Ch. 8 Teams formed
"Yang Xiao-Long. Sky Lark. Pyrrha Nikos. Cardin Winchester. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team SWNY."
The auditorium erupted in applause from the older students much like it has several times before.
"Led by Sky Lark. Congratulations young man."
"Cocra MacMahon. Blake Belladonna. Maroon Tailor. Weiss Schnee. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team BSMT."
"Led by Blake Belladonna. I'm sure you'll use your skills well."
Blake was somewhat horrified by the revelation, but she supposed it could have been worse. She could have been stuck with a Schnee as a team leader.
"Jaune Arc. Lie Ren. Ruby Rose. Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team RNJR."
"Led by Ruby Rose. I expected great things from you and your team."
Ruby's eyes went wide. Led by? But she was the youngest. Did she have what it takes to lead a team?
Jaune put a hand on her shoulder with the intention of congratulating her, but before he could do so Nora beat him to it by tackling her in a bear hug. Ruby barely stayed on her feet, though she did stumble into Jaune for support.
"Congrats Ruby, thanks for not leaving me alone with three guys!"
=O=O=O=
As the dust of initiation settled and the teams retreated to their rooms, team RNJR unanimously decided to take a shower and go to sleep early. The next day would be the first day of school and it simply wouldn't do to oversleep on such an important day.
Ruby was the first to take a shower. A perk of being team leader as well as a girl. Nora went next and Jaune let Ren go before him.
Years of living with his sister's had beat into his head that going last meant more time he could spend in the shower. Not that he often would, since hot water could be scarce after all his siblings had their turn.
In Beacon though he didn't have to pay mind to such things. And so after a long day he finally relaxed under the hot water.
His mind still in high gear from the events of the day he contemplated many things. For example how all of his teammates sans him had put down their initials on their hygiene products.
Ruby had a chocolate scented conditioner and a strawberry scented shampoo and bodywash combo. Jaune's teenage mind couldn't but imagine what her hair would smell like. Maybe similar to how chocolate dipped strawberries would taste.
Surprisingly Nora had elected to go in the practical direction of a three in one conditioner, shampoo and bodywash. Ren on the other hand was the only one of them who actually had a different bottle for each.
Jaune closed his eyes as he washed his hair with his own three in one shampoo. Though as he moved his hand to turn on the water once more he managed to knock over a bunch of the bottles.
Jaune silently growled at his own clumsiness, a habit he had picked up from his master. He was vaguely aware that it could be perceived badly by some faunus so he tried to keep the habit in check while in public.
As he pondered this, the soap finally washed out of his eyes and he elected to pick up the bottles from the shower floor. Luckily all had been sealed well and so there was no waste. Jaune smiled a little as he remembered a time when he accidentally spilled some of Solei's expensive shampoo and got yelled at by her.
They were precious memories of his family and he intended to make more memories with his new team.
When Jaune got dressed in his pyjamas and exited the bathroom he got hit in the face by another memory in the making. It would seem that Nora had started the construction of a new blanket fort. Jaune barely had enough time to note that Ruby and Ren were absent before Ruby returned in a flurry of rose petals, arms full of more pillows and blankets.
"Hey Ruby… where did you get those from?"
"Oh, I requisitioned them. As a team leader I have some new functions added to my scroll. Furniture comes from the team budget, so I didn't touch that, but blankets and pillows are free."
"That seems like a bit of an oversight… No way that hasn't been abused before."
"It is likely that the teachers would react to anything excessive. So long as we don't go overboard we should be in the clear." Replied Ren as he too returned bearing more building materials.
Jaune closed the door behind Ren and went to assist Nora and Ruby in constructing the fort. After all, the sooner they finished, the sooner he could sleep.
Luckily for everyone involved, Ren managed to convince the girls to incorporate the curtains and more importantly the window into the fort's wall. This meant that they could get some airflow. Jaune, being the most familiar with things catching fire, made sure that the ceiling light was a little distance away from the blankets that formed the new ceiling of the fort. They also collectively decided to leave some space outside the fort. This made it so that opening the doors to the room wouldn't lead into the fort but instead into something of a hallway that led to the bathroom and the fort entrance.
Overall, the girls were ecstatic at the creation. Ren was suffering in silence, but Ruby at least let him have the bed closest to the window, so that he could get at least some air. This of course led Nora to claim the bed next to him. Ruby then took the bed next to her leaving Jaune with the bed next to the entrance.
The beds had gaps just wide enough to walk between them, though Ruby noticed the gap between Nora and Ren was just a little bit thinner than the others. In fact she suspected that if Nora had her way, the gap would eventually cease to exist. She wondered briefly about just pushing all the beds together, but then the thought of sleeping next to Jaune flashed through her mind.
Jaune noticed the mild blush on Ruby's face, but attributed it to her taking a shower recently, or running around who knows where to get the blankets, or maybe it was just the rising temperature in the fort. Subconsciously he probably knew why Ruby would blush, but tried not to think about it, otherwise his face would be dyed red too.
=O=O=O=
When morning came Jaune awoke first. He elected to take a shower first, so he took his clothes to the bathroom. When he exited he was already wearing his brand new Beacon uniform. He took a bit longer than he expected since the tie gave him a bit more trouble than anticipated. But with the help of drawn instructions he found on his scroll he managed.
When he entered the fort, the others were still sleeping, so he elected to rouse Ruby so she could exercise her privilege as a team leader and decide, what to do next.
He noted with a bit of amusement the sleeping mask she was wearing. It had red grim eyes on it, he had noticed as much before they went to sleep. What he only now saw was that they were in fact of the glow in the dark variety and had a soft glow to them.
Jaune gave a quiet chuckle before softly shaking Ruby's shoulder.
"Uhhhh… ten more minutes dad."
