This story is set in a parallel universe to my other stories. There will be some differences and some similarities.
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Sky Lark watched as the first shuttle left. He would be on the second shuttle. He thought about the day so far. One advantage of standing with his fellow Mistralians was that he could rely on Nora to provide both sides of the conversation, and there was no real need to concentrate on what she said.
This morning he had woken up early, showered, packed his rucksack and finished breakfast by 8. He had more coffee as he read the Vale Times articles covering the new term at Beacon and giving profiles of the most noteworthy candidates from the three Vale combat schools, Pharos, Signal and Torch. There were even a few photographs. The two blondes from Pharos and Signal, Lydia and Yang, had impressive credentials, and he wouldn't mind being on the same team as one or both of them. Cardin Winchester was tipped as a racing certainty to be a team leader. June Benjamin and Dove Bronzewing also sounded like first-rate fighters. It would probably be best if he weren't on the same team as Henry Boxer.
Anyway, there was a limit to what he could extract from a puff article saying how good this year's students were. There were expected to be sixty students, which meant fifteen teams. In theory, he had just over a 25% chance of being on a team which qualified for the Vytal Festival. He was confident that he would be in the top 25% by talent, but he just had to hope that the choice of teams was as random as rumour said.
He decided that he had no desire to mope around in his hotel room and checked out. He wandered around the historical centre of Vale for a couple of hours. He had sent his weapon and his main luggage to Beacon yesterday and so only had his washbag and yesterday's dirty clothes to carry around, besides his scroll and papers showing that he was an initiate.
He was dressed in his civilian clothes so he could pass by unnoticed. While Mistral City was still his favourite place in Remnant and the most beautiful site, the buildings in Vale were older and less damaged. They had been untouched in the Great War. It had been the kingdoms of Mistral and Vacuo which had borne the brunt of the damage.
He sighed to himself and rehearsed his stock answer for why he was attending Beacon and mot Haven. It had the merit of being misleading and partially true at the same time. It was because of Pyrrha Nikos that he was not attending Haven.
He was thirty minutes early when he approached the gates of Pharos school. He wanted an excuse to wander around the grounds of the oldest combat school in Remnant. He had often seen it in films, especially the Harry Cotta films.
He was taken by surprise when, two hundred yards from the gates, he was stopped by two men in black suits, wearing dark glasses and earpieces. They looked like the type of people who surrounded the heads of the Atlesian Multi-Kingdoms or members of the Atlas Council.
They searched his rucksack and checked his credentials. Eventually, he was allowed to progress when a large man dressed in what Sky knew to be the Beacon Academy uniform joined the men and vouched for Sky.
It was Yatsuhashi Dashi, who was a year older than Sky and whom he had watched and met at some of the Mistral combat school competitions. Sky agreed with those who said that it was an indictment of Haven's reputation that the man had gone to Beacon after the rest of his team from Kurohari province had been rejected. Not a self-evident travesty, but the fact was that the admissions system favoured the rich and powerful, and those who went to the perceived best Combat Schools. That meant that his teammates had never been given a fair chance. Only the combat school in Ansel had broken into the list of the best Combat schools in the last twenty years, and that was primarily down to the Arc family.
On the way to the gates, Yatsuhashi explained, "Team Coffee and Team Plum have been asked to assist in the initiation process over the next couple of days. Professor Goodwitch believes that the fact that I'm from Mistral and Fox is from Vacuo will help in making the students from outside the kingdom feel welcome."
Sky nodded, "It certainly helps me. Could I have a word with you sometime about what I should be careful about here? I know that things are different here than at home."
Yatsuhashi nodded, "I'll be hosting a table at dinner tonight for the majority of the students from Mistral, and that will be one of the things I will cover. The one thing I will tell you now is that the wilder rumours about team selection are true. It really is as random as they can make it, and they will launch you into a Grimm-infested forest to test your landing strategy."
"Good. Better than the manoeuvring which goes on at Haven." He realised that he had said that with some feeling.
Yatsuhashi said, "Most of the students from Mistral this year are mustangs, Faunus and provincials. There is one wild card. You will know Ren and Nora, and we can all guess why they are here."
That wasn't a surprise. No one had ever felt comfortable with them in Mistral – guilt for the failure of the Kingdom to defend Kuroyuri meant that people were embarrassed around them.
