Author's note: And now, we get into the next phase of the story. From here on out, every other chapter will focus on my OCs and their actions in Menagerie.
I tried to take inspiration from Log Horizon in regards to the writing and pacing, but I'm not sure how well that worked out.
Argent walked through the gym of Alpha Academy, overlooking his students' training. Plum, a gorilla faunus with purple eyes, caught his attention, whose massive arms allowed him to bench-press almost twice of what a human would be able to with his level of training. Just as Argent wanted to keep looking around, he noticed Plum slipping, followed by the boy panicking as he realized it himself. Ochre, an ocelot faunus, tried to catch the dumbbell, but realized it was too heavy for her. Argent rushed in and caught the dumbbell with his tail.
"Everything alright?" Argent asked and said, "You know, you should get a spotter who can lift the weights you lift. Otherwise it kinda defeats the purpose." He put the dumbbell back on the rack, and Plum sat up.
"Yes. Thanks, Sir," Plum answered, turned to Ochre and said, "Sorry. I guess I need to work on that." He wore maroon shorts with cuffs just above the knees, as well as a simple white shirt with the sleeves ripped off to accommodate his arms, while his long, silver-white hair reached down to his waist.
"It's fine," Ochre said, "We all have our problems in life." She wore an orange mini skirt with black bike shorts underneath, cream-colored sandals, and a plain white top with shirt sleeves. Her dark brown hair was tied into a ponytail resembling the one sticking out from under her skirt.
"No, it's not fine," Argent said, "Plum could've gotten seriously hurt, or worse, and as a teacher at this school, I can't let that happen." Both students let their heads hang, and Argent felt their regret and shame wash over him.
"Alright," both said in sad unison.
"Look, I'm sorry I got upset," Argent said in a softer tone, "But the thing is, this was really dangerous, for both of you. Plum, your arms are already strong enough. Make sure your legs can keep up, and you'll be a fine huntsman one day. And Ochre, you shouldn't be so forgiving when people make mistakes that put them in danger. It's true that we can't completely prevent bad things from happening, but we can still make them happen less, and make sure they're not as bad as they could be."
"Alright," Plum said, cheered up again, cleaned up the bench and went to wait until he could exercise his legs. Ochre took a moment to ponder Argent's words, but then also seemed to regain her spirit.
"Got it. Thanks, Sir," Ochre said, pondered for a bit and then asked, "Can you spot me? I'd like to get stronger too, so that I can help people better in the future."
"Sure thing," Argent answered and stood behind the bench, while Ochre adjusted the weight on the dumbbell to half her own, laid down on the bench and grabbed the dumbbell with both hands. While she started lifting the weight, Argent kept an eye, and his seismic sense, out for any students that might run into trouble.
~o~
Niob returned from another flyover of the area surrounding the school, and several winged faunus landed behind him. Following his example, they slowed down as they approached the landing pad, then walked away from the edge to lose the rest of their momentum and allow the next student to land.
"That was incredible," Taimi, a bat faunus, said, and his green eyes lit up with excitement. He wore simple brown sandals, with shin straps to ensure they wouldn't fall off mid-flight, green cargo shorts and a plain white t-shirt with a low-cut back to allow his wings to unfold properly. His black hair was short and unkempt, since air travel would ruin any haircut he had anyway.
"Agreed," Sakura, a green pheasant faunus, said, although her pink eyes showed very little expression. She wore simple brown sneakers, white socks, black pants, and a sleeveless white crop top with rectangular cutouts around her neckline, allowing her wings to move freely. Her light purple hair was kept straight.
"I hope today was a valuable lesson," Niob said after the last student has landed, "You got a first taste of aerial combat, and soon, we will practice carrying weapons in flight. Winged faunus are rare, while flying Grimm are not. This means you will have to fight against enemies that outnumber you by dozens, maybe even hundreds. But when I am done training you, this will be no issue for you. And speaking of weapons, feel free to ask me if you have any ideas for what you want your weapon to be."
"Can I get a sword?" Sakura asked, while the rest of the faunus were still processing what Niob had told them. When Sakura stepped forward, Niob briefly focused on her aura before answering, to get a sense of what kind of ability her semblance might be, and quickly learned what he needed to know.
"Of course," Niob answered and asked, "Is there a specific kind of sword you had in mind?" Sakura paused for a moment and listened to her gut, just as Argent had told them to do on their first day.
"No, none in particular," Sakura finally answered, "But I do know that I want a sword. I guess I'll just try different types and see what I like best."
