Author's note:

Trying out LibreOffice for this one. If anyone has any other methods that have worked for them, I am open to suggestions. And yes: historically, the midday meal used to be called dinner, and the evening meal was called supper.

City of Vale, Commercial district

Monday, August 19th

Eventually, Lorasson's meeting with Ozpin and Goodwitch came to a close. They had both agreed that Mephala posed a serious threat, which needed to be addressed, and so agreed to help him however they could. Ozpin offered him a place at Beacon, temporary as it may be, as an "advisory consultant." He would be offered temporary room and board in the faculty housing, and would also receive a modest stipend of local currency, for expenses. He could attend lectures, observe practical exercises, and had full use of any and all facilities on the grounds.

The girls, of course, had been much overjoyed to hear that he would be joining them when he relayed the news. They both decided to treat him to "lunch" and an afternoon in town as a way of celebrating. This word they'd had to explain to him, as the midday meal had always been known to him as "dinner." The building they took him to was a small affair consisting of only a single floor at ground level. A sign read "Bill's Grill." Reading it brought a slight smile to his face. He and his mother had often engaged in rhyming wordplay when he was a boy.

They took their seats, whereupon they were greeted by a young man who identified himself as their "server." He began by asking them what they wanted to drink, starting with the girls.

"I'll have a 'Kerry-Cherry,' please." Ruby said politely.

"I'll have a mango lemonade. Thanks."

The lad turned to him, "And for you, sir?"

Lorasson was still trying to decipher the menu's beverages section, "Do you have any ale?"

The server shook his head, "Unfortunately, we're not licensed to serve alcohol here, sir. Is there anything else I can get you?"

"Um…" The Nord was at a loss.

Yang chimed in helpfully, "He'll have a 'Doc Holler.'"

He nodded, smiling, "I'll be right out with those!"

Lorasson was about to protest when Yang held up a hand to reassure him, "You'll like it, trust me."

"Never heard of a place that wasn't allowed to serve ale or wine," he said, once the server had brought their drinks.

Ruby shrugged, "Might be that not enough people over eighteen come here, so it's not worth it to pay the fee or whatever for a liqour license."

He cocked his head in confusion, "You have to be of a certain age to partake of drink here?"

They looked at each other, and nodded back at him. "Do they…not have that in where you come from?" Ruby asked, incredulous.

Before he could answer, Yang pounced, "Wait, how old were you when you first drank?"

He told them the truth, without hesitation, "Five."

The reaction was immediate. Ruby very nearly spit out her drink, and Yang's lemonade seemed perilously close to coming out of her nose. It was a long few moments before either of them recovered enough to speak.

"Five?!" Yang managed to squeak out, barely containing her laughter.

"You could drink booze when you were FIVE?" Ruby exclaimed.

"It grieves me to disappoint you so, but it wasn't quite the strength of what the men would drink."

"And how old, pray-tell, is a man in your culture?" Yang asked, beginning to collect herself.

"Twelve, by most reckonings." He replied.

"Still really hard not to imagine you as a tipsy five-year-old." Yang giggled.

He shook his head, and took a sip of his "Doc Holler." The taste was unlike anything he'd had, the small bubbles popping in his mouth adding to the unusual sensation.

"By the Nine! What is th-" His words were interrupted by a loud belch, the likes of which he hadn't made since the last time he'd been muddled with ale. And with that, the laughter started once more, with Lorasson joining in, until his face ached. It had been quite some time since last he had laughed that hard.

When the time came to order food, the girls ordered on his behalf, the dishes listed on the menu being utterly foreign to him. Before long, their meals were brought out to them on white plates. As they ate, they discussed what exactly it was he would be doing as Ozpin's "consultant."

He shrugged, "More research on anomalies and events of a magical nature in Remnant's past, to start with. Past that, there's not much to tell." Not being permitted to tell them about the possibilities he had discussed with Ozpin was beginning to gnaw at him.

Ruby raised an eyebrow, "What sort of 'anomaly' would cause something like that? Is something bad going to happen?"