Sky had always got along well enough with them. When Nora had talked at him, he had listened and nodded. He had been brought up to be polite to young women, and his mother had been one of the few influential politicians who had argued in favour of sending more resources to Kuroyuri ten years ago. Besides, considering that they had been the only survivors of Kuroyuri and had been sent to an orphanage, they were both surprisingly well-adjusted. Well, Ren was virtually silent and unnervingly calm, and Nora was desperately cheerful, but they could easily have been brooding psychopaths.
He also spotted the implied question. Sky knew that he looked and sounded like the stereotypical wealthy, entitled, and over-privileged Haven student and that people would wonder why he was attending Beacon. He gave one of the prepared answers to that question, and Yatsuhashi suggested saying slightly less and leading with the joke.
The giant nodded inscrutably as they reached the gates. "I'll hand you over to Loretta here for processing." He half smiled, "It will probably be an hour and a half before the first shuttle leaves. There will be four and I believe that you will be on the second one."
He was quickly processed by Loretta, a tall woman who was obviously from Vale. When he asked about touring the grounds, she smiled and said that she was originally from Signal. She handed him a map and called over a colleague, Tom Piper, who had been to Pharos and outlined a suggested route.
Tom did say, "Look, the Atlas security people are a little nervous. One of the students is an Atlesian plutocrat, and they're paranoid that the White Fang knows about it. Don't get upset if they ask you for proof of identity. I am going to send the head of security a photo of you, so with luck, it won't be a problem."
Just before he set off on the walk, Loretta and Yatsuhashi took him to one side. Yatsuhashi said, "We thought it best to warn you in advance. One of the students from Vale is the daughter of Raven Branwen. She looks like a blonde version of her mother at the same age."
Loretta said, "She was in the year below me at Signal. It's best not to mention Raven. Yang rarely talks about her, and if she does, she refers to her as the egg donor."
Sky had managed a smile, "Understood. Most families have embarrassing relatives they do not want to discuss." Well, he certainly did.
A pause, "Do Ren and Nora know? Not that Ren would say anything."
Yatsuhashi nodded, "I have been told that Professor Goodwitch spoke to them about it when they applied."
Loretta added, "Yang was abandoned at birth and, as far as anyone knows, has never met her mother. She is a lot of fun. Provided you don't mess with her hair or with her younger sister, she is cheerful and easy-going. "
"Sister?"
"Technically half-sister. As far as both of them are concerned Ruby's mother is the only mother they ever had."
"I can take a hint. Sorry, you said had?"
"Huntress who died on a mission ten years ago. Look, you don't have to tread on eggshells around her, but…"
"Don't throw a stone at a Lancer's nest?"
"Exactly." Sky could relate to that. No one talked about his uncle nowadays. He did wonder whether Nora and Ren would feel the same. After all, it wasn't as though Raven Branwen had been indirectly responsible for the deaths of his friends and family.
He walked around the grounds and buildings for forty-five minutes. It was good to see that the drainpipes with gargoyles were an actual feature and not just something invented for the films, although, as far as he could tell, the gargoyles couldn't move. The ivy on the walls and the grass on the croquet lawn was as splendid as he had been led to expect. A security drone had followed him, but the men and women in black left him well alone.
As he approached the main building to join the throng in the school hall, where the initiates would wait for the bullheads, he saw a security helicopter hovering overhead. A moment later, he heard sirens going and watched as a convoy of black limousines and motorcycles raced through the gates and around the back of the building. He wondered what that was all about. Perhaps some big shot from Atlas was attending Beacon rather than Atlas.
That puzzled him. Atlas insisted on anyone whose aura was unlocked attending Atlas Combat school for four years or serving in the military until the age of 25. For that reason, most Atlas plutocrats did not have their aura unlocked. Winter Schnee was an outlier in that regard.
In the school hall, he joined Ren and Nora. While he hoped that the groups would mix in a few days, he understood that, for now, people would be clinging to their friends from combat school or those who came from the same background.
A brief remark about the Harry Cotta films had been sufficient to send Nora off on a monologue. Ren and Nora had been in Vale for three days and had done the guided tour of Pharos yesterday. The hall they were in had been used as the dining room for the wizard's school in the films.
Another monologue was set off when he asked about the limousines. Apparently, a scion of the Campion family from Atlas was attending Beacon this year.
