Chapter 5: Thunderclap and Flash

"Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss"

Robin awoke with a quiet groan; it was the weekend again, the blessed weekend. No classes, the only sparring he had to do was one session with Dove. They even had game night tomorrow; no idea what game would be played, but, better than more mind-numbing classes.

His team was still mercifully asleep. Cardin would likely try and beat any thoughts of relaxation out of him. Maybe literally. He had zero fucking chill while training. Even Sky, who was generally the most laidback of the team, turned into a little hellspawn in spars.

Part of him knew they meant well, but it didn't make it any less annoying. He was constantly being dragged around and beaten to a pulp in the vague name of training. It might be working; he usually lasted a second or two longer in his spars with Dove than he used to. His stomach roared, interrupting his musing. His reward for accidentally making noise was a lazily tossed pillow hitting him in the face from Sky's side of the room as the boy curled further into his blankets.

He crawled out of bed and threw on his clothes. Quietly making his way out of the room. He was starving, which was strange for him. He used to never really eat in the mornings cause it made him sick, but that had changed when he got tossed over here. So to the cafeteria he went, in search of the slop that Beacon called food.

The massive hall was surprisingly empty as he entered, with only some of the staff and a scant few students wandering around. He was vaguely sure he spotted Professor Oobleck dredge his way toward a coffee machine. However, he chose to ignore that as he let his legs carry him over to the surprisingly delicious-looking stack of pancakes sitting, ripe for the taking.

As he walked over, however, his path was interrupted by a ginger girl and a boy with a pink streak going through his black hair. Part of his brain dimly recognized them. Nora and Ren, respectively. Both could likely easily kick his ass with a single hand. They were probably about to shout at him. Would that stop him from what he was about to do? No, of course not.

His eyes narrowed as he took in the two, and then he reached out and poked Nora in the face. "You. Move. I need pancakes. I need food. I have a family to feed, please. I'm begging you."

Nora went through a range of facial expressions, shock, anger, and confusion; all settled into a distinctly annoyed and unimpressed face. Even Ren's mask broke to allow some measure of surprise and, strangely enough, amusement to bleed through.

Finally, she seemed to recover enough to speak. "You're Robin, I assume."

"Wee, Nora–which is your name–you know what they say about assuming you make an ass out of you and me. You shouldn't be going around just assuming I'm Robin." He poked her again. "Going around just assuming I'm Robin is correct, by the way."

She sighed. "Didn't you just assume I'm Nora? Doesn't that make you an ass?"

Robin stared. How dare she use his own stupid logic against him! "You win this round… what do you want?"

Ren stepped forward to interject, which earned him his own poke from Robin. "We were hoping we could talk."

"We can talk over food." Robin offered and once more attempted to poke Nora, only for his hand to be slapped away by the irate ginger.

"Fine. Works with me." She said.

The three slowly worked their way through the food line in an uncomfortable silence. Eventually, coming to sit together at an empty table in the corner of the cafeteria. Prime lonely loser spot, which is where Robin sat most of the time when he wasn't here with one of his team.

"So," Robin spoke in between pancake bites. "What do y'all want with me?"

"The behavior of your team since initiation has been less than ideal. You, despite your flaws, seem to be the least problematic. We're hoping you might be willing to help deal with that." Ren explained slowly.

"Nope!" Robin said, popping the p.

The immediate response drew some confusion from the two, well less confusion from Nora, and more anger. "What do you mean no?" Ren spoke, still leading the conversation.

"I mean, nope. It's not my job to deal with 'em. I ain't their keeper." Robin nodded.

Nora interjected. "So you just don't care that your partner is the biggest bully in our year, and blatantly racist?"

Robin raised his hands in surrender. "Well, I mean, I do care; it's bad form. But it's also not my problem to deal with."

Nora balled up a fist and leaned over the table. Rage was clear as day on her face. Ren made no move to stop her. "I'll put it simply. Your team is bullying my friend. Either you deal with him, or I will."

Robin compressed a noise in his throat. "Alright, fine. You want to fight? Throw the first punch, and establish dominance like the world's most handsy uncle at a birthday party. Don't make a difference to me. It won't change shit."

She sat back down. Arms still crossed, glare ever present on her face. "Explain."

Robin leaned back against the wall. "Cardin won't stop if I ask him to; he'd laugh it off at most. And he won't stop even if you go and break his legs. Well, he would for like a week, but then he'd get back to it."

"So what do you think that gives you leave to just ignore the problem?" Ren asked.

