"Happy birthday Kad."
The growing boy in black looked up to his guardian in confusion, kneeling on the red carpeted floor of the stateroom of this Atlas hotel. It was early in the day, Emerald and Mercury had yet to rise from their beds across the hall. And Kad only just came in from his night out in the city to find Cinder waiting for him.
He had expected and eagerly awaited another test or task from Cinder. But this had surprised him.
She straightened up from her relaxed stance against the long glass table, "You came to us exactly one year ago today." Cinder said answering the unasked question.
"Why is that so important?" Kad asked,
Cinder almost smiled, "Some think it's important to mark the anniversary of a birth."
She saw him putting that through his clever mind working that logic,
"No," Cinder told him, "We don't know when you were born, but today is momentous anyway is it not?"
Kad didn't feel any different than he had yesterday or the day before that, and he suspected he would feel the same tomorrow to. Why Cinder was doing this he didn't understand.
The pyromancer spoke again, "So what would you like to do today?"
But now Kad felt surprised, she never asked him that, "What do I want?"
Cinder gave a half sigh, choosing not to be frustrated at his simple ignorance, "Birthdays are generally about the person whose it is. So, what would you like to do today? No training no missions, what do you want?"
She did care,
"Can we go to the market?" he asked, "The Vytal festival is starting."
"Of course, this is your special day."
Life quickly returned to as normal as possible in the weeks after the Grimm broke into the city. Beacon became busier than ever preparing for the tournament which was only days away. Classes had been cut back to give the future competitors more time to train. The sounds of mini games and practice duels could be heard all over campus. Some organized by students, most by staff members.
Kad brought up the training staff to block Cardin's wild overhead swing. There were various sizes of these staves meant to simulate whatever weapon a student might be using. Kad just grabbed the first one he could find. A quarter staff meant for a much smaller person, he had been swinging it around like his sword. Cardin found a heavier one similar to his mace.
This training room was full of students at the moment, whole teams and individuals getting in some exercise late in the day. Kad and Cardin's companions were out running a few laps around Beacon right now making use of the last few hours of daylight left. Kad had stayed behind to try and give his ginger acquaintance a few tips, after watching Cardin bash Dove in the head again yesterday during a team match.
Cardin wasn't much of a challenge however, Kad felt like he was just going through the motions. Cardin always fought trying to break through the guard of whoever he was facing, it made him predictable. And to Kad he looked like he was moving so slow, even though he could hear Cardin putting all his strength into each swing trying to get past the spinning staff in Kad's hand.
Others were stunned by the relationship that had developed between the two teams. CRDL had come to realize after a few pointed remarks from Kad that being the bullies on the outer fringes of Beacon's social circles was going to get them nowhere. APRC were willing to work with them more than others, they saw the benefit of having a wildcard ally. No one from either team would say they truly liked the others but the mutual respect they had gained during the incident with village security was a strong core for potential.
The four bullies lessening their racism towards Faunus with their growing exposure to Co'Balt and Jaxon showing them how similar they could be, teenage males training to be warriors. And simply falling in behind the lead of APRC's giant leader.
Kad knew bringing in the errant bullies would raise him up in the eyes of everyone else.
Someone whistled over on the other side of the arena. Curious, Kad stepped and slammed a knee into Cardin's guts ending their bout. Cardin fell to the ground clutching his bruised stomach, spitting and drooling on the floor.
Over at the doors Alicia's new friend Sage and his rag tag team from Mistral had waltzed through the great doors like they owned the entire academy. The monkey Faunus who appeared to be their leader swaggered into the training area waving red gauntleted hands to team JNPR, who for once were all present and training at the same time.
Cardin moaned down on the floor mat, "Lucky shot…"
"That's you only excuse for everything isn't it?" Kad asked in return.
"Uhhh,"
"Get up, you're embarrassing yourself."
"Fuck you."
True friends.
Professor Goodwitch entered the room shortly after the new arrivals, it always happened. She never missed a chance to personally come down when there were large numbers of her students in the training room.
No one knew if it was because she cared or was just obsessive.
But they all knew what happened once she arrived. Everyone cleared out the center of the room and stood around the outer walls waiting to see who she would choose to have a practice duel.
Their teacher spoke, "I know you all are eager to begin but this is a special occasion."
Murmurs broke out through the crowd. Cardin tapped Kad's left arm to get him to lean down within easy speaking distance.
"How many holidays could Beacon possibly have?"
"She said special occasion," Kad said, leaving out the idiot, "Not holiday, and this seems spur of the moment."