He held up a hand, "What we don't know, we don't know, there's no use in speculating. And, if this event did indeed happen in your future, then I'd mark that there's only one way to find out."

They seemed as satisfied with his answer as anyone could be.


After they had paid for their meal, they took to exploring the city. Though to Lorasson's mind, it was less of a city, and more of a labyrinth of impossibly tall stone and glass monoliths. Some were as tall as the White Gold Tower in the Imperial City, and a few were taller still. He gazed up at them with no small sense of wonder as they trekked through the teeming metropolis. At one point, the girls had to physically stop him from walking across the street to get a better look at something. They had explained to him rather emphatically that there were certain crossing points that one must use in order to travel safely on foot among the innumerable horseless carriages that roamed the city's rough, black-topped roads. After a few hours of perusing various shops and attractions, their number fell by one. Yang explained earlier that she had planned on meeting a friend later that evening, and had caught a "bus" to another part of town.

"Well," he looked at Ruby as the large carriage departed, "Where are we off to next?"

She pulled out her Scroll and consulted something that vaguely resembled a map of sorts, "Here," she said, pointing to a small icon on the display, "One of my friends from school recommended this place, it's just around the corner."

The sky had grown dark as the sun slipped behind one of the massive glass towers. The moon was full tonight, the shattered orb luminous and ever-prominent in the night sky, even among the glowing streetlamps and lit windows of the dense urban sprawl. At the end of a well-lit promenade was the pair's destination, a modest, single-story shop bathed in warm light. A sign stretched across the two front windows flanking the door. "From Dust Till Dawn," it read.

The owner, a stooped and balding old man, welcomed them in as a small bell chimed with the opening of the door. "Feel free to look around. Be sure to let me know if there's anything you need," he rasped.

The pair both nodded politely at the man, and went their separate ways, Lorasson gravitating towards the "Books" section, while Ruby perused a section containing recorded musical albums. As he browsed the various volumes, his attention went back to the door, as the bell chimed again. He used his height to peer over the shelves. A man in a white garment and a black hat, ginger hair covering one eye. He was flanked by five men, clad in black and red. His voice was plain, but had the air of a threat.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a Dust shop open this late?" One of his henchman produced something that could only be a weapon and leveled it at the shopkeeper's head.

"P-please! Just take my Lien and leave."

"Shhh, calm down, we're not here for your money," he turned to his left, "Grab the Dust."

At once, the henchmen split up, one grabbing the crystals from behind the counter, with three more going for the large dispensers on the left side of the shop. The last one began to prowl through the rest of the store, heading directly for-

"Hands up, big guy. Turn around, nice and slow."

The Nord did so, palms facing outward. Distracted and crept up on that easily? He supposed he really was getting old. The thug must have spotted the towering figure as he approached one of the wall-mounted Dust dispensers.

"Empty out your pockets. Now." The weapon was all but pressing against his forehead.

He prepared to say something terribly clever, but was interrupted by a loud crash to his right. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the thugs go flying through the store's right front window. The movement proved to be a fatal distraction for Lorasson's opponent. Noticing that his quarry was left-handed, he swatted the weapon away with his right hand, and tightly wrapped the wrist under his left arm, making a fist to tighten the hold. His right hand went to Kinzon, and in one fluid motion he drew the blade and buried it in the man's left eye. The fine, clipped point drove clean through the skull, poking out the other side.

While the first had died without a sound, his companion, having been already alerted by the commotion on the right side of the shop, noticed the sudden flurry of movement ending in his partner's demise. He gave a startled shout, and opened fire. Amidst the deafening cacophony, Lorasson kept his composure. In an instant, he had released his dead quarry's weapon hand, and cast a protective ward spell. The second man's projectiles sparked harmlessly off of the magical shield, and when he ran dry of ammunition, Lorasson seized the initiative. Withdrawing his blade from the corpse's skull, he switched to an underhand grip, and hurled the weapon at his second foe. Kinzon flew the short distance in a straight line, and terminated in the man's right shoulder.