Robin shrugged. "I ain't Cardin's keeper, and his problems ain't my problems. You said you wanted to talk, not deliver a list of demands, so let's talk. Preferably about something that ain't Cardin."

The suggestion to change topics didn't seem to calm Nora down at all, and she spoke again. "Alright, let's talk. Why are you such an apathetic ass? Your partner is a bully; you refuse to even make an attempt to stop him. Someone asks you to do something about it, and you still refuse entirely."

"That about sums 'er up," Robin said languidly. Like it didn't matter, there wasn't any more to say or discuss. "I'm a low-level pest at best, so just do whatever. Get it out of your system and leave me to my business."

Her expression retained the anger, but some level of pity entered her gaze as she spoke. "So what, you just content to sit and continue with your whatever? Not even willing to make an attempt?"

Something about the way she spoke, something about the pity. It sparked a low, warm anger in his gut. He closed his eyes to nod in order to both clear his head and physically process her words. "I don't reckon you are really in a position where you can look down on me for just choosing to live and let live. That's a mighty high horse you're riding there. Best be havin' a good saddle, or it'll chap that ass of yours raw a couple of miles down the road."

She goes silent for a moment as if processing his words. Then she let out a scoff. "Live and let live? That's what you're calling it. I call it enabling by not doing anything. I am going to do something; we were just hoping it'd you could help us avoid all the trouble in the first place. You're just willingly choosing to be a nobody, which takes real fucking effort in a place like this."

He flexed his fingers. It's not that she's wrong, not entirely, at least. He was enabling them in a way, if only so he could keep focused on his own goals instead of getting caught up in some playground dispute. But something about her words struck a chord with him.

"Do I gotta be somebody?" Robin makes a noise in his throat. Angry, a little lost, endlessly frustrated. He didn't want to be somebody here; he wanted to be home. "I ain't gonna deal with this shit. Kick Cardin's ass for all the good it'll do you. The only way he'll actually stop is if one of his victims actually does something or he gets bored."

He pushed off his seat and forced his legs to move as he walked out of the cafeteria. Stomach still mostly empty and endlessly frustrated. He didn't know how long he wandered like that, long enough for him to eventually have found himself back by the cliffside with a bottle of whiskey he had stolen from the teacher's breakroom in hand.

Whiskey was the panacea of the soul, and Robin was finding he had more than a tolerance for the stuff. The soul often needs its cures. So you drank to get them. But every time you popped the bottle and took a shot, it got that much harder to get that clarity you needed every time.

The days away from home had grown longer, and it didn't help that everyone seemed dead set on accidentally reminding him of it. It's why he was there at that cliff face again. He found himself there far too often these past few days since his conversation with Velvet. Whenever he needed peace or to think.

It all usually came back to one question. What was he doing here? He was confident he could have come up with better plans, better ways to get home. It was a strange sensation like he was trapped in his own body. It wasn't a physical sensation. It was something deeper, something more distinctly human in flavor.

The ghost of expectation.

Huntsmen was a word that carried many connotations in this world—warrior, hero, protector—the answer you got depended on who you asked. To him? It meant nothing, and yet he was supposed to be training to be one. To an extent, he was if only to serve a different purpose. But that could take him months, years, or even decades. Life waited for no man, and he had no idea what kind of man he wanted to even be in the here and now.

What was even the point? Nora had said for people at Beacon, it was almost a force of will, a conscious effort, to be a nobody. Maybe she was right. But trying to be somebody, someone of value didn't really feel like it was all as easy as she made it out to be.

Robin took another pull from the swill next to him. It provided a strange rush of clarity. Violence, instrumental violence. For the sheer adrenaline rush. For a purpose, a cause. Something about fighting to be remembered, to be a hero.

To be someone able to finally go back home.

His reasons were petty, not particularly heroic or high-minded. He had been going through the motions of training to be a huntsman because it was what he had to do; less likely for him to wind up dead.

Now he was going to do it on purpose, instrumentally. A fifth of whiskey in hand and a world in front of him. Robin supposed that's all he needed for now. As good a place as any to start being a real huntsman.

Note: This one I lifted a lot from v1 of this story cause I still liked that conversation. Sorta rushed to get it out, so if you see any errors or something that doesn't make sense, lemme know. I got classes starting up tomorrow, so expect chapters to be delivered with much less consistency. Side note does it feel like I'm brushing through stuff too fast? too slow? Just right? I ain't ever been the best with pacing. Aside from that hope y'all enjoy and have a wonderful day!