I've been sitting in my seat for about half an hour, and I've been sneaking looks at my scroll from time to time. Somehow it's only eight twelve. I've ditched my book by now, having haphazardly stuffed it into my bag previously. I'm not really paying much attention to the brawl going on between Ren and Levi, but I can tell that it's a surprisingly even fight. If I'm being honest, it's kind of an awful matchup for Ren, especially being in a flat open area like this.I'm interrupted by either the call of a freshly opened can of soda, or someone trying to get my attention.

"Pssst."

Turing to see Jaune looking at me, and I can't help but wish it was the soda, and not my excruciatingly dense friend. Nothing against Jaune, minus his density that rivals the average black hole, but I just want a drink. Wait, I have one of those in my bag, don't I?

I whisper, "What's up?"

He motions to the overhead display, showing that Levi's won the fight. I'm not going to hear the end of that one for a solid week. After a moment, it shows that Blake and Jade are to approach the stage for their fight. Then, it flashes a message saying that the next two fighters are to prepare. Said two fighters are Lukas and I. Lovely.

I'm slightly disappointed I don't get to watch the one fight I cared about, but at least I can finally wipe the smug grin off his face. After a trip to the armory, and some embarrassing failures to attach my cape to my armor, I walk back into class.

On that note, we're gonna take a second to describe my armor properly. So, take a Mistrali Centurion, right? Something kind of similar to Pyrrha's style, actually. I have a silver breastplate, shoulder guards, gauntlets, along with arm and leg bracers. My boots are just standard combat boots, along with my shirt and pants being standard black. Now, as for my waist protection, I wear a dust weaved leather pteruges. Pyrrha wears one, too, it being the battle skirt looking thing. How did I afford this intricate gear? Ozpin had told me that price didn't matter when shopping for armor, and I took that literally. He never made that mistake again… Back to my gear, across my chest is a bandolier for my dragon's breath shotgun shells. Gotta keep with the theme, don't I? The utility belt holding incendiary grenades and medical supplies rounds off my gear, the only other garment being the red cape that I wear just because. Sometimes I try to make up a reason for it, but it's just because I think it looks cool, ok?

Back to things that matter, the fight's not going great for Blake, until Jade manages to catch Blake in the middle of a jump and slam her into the ground. Now it's going even worse for Blake. I wince a bit, but Blake quickly recovers and slashes at Jade.

An overconfident voice that could only belong to Lukas makes its way into my ear, "Ouch. Looks like your girl's getting her ass handed to her."

I roll my eyes before responding to Lukas, "Oh please, she'll be alright. Plus, you should be more worried about how I'm going to punch that dumbass look off your face."

Lukas scoffs, and continues the banter, "Don't get your hopes up Embers. I'm not going easy on you."

"Keep up that attitude Sparky, I dare you."

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Keep convincing yourself you'll win. I'm sure that you'll look even dumber when yours truly puts you in your place." Lukas says, crossing his arms. He always hated that nickname, and will literally punch anyone who uses it save for me. Special privileges, baby.

"We'll see about that. I wouldn't get your hopes up too high." I say, crossing my arms over my chest and shifting my weight to one leg. My sword bounces against my leg as I do so, before a yawn escapes my lips.

After a bit longer, Blake somehow manages to win the duel with a devastating slash across Jade's chest. I give Blake a thumbs up, and wait for her and Jade to exit the stage. Listen, Blake is a lot of good things, but a good open combat fighter isn't exactly one of them. Jade must have gotten overconfident, or maybe I'm just underestimating Blake? Ugh, now I feel like an asshole. I'm soon snapped out of my little self deprecating thought session.

"Mr. Canicus, Mr. Sinclair, assume your positions." Goodwitch says.

I walk towards the stage, looking at Lukas, he's adjusting the sleeves of his hoodie. That cocky bastard doesn't even wear armor in combat. He's wearing a blue hoodie, grey sweatpants, and sneakers. Fucking sneakers. Do you know how much fucking audacity it takes to fight in sneakers? Like, yeah, I wear flash armor, but still, what the fuck, man?

Meanwhile, I walk up the steps, my grieves and boots making each of my steps louder than Sneaker McFuckface's over there. My cape billows behind me, and I make sure my gauntlets are on properly.