The professor raised her right hand in the air to signal silence. The room did quiet down considerably but Kad could still hear a few scattered whispers which he tried to tune out as Goodwitch began again.
"A few of you may know this team, team Sun, SSSN, they have been visiting the kingdom these past few weeks preparing for the Vytal festival, but would like to have a place at Beacon for a short while. As you all know we like to have even our visitors earn their place here. So I have reviewed their transcripts and have decided to let them take the first step."
To some of the team in question that didn't make any sense. The Faunus Sun stepped forward raising a hand smiling sheepishly, "Professor?"
"Yes," She asked, unamused.
"Ah… First, step?"
"Our entrance exam. All of these students here have taken it. This should not be a problem for a group of your talents."
To answer his continued silence Goodwitch gave one of her rare smiles. "Your initiation of course. Professor Ozpin doesn't see the need to have you sent through the Emerald forest. So I'll let you face a few of your, possibly, soon to be classmates who have completed our traditional test."
The four of them looked at each other a little uncertainly. And they found no comfort in the wolfish grins the students of Beacon were giving them. The professor turned and looked right at Kad.
"Would you like to be first Mr. Amaranth?"
He sighed quietly to himself and tossed Cardin the training staff. He had his knife and chain on his waist but Ignis wasn't with him at the moment. He didn't touch either of those weapons as he walked out. Goodwitch looked back at the team silently willing one of them to come forward and face Kad.
"Come on, all of you let's go." Kad told them,
"What?" The shorter red haired one asked suspiciously.
"Why waste time? You're all here so am I, come on…" He brought up his hands and flicked his fingers back towards himself in an unmistakable gesture.
Neptune came forward smirking.
"I got this." He told his team waving them back while pulling the gun off his back.
Kad watched fascinated as Neptune's rifle glowing with energy shifted into a large polearm tipped by a curving blade that split in three when Neptune spun it around and brought it up to his ready position blade facing back to his left.
The Mistrali Huntsman leapt forward high in the air, stabbing for center mass while he fell down at the giant.
Barely even registering Kad bringing up his hands. Giant fingers wrapped around the weapon beneath the blue shining blades with his right, and punched Neptune backwards through the air with the other.
He fell hard on his shoulders, bounced up balanced on his head for a second and then fell flat on his stomach, coughing and clenching his fists on the floor. His three friends stared wide eyed at Kad while the students broke out in laughter. The giant spun the weapon around once and planted the blade on the ground.
"Come on now," He taunted them with a smile, "Haven't got all day…"
Scarlet drew his small cutlass with a flourish, while Sage pulled the massive broadsword off his back and settled his hands on the black padded hilt. Together the two of them slowly advanced while Sun stood back to help Neptune up.
The four members of SSSN weren't the only new arrivals hoping for a permanent place at Beacon. At the moment Ruby and Yang were awaiting a new transfer student at the air dock with a request to greet them warmly and bring the new student to Professor Goodwitch.
It wasn't odd for established students to welcome late arrivals, it was certainly the most exciting job team RWBY had received in a while, but still boring. A few of their members were put off by their slide from the spotlight and their return to more mundane school tasks. Professor Ozpin hadn't spoken to them at all since the Breach. Ruby and Yang assumed Qrow's temper had gotten the better of him and he ripped into Ozpin convincing him not to put their team into such danger anymore. Which didn't appear all that necessary, things had been very quiet.
The two sisters were letting their thoughts wander, scanning the grey skies, chatting about nothing in particular.
"I wonder what weapon they'll have." Ruby asked her older sister.
"Something, that's for sure." Yang replied dryly humoring her.
They had been out at the landing pad for half an hour already. First a little early just in case, but now patiently waiting after the stated time for the mystery student.
And Yang's patience was starting to run thin.
She moaned and leaned back slightly on the concrete block they were sitting on, holding her hands on the top of her head. Ruby giggled quietly,
"You could always go join Weiss and Blake in the library."
"No," Yang answered, her tone low and nearly venomous. Sitting here wasn't exactly how Yang had planned to spend her day. Lately she had been trying to figure out some of the schedule for the free time tournaments. And if her calculations were close she was probably missing something right about now. She could have maybe been there, if she wasn't waiting here.
The games were a good distraction for her focusing her mind on something other than the mystery girl who saved her life on the train.
And had literally been in her dreams lately.
It wasn't Yang was willingly dreaming of her savior, the girl literally came into her sleep to talk. Yang hadn't told anyone about this, despite how disturbed she was by these occurrences.