"Alright," Niob said, turned to the rest of the group and asked, "Does anyone else already have an idea what weapon they want?" He pulled out his scroll and noted down anything the students told him, though he had to turn down some requests, such as a massive war hammer, and remind students that they will have to carry their weapon while flying, too. Afterwards, he went to the training area, where students were already practicing with simple weapons, to get a feel of them and find what they wanted their personal weapon to be.
"I think a… pole-arm would be nice," Taimi said and grabbed a naginata, "Maybe I can add a gun barrel to the handle."
"Very good idea," Niob said, "Being airborne also negates the main issue of larger weapons, since they can't exactly catch on anything."
"I see," Taimi said and asked, "Can you show me some things I can do with that?"
"Of course," Niob answered, "Watch." He took another naginata and walked over to one of the training dummies, and showed off some poses for offense, defense, and battlefield control. The training room slowly fell quiet as more and more students looked at their teacher, who was completely engrossed in his work.
~o~
Sirena waded into the water, followed by a group of aquatic faunus. However, since none of them had gills, she had to start slowly, and first help them get a feeling for the water, before she could take them to under water combat training.
"So, what do we do today?" Giallo, an eel faunus, asked. He wore blue shorts and a white t-shirt, with the back removed to accommodate the fin on his back. He had yellow eyes, and his light brown hair was cut short.
"Today, we will simply focus on getting you accustomed to the ocean," Sirena answered, "I will be teaching you to extend your aura to the waters around you, giving you greater awareness of your surroundings, while eventually also letting you breathe under water. Now everyone, close your eyes, and try to sense where I am walking." Her students followed the instructions and drew the toy guns she had given them, which fired foam darts. When Sirena started walking around the knee-high water, she had to remind herself not to remove her water friction to hide herself.
"Got you," Viridi, an archerfish faunus, said and fired a foam dart that barely missed its mark. He wore green shorts, a beige t-shirt, and had fins on his lower arms.
"Almost got me," Sirena said, "Keep it up." She quickly changed her location, and then continued walking slowly, while the younger faunus tried to sense the vibrations in the water. She felt tempted to speed up the process with Mentor, but decided against it, since her students needed to develop the proper mindset as well, or risk underestimating the dangers of the sea.
~o~
The day after most of the young faunus had decided on their weapons, Argent's entire team oversaw their students' training, to ensure that everyone handled their weapon properly. Most of the students had also switched up their attire, with the first outfit being donated by the school.
"Alright, let's see how good I am," Ochre said as she took her place at the shooting range. She had opted for cowboy boots, black pants with a brown leather belt that held two holsters for her twin revolvers, and a brown shirt under a light brown tailcoat.
"Try to keep up, sis," Omer said when she walked up to the spot next to her. She wore black leather boots, brown pants, a white shirt under a black vest, and black gloves. Additionally, all of her black clothes had yellow fur rims.
"Bold words for someone without a weapon," Ochre said and fired two shots at the target, but missed.
"Well, I know who to call if a wall-shaped Grimm attacks," Omer said, "And who said I don't have a weapon? Watch this." She held out her left hand, and an intricately designer revolver manifested in it, with a small ocelot tail dangling from the handle like a key chain.
"Since when can you do that?" Ochre asked as her sister took aim.
"This morning, I think," Omer answered, licked her lips and shot the target. Seeing her just barely graze the edge, Ochre decided to take that as a challenge, and both opened fire to see who could land an actual hit first. Talia pulled out her scroll and checked both girls' aura levels, and saw that, while Omer's semblance took quite a bit of aura to use, firing bullets did not. However, she also noticed Ochre's aura drop, although slow enough that she wouldn't have to worry about running out for a while.
"Argent, don't you think there's something weird about Ochre?" Talia asked, and her brother looked at the ocelot faunus.
"No, I don't think so," Argent answered and asked, "Why do you ask?"
"How many bullets has she fired?" Talia asked, and Argent realized what she was getting at. Just as he was about to call her over, Ochre stopped shooting and looked at her guns, then walked over to the teachers.
"Professors, I think there's something wrong with my guns," Ochre said, "I've been firing for a while, but they don't seem to run out of bullets."
"There is nothing wrong with them," Niob said and explained, "However, you have been turning the air you touch into bullets with your semblance, likely without knowing it."
"Yeah, I had no idea," Ochre said, a bit perplexed, then got really excited, "This is awesome." She smiled, hurried back to her spot at the shooting range, and continued firing air bullets to try and hit the target properly. Argent looked at the students, and felt a sense of pride and accomplishment.
~o~
A few days later, when her students had made some progress with their aura techniques, Sirena decided that it was time they saw the underwater world. She took them to the edge of the island, where the ocean floor dropped off by twenty meters, and all the faunus looked down into the darkness.