After a moment, I call out to Lukas, "So, are you ready to start this?"

His response is instantaneous, "It's on your mark, Doge." Lukas opens up his left hand to show light blue sparks dancing between his fingertips. That answers that, to say the least.

I draw my gladius, flaunt it with a spin, and activate my semblance. A warm and familiar feeling flows through my body as my eyes take on a faint reddish-orange glow. Side note, I normally wear something to block my eyes from view because of this stupid quirk of my semblance, but I was just feeling lazy today. "Yeah, you never do take the initiative, huh?"

He decides that his pride has been wounded, and takes the initiative, flicks his baton open, and rushes at me. He swings at me, but I deflect the attack. I slash at him in return, but miss due to his speed.

Lukas laughs, "You're going to have to be a bit faster than that!" He then goes for my chest again, and I block the attack with my left arm bracer. I notice he slightly messes up his footing, overstepping my a few inches, and I take the chance to knee him in the gut. Lukas' aura blocks it, but he still staggers backwards. I follow up by slashing at his face, and sending him backwards with a blast of fire.

He doesn't exactly take kindly to that, and rushes me down yet again. He swings over and over. I manage to block most of the rapid strikes, but a few break through and manage to hit the exposed part of my arms. Having an aura is great and all, but it doesn't do much against blunt attacks. I grab his baton, which he immediately sends a bunch of lightning through. I let go and shout before trying to regain control of my arm. Before Lukas gets a chance to take advantage of my misstep, he's met with a blast of dragon's breath and sent spiraling.

Once two fresh shells have been loaded, I press the advantage and rush him down. Lukas rolls out of the way of my attempt at kicking him, and swings his baton at my leg. I stagger, and turn my head to face him just in time to see his baton swinging at my head. It's a nice try and all, but I knock it away and stab at him with my sword. His aura tanks the hit, and he jumps backwards, a defiant expression on his face. Once I'm standing back up, I wait for him to try and make a move. Whenever he doesn't, I get bored, and just start launching fireballs at him with my left hand. The first one nails him in the chest, but he dodges the rest of them, and swings his baton at me once more. After blocking it with my… uh… face…

"Fucking ow! Bastard!" I shout, before blasting Lukas with a beam of fire. You see, this is different from the blast of fire purely because this one hits for longer, and also drains my aura a decent bit more. Yeah that's about it. Anyways, Lukas ends up losing his baton while trying to block it, which leaves him fully exposed to having his face punched, and then having a gauntlet slammed into the back of his head whenever he stumbled backwards. Needless to say, Goodwitch calls the fight there, seeing as Lukas was down to about twenty percent of his aura.

I sheathe Hell's Retriever, and deactivate my semblance. Looking at my scroll, I notice my aura only has fifty four percent remaining. I slightly wince at how much I wasted, and look down at Lukas.

"That was almost a close fight, dude. Good shit, Lukas."

After I offer him my hand, he takes it. I pull him to his feet. "Yeah. I need to be more unpredictable next time we fight, huh?" he asks. I just shrug, causing him to scowl.

After making sure that neither of us have any real injuries, we both head into the armory to get out of our gear. Granted, Lukas is just changing into slacks. Once he's changed, he leans against Jade's locker while sipping from his thermos. Honestly, it's getting boring, so I decide to bring up his romantic situation, "So… How are things going with that girl?"

Lukas chokes on his coffee while looking like he'd just seen a ghost. "H-how do you know about that?" he stammers out.

"Please, where else would you be going every weekend? I'm not dumb, Lukas." I snicker.

He regains his confidence, and speaks in an accusatory tone, "Oh, so you're stalking me now?"

The truth is that I saw him walking with a girl through the streets of Vale while buying some flowers. However, my ass would not be caught dead being all mushy, especially in front of Lukas, so I can't exactly come clean at the moment. I didn't get a great look at the girl, however.

"I have my ways, shorty. Now, what's her name?"

Lukas quickly retorts, "First off, don't call me shorty. Second off, you won't tell Ozpin, right?"

It's an odd request, but I don't have any reason to say no. "You have my word, I guess."