This added to Jaune's amusement.
"Ruby, wake up, you have team leader duties to tend to."
Ruby sat up with a start. She quickly lifted her sleeping mask and started looking around. Jaune put a finger on his lips and whispered again.
"Ren and Nora are still sleeping."
"What time is it?"
"A little after six in the morning."
"So why did you wake me up!"
Ruby raised the volume of her whisper ever so slightly.
"I've been awake for an hour already… I get lonely easily." Joked Jaune.
"Seriously though, it's your call to have a shower or wake them up or do whatever else. We might want to make a schedule for the mornings so that we don't all try to use the bathroom at the same time. "
"That's a good idea, remind me later. For now I'll take a shower. Be right back."
Ruby quietly gathered her things and left for the bathroom.
In the meanwhile Jaune took his sketchbook and sat down on some pillows that served as a work area. There were desks and chairs in the room, but they have all been appropriated to become the foundation of the blanket fort. So instead they have sectioned off a piece of the floor to serve as a workspace and left some pillows to act like seats. Ren said something about getting a coffee table to put there eventually.
For now though Jaune just wanted to kill some time, so he made some idle sketches of some more armour pieces. They weren't actual designs, just various pieces he thought could count as a weapon. Unfortunately he had a hard time with designing pieces other than gauntlets. The best he came up with so far in other places was basically a pair of steel toed boots with a large spike affixed to them. No mechashift or anything, just a spike he could kick the Grimm with.
Ruby soon finished with her morning hygiene and exited the bathroom wearing her uniform together with her cloak.
"Time?"
"Little past half past six. You take quick showers."
Ruby narrowed her eyes a little, not sure what to think about the offhand remark.
"I don't mean anything by it. I have a bunch of sisters and they take longer, is all."
"Oh, right. Well I kinda know what you mean. Yang can take forever with her haircare routine. It's the reason I try to hurry myself up. Also the reason why I keep my hair on the short side."
"You can take longer if you want, I wake up early anyway so I can just wake you up in the morning."
Ruby, who was busying herself with getting her school bag ready for the day, froze up when she heard that remark. A part of her was almost certain that Jaune meant what he said at face value, but the anxious overthinking part made other connections. Does Jaune prefer longer hair? Maybe she should have her hair longer like Yang. Or does he want to do more in the morning while the others sleep?
Ruby shook herself out of those kinds of thoughts. Anxiety together with the mind of a fifteen years old girl sometimes led her down strange strings of ideas. Luckily for her Jaune wasn't really paying attention to her in particular as he was still trying to figure out a piece of armed armour that didn't look stupid.
"Right so uh… what are you drawing?"
"Oh just some ideas. I made a gauntlet with a hidden blade and my semblance recognised it so I'm trying to figure out more armour that counts as a weapon."
"Oh yeah, you did say something about your semblance back when we first met. We really should discuss our semblances as a team. I think that should be one of the topics of our first team meeting."
"Well we can do that after classes end for the day. For now we should probably wake those two. I'd really think they would have woken up by now, what with us talking."
"Well I have a thing just for this…" Ruby pulled out a whistle and put on an evil grin.
"Ruby, it's still kinda early. The neighbours are going to hate us if you do that."
"Awww, you're no fun."
"I'm not telling you you can't do it. Just the consequences."
"And you're right… It just sucks having my diabolical plans thwarted."
"Well, if you want my advice, I'd say waking up Ren first might be safer. From what little I know about Nora, trying to wake her up might end up with you in a vice grip of a bear hug. Ren seems to be a safer bet."
"Gasp! You would throw Ren under the bus?"
"When it comes to Nora? Yes. Also did you just say "gasp" out loud?"
Ruby didn't even bother to rebuke the totally baseless accusation. It totally wasn't because she talked to people via text and online chats more than face to face. Nope, totally not it.
She instead went over to the curtain and opened them, letting light into the fort. That alone seemed to be enough to make Nora bunker down beneath her covers. Ren barely reacted to the light illuminating his face. A few arm taps later however he awoke. For a little bit he was silent and just observed his surroundings.
"I take it you want me to wake up Nora?"
"Uh, yeah I hope you don't mind."
Ren looked them both in the eyes before sighing.
"Honestly it's probably better than Nora waking me up. Her version of waking people up tends to involve what would conventionally be called wrestling moves."
Ren got out of his own bed and leaned down to Nora's head. He then whispered something and Nora sat up abruptly and with force. She looked around for a little bit before yawning and slowly getting out of bed.
"I'm going to take a shower."
And with that one sentence, she left. Jaune and Ruby looked at Ren in awe, like he was some kind of a beast tamer.
It was only when Nora returned from the bathroom did they realise that she did not in fact take her uniform with her, nor in fact any clothes and was now covered in a bath towel. Jaune and Ruby looked to Ren for an explanation only to catch him exiting the fort towards the bathroom, similarly with just a towel in his hands. They both turned to Nora on reflex only for Jaune to nearly jump out of his skin.
Jaune quickly looked away, he may have grown up in a household filled with women, but he spent the last few years with Cobalt so he wasn't nearly as accustomed to these situations as he might have been otherwise.
"Ruby, please add the topic of casual nudity on the list for the team meeting."
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
Hopefully you enjoyed this little slice of life chapter. The teams are Sunny, Bismuth and Ranger. And yes, Ranger is green.
As for addressing the concerns with team SWNY, canonically Sky is mostly a background cowardly follower and participates in the wrongdoings of team Cardinal, but we don't really see him as the instigator. Or really see him much at all. Without spoiling much, I'm trying to keep him in character, but he doesn't have much of it originally.
All the characters have issues. That's a part of what makes them interesting.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, hope you look forward to the next chapter: Ch. 9 First day of class