"Alright, now one after the other," Sirena said and swam five meters into the open waters. Giallo jumped forward, his hands together, and moved with a snake-like motion, just as his instincts told him, until he reached Sirena. Viridi followed his example, using his archerfish instincts to move around in the water. And one by one, the rest followed.
"So, do we go down there?" Giallo asked, looked down into the abyss and got nervous, even though he could see the ground and his gut told him to trust in Sirena.
"Well, not entirely," Sirena answered, "Today, you will just learn to move around under water, and try to stay under water for as long as you can. But don't worry, I'll be here if anything happens." One by one, the students took a deep breath and lowered their heads under water. When they all got comfortable with being under water, Sirena followed them and led them around, using the hand signals she had taught them. Suddenly, she felt one of the students, Ravi, panic as she ran out of air, and rushed over to help her. Just when Sirena wanted to coat both of them in air, Giallo held out his right hand and emitted a wave of yellow energy, which gathered around the clownfish faunus' head and formed into a transparent energy bubble. Ravi coughed up some water and took a deep breath, then looked around. However, Sirena decided to end it for the day, and the whole group swam back up.
~o~
Using his Magic Door semblance, Markus went to a shipwreck at the edge of Menagerie, then used one of his tracking semblances to locate an Anemone Stinkhorn mushroom. With his nose covered by a cloth drenched in lavender oil, which only partly suppressed the stench of feces and carrion emanating from the mushroom, he used his Corruption semblance and infused the mushroom with a black energy, making it grow gigantic, and vile.
~o~
The following day, Argent accompanied the older students, who would be old enough to enroll in a proper huntsman academy next year, to the edge of Kuo Kuana while the rest of his team continued practicing the basics with the younger students.
"Where are we going?" Ochre asked as they crossed the city limits and headed into dangerous territory.
"Combat training," Argent answered, "But since there aren't a lot of Grimm around, I asked a friend to help me out." He gestured ahead, and the students saw a crow faunus sitting on a rock, who wore black boots and pants, an off-white dress shirt under a black tailcoat, a single fingerless black leather glove on his right hand, and had his short gray hair styled back.
"Who's this?" Omer asked, and the students all tensed up as the man's orange eyes fell on them.
"Smoke," Argent answered, "Like I said, he's a friend of mine. He'll help you get the hang of fighting more mobile enemies. It's an important lesson you need to learn eventually."
"Can't you do that, too?" Plum asked, getting a bit nervous and clenching his large fists. He had changed his outfit as well, and wore simple plum-colored pants, no shirt to show off his growing muscles, and heavy gunmetal gray steel plate boots with his emblem, a plum carved to resemble a fist, on them.
"Yes, I can," Argent answered, "Anyway, let's get started." He approached Smoke, and the man stood up.
"Hey there," Smoke said and asked, "So, those are the twerps I'm supposed to… take care of?"
"Yeah, just let them let off some steam first, and then start dodging," Argent answered.
"Got it," Smoke said and held out his left hand. He emitted a strange ashen gray substance from his palm, and it formed into an Alpha Beowolf and stared at the students with ember-like eyes.
"Alright, who wants first?" Argent asked as the Smoke Monster walked a few meters away. Everyone just looked around, until Plum eventually raised his right hand.
"I'll go," Plum answered, "Let's get this over with."
"Sounds good," Argent said, "And don't worry about breaking anything, Smoke's semblance is set up for defense, and recovers from damage really quickly, so you can go all out."
"Got it," Plum said and charged the monster. He hit it with a left hook, but it only wobbled, so he kept hitting it, despite it having no effect at all. He knew it was training, but he still got frustrated. Humans had to train years for the kind of arms he was born with, and even though it wasn't a real Grimm he was fighting, it looked like one, so being unable to kill it got to him.
"Guys, look," Ochre said and pointed at Plum, whose fists and feet had started glowing purple. Plum hit the Smoke Monster with a roundhouse kick and sent it into a nearby caliche boulder, which cracked on impact. Plum chased after the enemy and kept pounding it, and with each hit he landed, his limbs glowed more intensely.
"Hey uh, boss," Smoke whispered as he leaned over to Argent, but before he could say anything, Plum landed one final blow against the monster, dispersing it and vaporizing the boulder. Argent quickly pulled out his scroll and checked the clock, counting the seconds.
"That was fun," Plum said and asked, "Wait, are my hands glowing? And my feet?" He looked at his limbs in confusion, but after about five seconds, they stopped glowing.
"Well, it looks like you've unlocked your semblance," Argent said, "You might want to check in with Talia later. She can help you better understand how it works."