Lukas looks relieved as he speaks "Thank the Brothers. Anyways, her name's Penny." He then takes another sip of his coffee while looking around the armory as if expecting someone to suddenly pop up.

"Penny?" I ask.

"Penny." he confirms.

I don't know anyone who goes here named Penny. Half of me wants to press further, but I also don't want to piss Lukas off. After getting out of my armor and storing my gear in my locker, we both head back to class. When we get back, it's Jaune fighting Nora. It's going as well for Jaune as you'd expect. I go back to my seat, and decide that since I've already fought, I can take a nap.

Professor Goodwitch notices this, and decides to make me pay for my insolence. Due to her being somewhat like an aunt to me, she knows I hardly sleep at night and that I have a habit of sleeping in class. She draws her riding crop and whips the table with it. I jump up, falling out of my chair. I can hear who I'm assuming is Blake trying to stifle her giggles. Goodwitch scolds me with that classic tone of telling me that I'm a disappointment, "Mr. Canicus, your victory over Mr. Sinclair does not give you the right to sleep in my class. Maybe if you wouldn't spend all night texting your partner, you'd have adequate sleep, yes?"

You see, I have two options. I can tell her that texting my girlfriend isn't the only reason I can't sleep, but that might result in me getting hit with her whip. The other option is just pleading for forgiveness. However, pleading for mercy is the coward's route. "Now, Professor Goodwitch, that's not a fair way to look at it."

Goodwitch scoffs, and gives me a glare that would make a toddler burst into tears. Or flames. Maybe both, actually. "Really now? Is that the game we're playing, Doge?"

So long story short I now have to write a paper on why I should put my academics over personal relationships. Maybe being a coward was the call in this scenario.

Later that day, after many more classes, an uneventful lunch, and an equally uneventful dinner, I'm on paragraph four of five into said paper, in the team's dorm. Checking the time, it's around seven thirty. Dinner wrapped up around an hour ago, and I've spent all my free time thus far writing. Y'know, I should probably explain the living situation while I have the chance.

So, due to Lukas and I being effectively Ozpin's adopted nephews, we both have our own rooms in the faculty wing. Jade, being the colossal being that she is, also has her own room, but it's in the dorm wing. She just has a full team room to herself. Levi gets the team DAIS dorm, but sometimes the rest of us use it to hang out with each other, and this is one of those cases.

Levi is on his bed listening to music, and looking over his maul, Zum Sieger. Lukas is nowhere to be seen, and Jade is watching me write. Personally, I'd rather write about anything other than a paper concerning time management, but it could be worse. I could be spending my free time writing smut or something.

Anyways, Jade's standing over my shoulder. She occasionally opens her mouth to give input, but she keeps stopping herself.

"This is so fucking stupid…" I groan

"It's ok, friend. You'll figure it out eventually." Jade says.

"Thanks Jade…" I mutter.

She replies in a much more eager tone than is applicable for the current situation, "You're welcome!"

I consider drinking some bleach to help myself expedite the process, but then I get a random burst of inspiration. I quickly finish the paper, which is now at six out of five paragraphs. After some rigorous proofreading, and overthinking that would make Lukas blush, I'm done.

My hand hurts, I have a headache, and I don't have any Monsters in the fridge. Well, there's an Ultra Violet, but I'd rather suck an egg than drink that liquid dandruff.

With not many other options, I decide to lay down in one of the beds. I'm exhausted, but since I'm actually at a point where I can sleep unimpaired, it's just not happening.

I roll onto my side, then back onto my back, then on my side, then onto my stomach, then onto my side, then onto my back, then onto my stomach. Sleep just isn't happening, so I take out my frustrations by groaning into the pillow. I roll over onto my back again, and just stare at the ceiling.

Some time passes before I start to settle in, but something is just nagging at me. I realize that my troubles are coming from what I'd hesitate to even call music emanating from Levi's scroll. "What the fuck are you listening to?" I ask.

"R.I.P. Everyone by J.J. Demon." he says, as if bestowing great wisdom upon me.

After blinking a few times I speak in an even more bewildered tone, "Why the hell is that on your playlist?"

Levi responds in a less… enlightened tone, "Well, someone else introduced me to it."