As Nora paused momentarily to take a breath, there was a cough, and Sky saw that two people had joined them. One was a tall blonde man who looked slightly familiar, and the other was a short young woman (still taller than Nora, but who wasn't?)
"Hello, I'm Anne, and this is Jaune. We are two of the wild cards. I'm from Vale, and he's from Mistral."
Wild cards. Another quirk of Beacon was that the headmaster had the right to select four students based solely upon his own whims. One reason why Lionheart had been so happy to keep the fact that Sky was not attending Haven a secret was that it allowed him a Wild Card choice at Haven. Sky smiled to himself. No one but his parents and Lionheart in Mistral had known that he was going to Beacon.
Nora said, "Hello, I'm Nora Valkyrie, and this is LieRen. We're together, not together/together. That would be just weird."
Both the newcomers seemed to take this in their stride. Sky said, "I'm Sky Lark. Good to meet you both."
The Blonde said, "I'm Jaune Arc. I'm from Ansel."
Sky decided not to ask whether he was related to Amber Arc or the twins. Wait, what was the rumour he had heard about the brother working for the LGDF?
"Any relation to the head of the Ansel LGDF?"
"She's my mother. You've heard about her?"
"Only good things. My mother is on the Senate Budgetary Committee. She says your mother is the most efficient Chief in the LGDF."
Actually, it had been even more glowing than that. Still, he could hardly say in front of foreigners that it suggested that the other Chiefs were mostly either useless or gobsmackingly corrupt. Well, apart from the chief of the Argus LGDF, who was competent and mostly honest.
Nora asked, "Did you go to Ansel Combat School?"
The man coloured, "No, I've worked with my mother for the last two years."
He paused, "I only had my aura unlocked six months ago."
That would explain the wild card status and why he wasn't at Haven. Sky felt sorry for the man as he would be a long way behind the rest of them in training and knowledge. He might know more about Grimm, though. Still, he would hope that he wasn't on the same team as him.
He decided to get Nora talking again. "Anne, you may not know this, but Ren and Nora won the Mistral Combat School doubles competition for the last two years."
Ren made modest noises while Nora explained that they had whooped their opponents' asses but that there had been no breaking of legs.
After Nora paused for breath, Anne asked Sky why he was attending Beacon. Sky delivered the line he had tried out on Yatsuhashi.
"I've spent the last four years being beaten up by Pyrrha Nikos and Arslan Altan in tournaments. Besides, most of the people going to Haven I've fought against regularly for years, and we know what we are all capable of. I think that I will learn more here."
He wondered at the smile which crossed Anne's lips. He was also aware that, for some reason, he was attracted to her.
Soon, the call for the first shuttle to Beacon was given, and Anne said, "That's mine. See you later."
Just after the shuttle had departed, there was a commotion at the back of the hall. Sky turned round and saw that the tall blonde Yang, who must be the daughter of the Bandit Queen, was fussing over a girl who was about Nora's height. The surrounding people were saying Oh, My, Gods. Was this the younger sister, and if so, what was she doing here?
He later wondered if that had been a deliberate distraction. Certainly, the next commotion was deliberate. Coco Adel entered, greeting Yatsuhashi loudly, and then posed back to back with Yatsuhashi. He doubted that the beret and sunglasses counted as part of the official uniforms, but they certainly distracted everyone else.
This meant it wasn't until they were already ten yards unto the hall that people registered the two thunderbolts in all senses of the word. The sight of Weiss Schnee explained the limousines and the security. The Schnee family was only rivalled by the Marigold family as the main targets of the White Fang.
However, what shocked him and probably everybody else was the sight of the redhead dressed in her huntress outfit. What on Remnant was she doing here, and how had she kept it secret?
Pyrrha saw the three of them and beamed. She walked over to them and said, "Hello, I'm sorry that I couldn't tell anyone in advance."
Sky Lark wasn't certain whether he wanted to laugh or cry. If people had known that she was attending Beacon, he would have been going to Haven in two days' time with three people he had thought of as his best friends for the last four years – well, until six months ago.
It wasn't her fault. His team leader's father had tried bribing Pyrrha's managers to ensure she joined his son's team when they started at Haven. That meant someone would have to be dropped from Crimson Mask's team of four.