The man dropped to a knee and screamed again, this time in pain and shock at the grievous wound. Lorasson covered the distance in a few quick strides, pulling the cloak from his right hip and drawing the other weapon it had been concealing. In an instant, the war axe Deinmaar was in his hand and swinging down towards the head of his hapless prey. Ozpin had advised him to keep his use of spells and shouts to a "practical minimum," to avoid drawing undue attention to himself. He figured that wards and simple elemental spells wouldn't raise many an eyebrow in this realm.


Roman Torchwick was not, by nature, a patient man. Of course, he understood that in this business, things rarely went according to plan, though idiocy and incompetence were not on the list of things he begrudgingly tolerated. Still, he was a bit surprised to see Hatch, the outfit's newest member, fly through one of the shop's windows. This surprise was further compounded by the sound of Berno shouting something, then the sound of gunfire. What he heard next, however, made him feel something he hadn't admitted to feeling in quite some time. There was something primal about hearing a scream of pain violently cut short. The pit in his stomach was fully realized when he saw what stepped around the corner.

The first thing he saw was the look on Ramer's face. Even concealed by his sunglasses, there was no hiding the fear. The hand holding his curved sword was visibly shaking, and it wasn't hard to see why. Someone who looked an awful lot like a Huntsman had just killed both of the gunmen they'd brought along for this job. Torchwick had been anticipating any number of complications with this particular stick-up. A fully-fledged Huntsman killing two of his men in a matter of seconds hadn't been one of them. He looked back and forth between the two problems that had surfaced, one on his left, and one on his right. He didn't enjoy having to get his hands dirty, but with two men gone, he didn't have much choice.

He spoke loudly and decisively, "Get the kid, I'll handle this one."


Lorasson looked to his left as his would-be opponent dashed behind his white-clad master. The man in white tossed aside the small roll of tobacco he'd been smoking, and cracked his neck.

"Got anything to say, big man? Or, let me guess, you're one of those strong, silent types?"

Lorasson said nothing. He sheathed Kinzon and shot an ice spike at his new adversary, aimed directly at the man's face. He barely managed to dodge it.

"Looks like you've got some Dust of your own. Maybe I'll relieve you of that, go home with a little extra score," He raised the slender walking cane he'd been holding. He pressed a button and a small circle with a crosshair in the middle flipped up near the cane's hollow end. A massive blast of energy surged forward from the end of the weapon. Though it was easily dispersed by the ward that Lorasson cast, the impact was enough to move him back a few inches. Glass vials on the shelves to his left shattered, and his mind was called back to yet another lesson his father had taught him. If you find yourself fighting inside an inn or a shop, take it outside. Start smashing furniture or merchandise, the owner gets concerned about his bottom line, and the guards get called.

So, as soon as the ward had done its job, he charged. Hard, fast, and without a sound. As he crashed into his opponent, he hit him, hard, across the face with his left fist. Maneuvering towards the door, he shoved the well-dressed man away, and kicked him in the chest, sending him all but flying through the door. Reeling from the impact, he fired another shot from his cane, missing his mark by several feet and blasting a hole in the sidewalk. As he recovered, he looked to his right to see Ruby locked in a lethal dance with his remaining henchmen. Lorasson seized the opportunity, forcing him into reaction rather than action. He launched a powerful overhead strike with his axe, which his opponent deflected poorly, the force of the blow knocking him off balance. He followed up immediately by drawing Kinzon in a reverse grip with his left hand to slash his foe across the abdomen. He tried to leap back at the last moment, but the tip of the blade caught him still, opening a gash in his belly. He reeled backwards and bent over, clutching his abdomen and gritting his teeth in pain, when a noise caught his attention.