"Ok, but why haven't you skipped it?" I ask.

Levi speaks in a somewhat defensive tone, "It's nostalgic."

I'm even more confused now, and it shows in my voice, "Nostalgia? For what? Getting banned from ever touching the AUX cord ever again? Turn that crap off."

Levi continues to try and justify it, "I know it's bad, but-"

Jade cuts him off, sounding very offended, "But? But nothing. If the forest could hear that, it would cry. And trees can't cry without my presence." That's a whole can of worms I'm not even going to try and unpack right now.

"Fine, fine, I'll change the playlist." Levi says while clicking at his scroll.

I shake my head, "Playlist? Nah, you need to change your whole music taste."

"Well, I did, but I went back to-"

I just cut him off, "Don't. I don't think your music taste can devolve any worse than that. Just put on one of your more recent playlists."

Jade speaks in the most aggressive tone I've heard from her all day, "You should feel regret. Listening to that was like having sandpaper shoved into my ears."

Levi then puts on a different playlist. It's not exactly to my tastes, but it isn't that abomination of the Brothers that was playing before.

I manage to take a cat nap, and wake up at about seven in the evening. I'm drenched in sweat, tangled in blankets, and pillowless. My mouth is akin to a desert, and my right arm is numb from sleeping on it. Yeah, that's about right for an after school nap. Looking around the dorm, Jade's probably gone back to her room, and Levi's just missing. My scroll is on the floor, and I have a message from Blake. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit how quickly I open it.

Blake's Text: "Hey, are you okay? You looked kind of rough in class. Just wanted to check in on you."

It's from half an hour ago, so it shouldn't take too long for her to respond. But first, I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and drink about eighty percent of it in a few seconds. I may take my mental health as a joke, I may take my sleep as a joke, however, hydration is one thing I'll never forget to be on top of. Stay hydrated.

Text Conversation

Me: "Hey, Blake! I'm ok. I was just a bit sleepy is all. Lol"

Blake: "If you say so. Just saying, you can tell me if anything's wrong, alright?"

Me: "I know, I know. But I'm good, really."

Blake: "Look, I'm just worried is all. You don't have to hide these kinds of things from me. I know you're not always the most comfortable sharing these types of things, but it's not healthy to bottle it up."

Me: "Really Blake, it's nothing. Just a small hiccup. I'll make sure to sleep better tonight."

Blake: "You better."

Me: "That almost sounds like a threat..."

Blake: "It is. See you tomorrow!"

End of Text Conversation

I smile at my scroll, and put it into my pocket. Her words somehow never fail to provide solace to me. It then occurs to me that I need to go to my room and shower. Once I'm sure that my essay didn't get tampered with by any of my friends or something, I place it in my bag. I then walk across the campus to the faculty wing. Reaching my room, I unlock the door and walk inside. Finally, home. I walk past some of the memorabilia I've collected over the years, ranging from a collection of books, a couple posters of my favorite bands, and a few model airships. Yes, it's nerdy as hell. No, I don't care. It's mine, and that's what matters.

After grabbing a fresh pair of clothes, a towel, and a washcloth, I walk into the bathroom. After a full day of being stuck in it, I finally get out of my uniform, and turn on the shower. I get bored of waiting for the water to warm up, so I step inside, but, to not a single person's surprise, it's fucking freezing. For a bit I avoid the water, pressing my back against the wall, which is also fucking cold, and occasionally touch the water to see if it's heated up. When what feels like hours passes, it feels warm enough for me to not recoil when a stray droplet hits my skin. I finally step into the water and wash myself off.

When I'm all cleaned up, I turn off the shower, step out into the frigid air, curse, dry myself, and put on my clothes. A grey t-shirt and black sweats to be precise. Following routine hygiene, I also brush my teeth and apply some deodorant.

Once I'm tucked into bed and have some music playing in the background, I finally start to calm down. I take the second dose of my medication, and I yawn softly. I close my eyes, and by some miracle manage to fall asleep at a decent time.

Another one of the reworked chapters. This one didn't even have a fucking author's note originally. What the hell was I doing? Anyways, yeah, this is just a flat upgrade from the original one, in my opinion.

Hope you enjoyed!