The fathers of the two other team members had bribed and blackmailed Sky and his father into accepting that Sky would volunteer to be the person pushed overboard. At least they had used the carrot as well as the stick.
It was funny that all that politicking had turned out to be delusional thinking now that Pyrrha Nikos had decided not to attend Haven. Sky wondered who would be the person his old "friends" would recruit to replace Sky. Whoever it was, they would not be as good as Sky even if Crimson and the gang did qualify for the Vytal Festival without Sky. That part was absolutely fracking hilarious.
It was sad because he had been betrayed by people he had grown up with. He knew it would be hard for him ever to trust anyone again. Also, the ammunition they had used against the Lark family meant that he had learnt more of the truth about the family skeletons than he wanted to know.
Still, he had plenty of motivation to do the best he could at Beacon and end up on the best team he could. It would be fantastic if he could fight his old team at the Vytal Festival and make them grovel. It would be ideal if he ended up on Pyrrha's team. Remnant, Nora would be almost as good. She might be as motivated as him to show the Mistral elite how big a mistake they had made.
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This was Russel Thrush's first time out of Vacuo, and he was still in a state of shock. He had thought Vacuo City was busy and crowded. Vale was simply insane. He had been told that Mantle was even more crowded and the traffic in Mistral city was even more congested.
On the other hand, after eighteen years in the deserts of Vacuo, he appreciated showers and soft toilet paper. Remnant, apparently, you only had to worry about the Grimm and not the wildlife or the quicksand in Vale. He could get used to this.
He would spend a lot of time watching and listening at first. He knew that he didn't understand how people from outside the Tribe, let alone outside Vacuo, thought about life. He promised himself not to assume that people meant to be offensive when they did or said something he found insulting or weird. He would ask them to explain what they had meant by that action or words. If they had intended to insult him or his tribe, he would offer to fight them and call them a coward if they refused.
If it became clear that he had upset or surprised other people, he would try to understand why. While he would not apologise, he would ask them to explain their reaction. He would explain why he had acted as he had or what he had meant. If he could understand their explanation, he would seek to avoid causing unintentional offence in the future. If he should have predicted that he would upset them, then he would offer them a free punch with his aura off.
He had spoken to Fox Alastair and LC this summer. After an initial reaction of surprise, both had accepted that this might work for him, although not for them. TC was, of course, a Faunus and had grown up on the Comrade Rabbit stories, and so was a natural trickster. Fox's tribe were less aggressive than the Mohawks, and Russel was uncomfortably aware that if Fox had been in the Mohawks, he would probably have been left to die because of his blindness after his family died.
LC had said that everyone would likely be wary of him because of the haircut, and so anyone who insulted him would be looking for trouble. He stressed the need to distinguish between good-natured teasing and insults. LC was an expert on this after seven years in the Atlas military and had accepted that being called Elsie was good-natured teasing. The one piece of advice he gave was that if anyone used the word banter, a kick in the groin and a hair wash in the nearest unflushed toilet was deserved.
Fox Alastair and LC had volunteered to spread the word on his behalf that hair was to the Mohawk tribe what possessing a license was to a hunter. It was a statement of identity. It also showed that the wearer was deemed by his peers to be worthy of respect. They also said that they would make it clear that being tough enough was part of what earned you respect. He accepted this offer. He saw that there was no point in scaring away potential friends unnecessarily while making it clear that he could look after himself. It was better that others passed on the message that anyone in Vacuo would instantly realise. His explaining the significance to everyone would be too much like boasting.
LC had also volunteered to, if necessary, drop a word in the ears of the other Vacuoans at Beacon about the truth of the Rising Sun Mine incident. To be fair, when he saw Russel's reaction he had clarified that all he would do was contradict people who reported lies as facts and Russel supposed he could go along with that.
After all, LC had been among the first people into the mine after the White Fang attack and said he owed Russel's family for warning him against joining the SDC or Atlas Gold security team despite the higher wages on offer. He had instead joined the Atlas military as a guide.
The trouble was that the line between explanations and apologies could be narrow. Mohawks might make gifts of food and water to those they had done wrong to, but they did not say sorry. Nor did they expect people to say sorry to them. Saying sorry meant nothing—it was deeds that mattered.