Raven, that was what she said her name was but Yang had no idea what she wanted. Multiple times every other week it seemed she would meet this girl outside of Beacon in a dream. Half of the time she would force herself to wake up in a cold sweat then stay wide awake until morning. The other half she would be forced to listen to Raven try and coerce her to come meet her in the city, telling Yang about threats and problems she wanted help dealing with.
The White Fang, a shadow conspiracy, the Atlesians, even the council and the leader of the Hunters.
Yang had thanked Raven for saving her life, she knew she probably owed the girl more. But their method of communication that the blonde had no way of stopping and what she was implying threw up more than a few red flags in Yang's head.
While they were musing an airship finally broke through the clouds and drifted down towards Beacon. Both sisters were surprised, they hadn't been expecting an Atlesian gunship.
Two and two clicked together for Ruby. Yang came to the same conclusion when she finally recognized the orange haired girl who walked out of the ship wearing a pink bow atop her head, dressed in a white blouse and green highlighted overalls and black stockings.
"Salutations!" Penny greeted them with a smile, raising and waving her right hand.
"Penny!" Ruby shot to her feet, smiling excitedly, "You're coming to Beacon?"
Penny's smile dropped with uncertainty, "Perhaps," she replied, "My father and General Ironwood are letting me visit today. And they said if I do well in the tournament then we could, talk about it…"
Ruby smiled some more, Yang's smile was a little more forced. But she was glad one of her sister's new friends would be closer.
Seconds ticked by without anyone making a suggestion on what to do. The awkward silence was broken by Ruby when she slowly started to speak up.
"Uhh… We don't have to get you to Goodwitch right away," She offered, "So like we could show you around? Maybe the library-,"
Yang stopped her right there, there was no way in hell they were going to waste any more time being boring.
"No, no, no," She said, "You want to see what's really worthwhile at Beacon, step this way."
Down in the halls near the gyms Ruby and Penny were politely listening to Yang go on in her own way about how Beacon was so much more exciting than other schools, more missions, more combat classes and mini tournaments than anywhere else in the world.
The Xiao-Long tour came to an abrupt halt however when Sun and Neptune crashed through one of the training room doors and slid to a halt in front of the trio. A pair of Sun's gun-chuks slid to a halt at the tip of Yang's combat boots.
She picked it up and stood over the two boys trying to right themselves. Neptune waved awkwardly trying to stand on his hands and knees, all his limbs trembling from the beating he had taken.
Roars of excitement echoed from where the two of them had been flung from.
Sun didn't say a word, he swiped his weapon back from Yang and rushed back into the fight. Ruby helped Neptune up to his feet. He swayed a little and brought his hands to his forehead, rubbing his eyes blinded by a throbbing headache.
"Is everything alright?" Penny asked the blue haired boy,
"No, my… everything just, uhh…" He leaned back a little further, groaning and doing a mental diagnostic to feel if he was hurt as much as it felt like he was.
Sage swung again, but his sword only cut through empty air and then the floor. But his target wove to the side and slammed an elbow into Scarlet's head. Sage tried to track the giant, but only saw the blur of Kad spinning, ducking down and sweeping his right leg out into the back of Sage's knees.
Scarlet was lucid enough to try and bring his pistol up to shoot. But he barely cocked the trigger back when Kad kicked Scarlet's left arm back and then pressed his foot down on Scarlet's right arm laying across his stomach and crushing the air out of his lungs.
The three girls and Neptune who had decided to save himself some bruises, entered and shifted through the yelling crowd trying to find a good vantage point for the bout.
"I told you!" Yang shouted to Ruby and Penny, pulling them both into headlocks. Ruby to her right and Penny to her left. "Never a dull moment!"
Sun pole vaulted over Sage. Somersaulting across the floor up to his feet and swinging his bo-staff down at the man standing on his teammate. Kad brushed the weapon aside, adjusting its course with his right hand and reaching for the monkey Faunus once again with his left.
Sun ducked and felt the giant hand brush through a few strands of hair. He rolled past Kad, over Scarlet spun and struck low.
Kad brought his boot up off Scarlet and caught the staff with his shin. Letting Sun hang out of his reach for the moment, so the giant swung right and backhanded Sage high on his bare chest knocking him down again.
Sun took his staff in both hands and spun, jabbing one end then the other back and forth trying to score a hit.
Kad wouldn't have said he was playing with them, even though to a few spectators it certainly looked that way. Sun was moving faster than many people he had fought before. He admired the coordination needed to use the staff with speed. Sun split his weapon twirling four separate sections chained in twos, striking, spinning, releasing one and then grabbing another. Juggling the parts driving back Kad who had to use both of his hands to brush the barrels away from his body.
