"Hey… So I just wanted to say thanks" the blonde boy said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his mop of hair with his hand.
"Hey man, you're welcome and all… but thanks for what exactly?" Rye responded.
"W-oh-I…" he stammered before moving closer and whispering, "There are only three people in this school who know about… the transcripts, one is my partner, and the other is putting me through some crap for it. I just wanted to say thanks for… well not doing that"
"It's all good" Rye responded with a smirk, putting his hands out casually.
They just stood there in the cold night breeze on the roof of the dorms. The walkways were almost silent save for a few Valian guards and the occasional student hiding or being told off for breaking curfew.
"So someone's doing something to you about this?"
"Nah, he just found out and is being a bit of a jerk about it…" the boy admits awkward as ever.
"And your partner? Ms Nikos right? I can't imagine she would've responded well" Rye inquires.
"Yeah, Pyrrha… she's actually been giving me training ever since I told her" the boy responds, his tone more upbeat when not talking about being bullied, "Speaking of which, I should introduce you to my team sometime, you already met Nora last week and if we're both in the same boat maybe we can learn from eachother"
" we are absolutely not in the same boat" Rye thought, getting hit with flashbacks of Jaune getting 'his shit mixed' as Verana would've said, "Sure, I'm down to make friends" he replied rather casually, " it won't hurt to get to know Ms Argus Invincible either".
"Great! We get lunch at… we're all in the same cafeteria but just… just come around and we'll save a seat for you"
"Looking forward to it Arc, see y'round" the faunus responded with a sly smile before walking off with a wave.
Sat between the two teams Rye found himself in the uncomfortable position between fiery and electric personalities. The blonde on his right fist pumped the air at the idea suggested the person she called 'Sis', " it's her sister, idiot" he corrected, not dropping his metaphoric aura to facepalm. He'd met her with a monkey grip handshake, not a flinch despite the pain, " maybe it was just the shock" he thought, remembering how the force of her thumb almost snapped his forearm.
As if that hand hadn't been through enough punishment in the past hour the ginger girl had insisted on 'dapping him up'. Some Valian thing where you just high five eachother but sideways, " apparently with the force to make me worry if I need an x-ray" he thought to himself, having learnt very quickly to keep his aura up around these people.
He'd done what he did best though and had been rather energetic himself. He cheered on the idea of Yang's sister, playing supportive to the new crowd, "That sounds AWSOME, I ought to try that with my team. If you don't mind me plagiarising of course"
"Oh that isn't even the only one, we've got freezerburn, ladybug, checkmate, checkers, strawber-"
"We did not agree to that one" Weiss Schnee interrupted the excited but nervous girl coldly, " who'd've thought"
He didn't need an introduction for her, the symbol, the copious amount of dust, and the fact that she and her sister had been in every tenth tabloid since he was five made her pretty easy to figure out, "So you're on a team with the Weiss Schnee?" he asked excitedly, gesturing out to the girl who'd put herself at the centre of attention.
"Well, I'm glad someone" she shot a glare at the monochrome girl on the other side of Yang, "shows me the respect" a glare at Yang this time, "my family name deserves" she replied, " is that smugness or confidence? They might just be too blended together at this point" he thought, keeping the words in his head far from his lips.
"Princess, I hate to break it ta ya but we learn how to fight Grimm here, not competing businesses" Yang shot back with a smooth lean back and her arm on the backrest of her chair.
Rye let himself laugh after her two other team mates did (or smirk and snort a little in the case of the bow wearing one). It wasn't so much the joke itself but more the Schnee's reaction to it, the way her face scrunched and reddened, shattering her proud and pristine composure like ice.
"Come onnnn, lighten up Ice Queen, even your fans can't resist my charm" Yang pressed, patting Rye on the back roughly, "or should I say… Yarm?..." she stood there with a big stupid grin, her eyes darting between her now silent lunch time audience.
"I don't know what that was but you shouldn't have pushed it" Jaune responded, just across from Rye, separated from Weiss by Yang's sister.
"So, you bust be the B in team RWBY? Or are you the R?" Rye broke the silence to ask the quiet girl, a mix of confidence and teasing in his voice.