Both men heard it, Torchwick recognized the sound of the turbocharged six-cylinder as it approached. Their backup getaway driver had heard the gunfire, and had sped down the mostly deserted street towards the fight. The Huntsman saw the rapidly approaching vehicle heading right for him, and tried to throw up another one of those shields that he'd used earlier. Probably his Semblance. The small van plowed into him, shattering the shield and sending the towering Huntsman tumbling down the street. The kid was running over to him now, having dispatched the last of his crew. He was about to sprint over and make his getaway when the lack of any more engine noise stopped him in his tracks. The impact had killed the motor completely dead, fluid visibly leaking onto the street, just behind the massive dent in the vehicle's front end. Frantically looking around, he spotted another escape route. He made a beeline for a nearby building with a ladder reaching down to street level.


The impact had been terrific. Though the ward had kept him from serious harm, he had still been thrown some distance by the collision. As Ruby rushed to his side, he slowly, and painfully rose to a knee. She looked back and forth between him and where their adversary had fled.

"Don't worry about me! I'll catch up," a quick healing spell relieved the worst of the pain as he stood, eyeing his weapons on the ground not far from him. She nodded and sprinted towards the ladder that their bleeding quarry was now climbing. He eyed the ladder wearily. No way are you climbing that fast enough to catch them. It was as he recovered his arms that he remembered he wouldn't have to. One of the last spells he had learned from Neloth, the Telvanni grandmaster, levitation had been a particularly tricky one to master. Even now, it took all of his concentration as he floated up the side of the building, carefully timing his ascent to make it at least appear as if he had used the ladder. Ruby, of course, hadn't bothered, simply using the blast from Crescent Rose to propel her to the rooftop. As he and Ruby approached the well-dressed thug, Lorasson noticed a peculiar noise, something between a whine and a screech. The man muttered something under his breath as the source of the noise crested over the rooftop. A large, winged airship that vaguely resembled a whale. He had seen one earlier that day in Vale's airport, the girls had called it a "Bullhead." As the white-clad man stepped aboard, he turned and tossed one of the red Dust crystals that Lorasson had seen stolen from the shop, and raised his weapon.

"End of the line, Red!"

He reacted on pure instinct, moving his body to cover Ruby and casting the strongest ward he could muster. His surprise at what happened next was two-fold. First, that he felt no discernible impact from the explosion. And secondly, that he could see Glynda Goodwitch standing directly in front of them. Where had she come from? He watched as she pointed her small black riding crop at the Bullhead. He had seen it earlier, tucked under her arm, and had wondered as to its purpose. This revealed itself now, as several streaks of violet shot out from its end and streaked towards the airship. As they reached their target, they exploded, rocking the large vessel back and forth. Lorasson looked on as Glynda rained down a hail of ice shards onto the Bullhead, and saw that the white-clad man had stumbled out of sight, replaced by a long-haired woman in a red dress.

The exchange between Glynda and the unknown woman was a sight to behold. For all of Ozpin's claims of how rare magic was in this world, such a scene looked to the Nord like a spirited debate between two adepts of the destruction and alteration schools. Still, he thought, you could blast that ship out of existence with a word if you wanted to. He cast a look at Glynda, and his visage spoke plainly. She met his gaze, and shook her head. Not now. Not yet.

So, for his part, he simply pelted the ship with his own ice spikes. Ruby joined in the effort as well, opening a rapid, aimed fire with her folded scythe. These were both for naught, as the woman in red appeared to easily repulse their attacks. Then, after a wave of her hand, circles of glowing embers appeared under the trio's feet. Lorasson recognized them as something akin to destruction runes, and gave a hard shove forward to the woman on either side of him before casting another ward behind him. The fiery blasts enveloped them, flames licking the edges of his ward. As they dissipated, he stayed crouched, taking a moment to center himself and recover his strength. His head was lightly throbbing from the urgency of his spellcasting. Before his days at Winterhold, such an exertion would have left him half-dead. Something in the back of his mind told him that a harder test of his spellcraft was yet to come.