After the Rising Sun, Winter Schnee told the Tribe leaders that the Atlas military command and the SDC management in Atlas should have known what was happening. That it was Atlas's and the SDC's fault that whistleblowing would have meant instant dismissal and blacklisting. That the Tribe deserved practical reparations.
She had also asked them what form they should take. The Tribe did not want to lose what made it special, but it recognised that some of the younger members wanted the chance of a different life to the nomadic, and everyone wanted access to decent healthcare. The tribe had negotiated a greater level of reparations in exchange for not insisting on a public apology or telling the whole truth about the behaviour of the Mistralian overseers at the Multi-Kingdom mines.
In his case, Atlas and the SDC had paid for coaching for the last three summers at Shade, his melee weapons Shortwings, his transport here and a generous maintenance grant to help support him while he was at Beacon. That was more important than a public apology. Apparently, about the only thing Atlas couldn't do for him was accept his haircut, but he had been warned that he wouldn't fit in there. Virtually no one had a sense of humour.
Haven had also been an impossibility for him. He had gone on a visit, but he felt uncomfortable about the headmaster being a Faunus, and the students' reaction to him had convinced him that he would have to fight two-thirds of the Academy in the first week.
That had left Vale, and Professor Goodwitch had reminded him of the Matriarchs in the Tribe. You knew where you were with them – no need to guess what they were telling you to do or what the limits to disobedience were. Besides, Professor Port was known to everyone in Remnant because of commentating on the Vytal Festival for the last twenty-four years.
Being in the slipstream of LC and his friend from Atlas meant Russel could keep silent and watch everyone else. He was looking out for people he could imagine being on the same team with.
He was quite impressed by Cardin Winchester. His cousin had said that he had thought the man was a jerk when he first met him, but he had impressed him over the week. He had asked intelligent questions, didn't need to be told the same thing twice, and pulled his weight. He also thought about things before asking follow-up questions.
His cousin had described Cardin to him and so Russel had kept an eye on the man. He was obviously seen as a leader by those around him. He was impressed that Cardin had been looking around the room and evaluating the people he didn't know while taking the time to say hello to his old friends.
When he'd come over to speak to Brede, he hadn't treated him as a hanger-on to the Atlas plutocrat and the well-dressed Faunus friend. The fact that he had met Russel's cousin explained the lack of surprise, but looking him in the eyes had been unexpected.
He felt that if he was on the same team as the man, the two of them could work together. As LC said, the Mohawk tribes were jerks you could rely on to try their hardest once they had given their word.
He wasn't so convinced by the sidekick. He sensed that Cardin wasn't either; the sideways glances had been suggestive. Russel also wondered whether Brede might have overdone the reporting of Cardin's comments about Dove. Maybe not. He'd seen Dove flush with pride and relief at that.
He was also watching out for potential White Fang members. The incident three years ago had left him suspicious about Faunus.
He accepted that Fox knew what he was talking about when he said that the Faunus at Beacon came from a society which at least did a bit more than pay lip service to equality of opportunity. He also trusted LC and supposed that he was right to point out that there were incentives for Faunus to hide their animal features if they could in Mistral and Atlas.
However, he was staring with disbelief at someone with a bow in her hair and a book in her hand. He nudged LC and whispered to him. The man looked where he was pointing and then led Russel to the men's toilets. After checking that no one else was there, he said, "I'm on the case. One of the reasons I'm being trained as a hunter is that Winter Schnee vouched for me and trusts me to keep her sister and Brede Campion safe. Look, if the White Fang were going to send a trained assassin to take out her or Brede, the disguise would be better."
Russel stared at the Lynx Faunus, who sighed, "I am checking it out. Blair Nightshade is one of Beacon's wildcards. She is said to come from Vacuo."
"You cannot be serious." There was no way a woman that distinctive would not have been noticed by him at the summer camps at Shade. Remnant, he would have heard from at least one of the tribe if a woman that attractive with cat ears had ever crossed their path.
"There is a reason everyone apart from me handed in their weapons when they arrived here."
LC opened his jacket to show that he was carrying a gun. "I spotted her an hour ago and Beacon swears blind that they have checked her out. Still, Weiss Schnee has her aura up, and we have eyes on both of them."
"Are you some kind of secret agent?"
"I have made some promises I intend to fulfil. I learnt that from your uncle and brother. Now, let's get back and allow me to keep an eye on both of them."