"I-uh, my na-um" she stammered, her silver eyes peeked out at him from under her red hood, "That's my sister, Ruby. She's a bit shy but don't mind that, she's looking for friends" Yang said, clearly mixing her supportiveness with teasing at the end.
The girl almost burst out of her hiding place at that, stammering and babbling to try (but fail) to save face, "So R then. Well, pleased to meet you Ruby, I'm Rye, the R of team ERGT if you didn't catch that" he said casually, not extending his hand out to the girl who really didn't look particularly into human contact, instead choosing to just nod at her.
He could see her hair now, he didn't know how the red cloak wasn't a dead giveaway but the unique two toned dark brown-red gradient hair was the final piece he needed, "Hey, you're the scythe girl right? My teammate won't stop talking about you"
She perked up suddenly, "S-she likes it. Well, how couldn't she, it is pretty cool huh?"
The sudden fast and high pitched voice that was pitched at him combined with the breakneck speed which her tone changed from nervous smol bean to prideful bragging startled Rye, "Y-yeah, she's mostly into the transformation part, she said she always envied the students at signal who had that stuff under wraps" he admits, blurting out a little info told in confidence in the shock, not that he had any qualms with that stuff.
"Signal? Oh! Does she know Yang? She also went to Signal?" Ruby said, her excitement mellowing a little… not by much though.
"Ruby, I'm pretty sure most of the people here went to Signal" Yang explained.
"Surprisingly not that many people did, everyone on JNPR is from Anima and I'm pretty sure you two are the only ones on your team from Vale" the Invincible Girl explained with a smile, her tone calm and noticeably different to how he'd ever heard her talk.
"Yeah but that's just the exception, Rye, what about your team?" Yang asked, turning to him for answers she would be disappointed by.
He knew they weren't the answers she was looking for but he couldn't exactly lie about his own records considering the reason he was there in the first place, "Well I'm from Mistral" Yang groaned, "but Ethan is from Sanus".
"Hey, I'll take a half point" Yang said with a playful shrug.
Slow and irregular footfalls crushed the damp crimson grass. The forest was well lit despite the density of the red trees leaving the world in an (admittedly) beautiful warm palleted hue of red fading to orange fading to yellow. Ethan didn't normally consider such things to be beautiful but he had to admit, he understood why Forever Fall was such a famous part of Vale.
He wasn't a fan of Professor Greene's stealth class but at least he understood its use, unlike Professor Peach's plant science class. His current task, prevent the target team, RWBY from reaching its destination, roughly westward was team JNPR and CRDL past them, forming a wall of patrols across the wide forested canyon.
His team was spread out over the slanted ground of the side of the canyon, Rye was positioned the highest among the trees. He'd have thought he was a monkey faunus if his file didn't say otherwise with the way he was running between the trees with his sickles letting him swing like the aforementioned animal. He kept an eye on him, his partner wasn't paying attention.
His partner had propositioned his team the day prior, offering for them to meet up with and on occasion sit with another team. An interesting team, the highlight being the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, he accepted the proposal on account on the prospect of a valuable chance at such a marriage. The others were less of note, it appeared their team had the same pale dark dressed loner issues as his, another was bullheaded and… less than appropriately presented, the last one was rarely seen outside of her bright red cloak or in a ball of rose petals. Similar to the one that passed between trees in the corner of his eye and blended in with the canopy.
He was known to be the most perceptive of his adopted brothers and was sure of what he saw, he drew his copper blade, Legacy and entered a guard close to his body. He didn't speak, as much as he disliked the course he still learnt what he could of the advantages of surprise, and instead he pinged his teammate's scrolls.
Somewhere he heard the crash of a snapping branch followed by Rye's yelp, likely falling in surprise from the ping.
Standing before him was Yang, and on the other side of her, an Ursa. The bear like Grimm took a swipe at her only for the golden girl to jump over its arm and uppercut it, the recoil of her gauntlets shooting her straight back down to her feet.
A trio of Beowolves turned to Ash in the wind behind him; it took him too long to notice the next wave of the pack moving in on their position.