder echoed from his memories, and Kad chose to share them, "No one should be thought of as anything less than their potential to change the world brother."
Jaxon developed a sudden interest in the pavement. He couldn't help it, defaulting back to old ways of thinking ones that he wasn't proud of. Jaxon had just never met anyone quite like his leader. Kad had only been accepting this whole year, and here Jaxon was nearly thinking of him as any other rotten human.
There was no room for bigotry at Beacon.
The giant gripped his shoulder reassuringly, there was nothing more to say on the matter.
"Come on, daylights' burning."