Academy Admissions Offices, Vale Ministry of Education

Later that night

Part of him understood why Glynda was being so short with her. The other half wanted to tell the uppity woman what she could do with that riding crop of hers as she used it to give the youngster a literal slap on the wrist. As if you've never done anything reckless at that age…

"Don't think too harshly of her," a familiar voice came from behind him.

He turned. Ozpin was heading for the door leading into the small room. He was carrying a plate, piled high with small biscuits. Freshly baked, he could tell, as the scent of chocolate hit his nostrils. Lorasson raised a quizzical eyebrow.

Ozpin flicked his eyes towards the door, "I tend to prefer the carrot to the stick." And with that, he made his way into the room.


Beacon Academy

Tuesday, August 20th

The flight to the academy proper had been uneventful, save for one boy's bout of sickness. For his part, Lorasson had hung towards the rear of the cabin, hood drawn over his face, as to not draw attention to himself or prompt questions he could not answer. After last night, he had added to his own list of questions. What was that remark about her eyes? He had failed to get an answer out of either of the professors, which only furthered his wariness. He was the last off the airship, and after bidding the girls a fruitful first day, he made his way to where he would be quartered for the time being.

There was a man waiting for him by the small block of apartments, short, with grey hair and a sizable moustache. It was clear that he recognized the Nord, even with his hood still drawn over his head.

"Mister Lorasson! A pleasure to make your acquaintance," he stretched out a hand, which the Nord shook firmly, "Peter Port, professor with tenure here at Beacon," he made a grand, sweeping gesture at the surrounding campus.

"Harald Lorasson, Thane of the Nine Holds. Forgive me, but I was told I would be paired with a Professor Oobleck? Where is he?"

"Ah, yes! Bartholomew's away on assignment, I'm afraid. We're expecting him back by tomorrow. If you ask me, it's best that you have some time to adjust before he's stuffing your head into some dusty old tome!" The man laughed heartily, and then reached into his pocket, "Anyway, your apartment. It's two-oh-one, on the second floor to your right. It's one of the furnished units that we use for temporary staff."

Lorasson took the small key in his hand, "Thank you." He shook the man's hand again and went on his way.

The apartment was modest, but also clean and well-appointed. Locking the door, he went into his bedroom and doffed his armor. He realized then that he was able to smell himself, and opted to take a bath. A long soak in a hot tub was just what he needed after recent events. An hour later, he was freshly bathed and toweled dry. Looking at his own clothes, he realized that his arming doublet and hose were in dire need of a wash as well. Surely they didn't supply me with any clothes? Yet, when he looked in the bedroom closet, he found that Ozpin and Goodwitch had seen to that eventuality as well. Looking at the other side of the closet door, he found a small note stuck to it.

Harald,

I trust these will fit you. Glynda has an excellent eye for size!

-Ozpin

He inspected the unfamiliar garments. There were several of them, tops and bottoms, as well as two pairs of shoes. There were undergarments as well, of some unknown black fabric which felt almost like silk. He took one of the doublets. Thin, with the grey color of a storm cloud, it had buttons running all the way down its front, quite the oddity to his mind. Hanging it on a hook, he took a pair of long breeches. Dark blue, these were also fastened in the front, with a button and some mechanism that, to his eye, almost appeared Dwarven in make, by its color and its design. The fabric stretched as he handled it, and it appeared in texture to be almost like sailcloth.

He considered his options. Between giving off an offensive odor, and wearing unfamiliar raiment, the choice was rather clear. Trying his best to mimic the way he had seen others in the city wearing such garments, he carefully donned his new attire. Ozpin had been right, Glynda's eye for his measurements was almost perfect. The doublet fitted rather snugly for his tastes, but not uncomfortably so. Even the brown leather shoes fitted just right, a matter of grave importance in his experience. One of the first things a Legionary learned was to care after his feet. He looked at himself in the mirror. The crags and lines were all still there, but his eyes seemed somehow different. He looked closely. Yes, he thought, there is something different about them. They seemed renewed, purposeful once again. And he knew why. He spoke to the reflection.

"Time for another adventure, wunduniik."