He heard the quiet telltale sounds of gun mechanisms clicking in the red spinning tubes. Sun swung the left nunchaku. Kad caught the barrel pointed at his head and forced it aside. Sun fired anyway training rounds scraped the side of Kad's head making his ear ring.
He pulled the gun towards him and struck Sun with a vicious left hook to the head.
The Faunus blacked out for a moment as he fell to the ground and rolled on his left, but he came too quickly and saw Sage back up on his feet, sword raised and pointing at Kad who was smiling as he began to circle the green haired boy.
Turning his back on Sun.
Shouting and jumping at the same time, Sun latched onto Kad's shoulders and wrapped the remaining half of the staff against his throat. The chain digging into iron muscles while Sun kicked into Kad's spine and pulled backwards.
On reflex Kad's fists went to his throat and gripped the small gold chain. Slightly surprised Sun was up again, but not noting any disaster yet. Sun had only forced him to act one way. The giant turned and dodged Sage's attempt to tackle him, sticking out a leg and tripping the last of team SSSN onto his face.
The Faunus on his back refused to let go through these swaying motions. Kad reached up his hands back over his head and grabbed two fistfuls of Sun's shirt, bent forward and threw him off forward.
Sun turned in the air and came down on his feet, holding his weapon out in front of him ready to keep fighting.
"That's enough now." Professor Goodwitch stepped in between them ending their bout. Students all around were still whistling and cheering in excitement. She looked tot her scroll and then at the trainees who had fought.
"Well done Kad," She scowled a little looking at the two boys on the ground and Sun still excitedly rearing to go, "Put that away Mr. Wukong, you did well."
After for a moment mulling over the duel in her head she spoke to the victor, "Mr. Amaranth what do you say?"
He gave one small noise of amusement, but nodded his head in a gesture of respect, "Hmph… They'll do." He said with a smile, offering a hand out to Sun.
Professor Goodwitch turned and started a small little welcome speech for the four new arrivals as they all in turn shook with the giant. Ruby, recently escaped from her sister's grasp, turned to tell Penny to go introduce herself to the professor.
But Penny was frozen in a blank stare at Kad, confusion all across her face. Ruby gently pushed on her arm trying to get her attention.
"What is it?" Ruby asked.
Yang noticed this as well but read Penny's features completely wrong.
"New girl smitten with the champ, huh?"
"What? No!" Penny said, embarrassed by the blonde's tone and implications. She was very grateful that everyone else seemed to be focused on the professor.
Yang just smiled back over her shoulder as she walked away to go get a recap of the fight from team JNPR.
Penny looked back to take another look at the one who had just single handedly beaten a whole team. But found she couldn't see him.
One, Yang had distracted her for a crucial moment and two, Professor Goodwitch had finished up and dismissed the students who all moved around back to what they had been doing. She was not the tallest person in the world and there were many larger students standing between her and where she last saw the giant.
Ruby tugged on her white sleeve.
"Come on," She said pulling Penny towards Professor Goodwitch and Sun's team.
"Ruby can we talk for a minute?" She tried to ask her red friend, but Ruby only smiled and pulled her up alongside Sun's team who were all listening to what Professor Goodwitch was telling them to expect once the tournament had fully begun.
Ruby interrupted the professor, raising a hand and smiling shyly.
"Yes Ruby?" Goodwitch asked,
"This is my friend Penny," She pulled the android girl over to her side, Penny had stepped away briefly looking around scanning the room again. "She wants to come to Beacon, be a Huntress, fight in the tournament, and-,"
"Enough Ruby, thank you. Yes, Miss Polendina, Professor Ozpin told me to expect you. Welcome to Beacon.
Kad didn't have any concept of time in these visions while he slept. He thought some were recent, but others seemed decades or millennia past. He didn't know, but they were still preferable to the old nightmares. Yet he was still disturbed by them.
He stood before a group of Magi and the Fabricator-General of the Mechanicum. Many bowed and listening scribes diligently copying the words he spoke to them of their compromises and promises before the treaty was formalized.
The light of Mars bathed him from behind making his robes glow and enhance their vision of him as the Omnissiah. He cared little for their claims and false idolization, but it had helped him avoid securing their assistance through conquest.
More deals and taboo he outlined to build their future beliefs.
"Neither development or study. None shall shape any Sillica Animus, under pain of death thou shall not make any intelligence fully self-aware and free of human control…"