"Actually, I think I already know how it works," Plum said and explained, "I hit hard, and then I hit harder."
"Well, in any case, training's over for today," Smoke said, "I can only make small monsters each day, and it'll be a while before I stored up enough to make another one this large."
"Sorry," Plum said, turning to his fellow students. However, they seemed rather happy, or at least not sad, by the results. Just as Argent was about to announce they'd be heading back to school, Fihr, a wolf faunus, covered his nose. He wore light brown leather boots with dark gray fur trims, black jeans and a light gray jacket to match his medium long hair, while his eyes were light blue.
"What is that?" Fihr asked in disgust. Eva, a spitting cobra faunus, smelled the air and looked around, using her aura-based directional smell.
"Guys, over there, look!" Eva called out and aimed her dart rifle at a swarm of weird creatures heading towards them. They were the size of water melons and had largely fly-like bodies, except that they had six wings, barbed stingers at the end of each leg, twelve lime green eyes on purple stalks, and a red star-shaped mushroom growing from the back of their heads.
"What do we do?" Hinata, a fox faunus, asked. She wore orange-red hiking boots, white jeans, and a white belly-free tank top under a light red cardigan with the top two buttons closed. Her fox ears folded into her orange hair from the approaching buzzing sound, and the students all got nervous. Faced with this situation, Argent knew exactly what he had to do.
"Get back to the school," Argent said, "Smoke and I will stay here and hold them off as long as we can." He deployed his ranged weapons, triple-barrel guns built into each of his thick leather gloves, while Smoke clenched his right fist, and it crackled with yellow lightning.
"No," Fihr said and drew his assault rifle. Eva cocked her dart rifle, Plum clenched his fists, and the ocelot sisters both prepared for battle, too.
"I gave you an order," Argent said, "Get back to the school, now."
"Alright," Hinata said, "But don't worry, I'll go get help." She ran away and her hands glowed red, producing small bubbles she fired at the ground beside her to capture small objects. The bubbles hung around in the air, about two meters above the ground, and made it more difficult for the monsters to pursue her.
"But you also told us to follow our guts," Eva said, "And my gut tells me that those things have it coming." She fired a dart at one of the monsters and poisoned it, then used her Dart Transmutation semblance to turn some of her venom into another dart.
"Exactly," Fihr said and snapped his fingers. A small, light gray orb with a scowling face on it appeared next to him, then he opened fire with his assault rifle.
"Alright, fine," Argent said with a groan, "But keep moving, and be mindful of where your allies are. Melee fighters to the right, ranged left." He rushed off to the left and opened fire, while Smoke and Plum charged the enemies on the right. Ochre turned the rubble into bullets and followed Argent, while Omer used the regular bullets her semblance made.
"Guys, help!" Plum called out, and Fihr shifted his weapon into its melee form, deploying a scythe blade from the stock, and rushed to help the melee duo. Eva stayed on the sidelines, firing into the enemy horde whenever there were no allies nearby, and poisoning the monsters to deal damage over time.
"Smoke, you good?" Argent called over after shooting another monster's wings to pieces and causing it to crash into a rock. Ochre kept firing bullets made from small stones, dealing more damage than regular ones and causing more serious wounds.
"Sure am," Smoke answered and punched a monster with his right fist, causing it to explode with a surge of yellow lightning. Omer aimed at the monsters' eyes to blind them. Every once in a while, another monster succumbed to the poison from Eva's poison darts.
"Just how many are there?" Plum asked and punched another monster, killing it instantly.
"Doesn't matter, keep killing," Smoke answered and kicked another monster, then killed it with a right hook. Fihr cut all the left wings off one of the monsters, while his Sprite shot energy blasts at the nearest enemy and keeping him relatively safe, when he realized that the entire melee team was surrounded.
Author's note: Omer and Ochre are brought to you by some dude on the Kemono Friends subreddit, who drew Ocelot in the outfit of Revolver Ocelot from the Metal Gear series. Originally, I only wanted one, but couldn't decide which semblance to give her (Summon Pistol or Bullet Transmutation). So, I asked the RWBY OC subreddit, and someone suggested both.
Plum is also pretty strong, mainly due to his arms being literal gorilla arms. His semblance, Chain Attack, is based on the Pokémon move Power-Up Punch.
And yes, Smoke is an assassin. His semblance actually gets more potent over time. Once per day, he can summon a small blob of what looks like solid smoke, which is pretty durable and regenerates quickly after taking damage. However, if he doesn't use it, he gets another blob the next day, so he can eventually make bigger constructs.
Markus' Corruption semblance is based on the Zakenna from the first generation of Pretty Cure.