Just a reminder that in this version of Beacon, most of the students are 18 rather than 16, and it is British rules on alcohol consumption.

/-/

Dove knew as soon as the bullhead arrived at Beacon that the rumours must be true. Lisa Lavender and a small team were waiting for the bullheads to arrive. The cameraman did film him and Cardin. Fortunately, that annoying woman with the jaw had made herself scarce.

Tom Piper, who had been at Pharos in the year above him and Cardin, organised the arrivals so that they all got their photographs taken by a rabbit Faunus who looked quite nervous. Just before it was his and Cardin's turn, he said, "Velvet is a student here, not a servant. She's on Coco's team."

Cardin said, "Thanks, Tom. I did know, but thanks for the warning. Last year, it might have been necessary."

"We'll talk later, Cardin."

Dove got the message that he should treat the animal with respect she probably didn't deserve. No, Cardin had told him yesterday that he should assume that anyone at Beacon deserved to be here and that he should never call Faunus animals. Well, at least not in public. Dove supposed that Cardin was right.

He was puzzled by an unexpected noise. Two large black birds of different species were squawking at each other in the trees, and Glynda Goodwitch, the deputy headmistress and ex-head girl of Pharos, was staring at them as was the obviously Vacuoan second year who must belong to Coco's team.

Soon, the second bullhead arrived, and the first out of it was a tall blonde guy who ran and vomited in a bin. Fortunately for the man in question, Velvet had been speaking to Lisa and her cameraman at the time while Yatsuhashi had moved quickly to block the camera angle.

The tall blonde, Yang, accompanied by the young girl who must be her sister, was the next out, followed by a group of Signal students and then the group of three from Mistral, whom Anne had informed them were called Ren, Nora and Sky. Cardin nudged him, "Let's talk to Sky Lark after the speeches and welcome him to Vale. Maybe also find out what he thinks about the other two and why Pyrrha came here."

Dove nodded. Despite being away for the whole summer, Cardin had come back prepared for initiation at Beacon. He had thought about the best ways of maximising their chances of being on the same team and about identifying the best possible partners they could target if they couldn't partner with each other. To this end, he said they should try speaking to as many students from outside the Kingdom as possible and then comparing notes. He

At this point, one of the black birds took flight and flew over Professor Goodwitch and appeared to try to gift her some guano. The aim was perfect, but Glynda's telekinesis semblance meant it missed. The bird then flew away and disappeared. The other black bird flew toward the tallest tower at Beacon.

Brede Campion came out with Weiss Schnee with an Atlas Mustang and the Vacuoan Lynx Faunus shortly behind. Lisa Lavender filmed the two Atlesians, but only Brede spoke to her. He spoke clearly and kept the monocle in his eye while talking platitudes about his delight in attending Beacon. Cardin said to him that he wondered how many people would believe the upper-class twit persona was the real Brede. Dove wasn't entirely convinced that it was an act, but Cardin had met the man before, so he gave the clothes horse the benefit of the doubt.

Finally, Pyrrha Nikos emerged, accompanied by Coco Adel. This was what Lisa had been waiting for, and Pyrrha was ready for her close-up.

When asked why she was attending Beacon, she said, "Three reasons. First, Beacon has the best programme to prepare me for hunting Grimm after I am licensed. Second, I believe in Beacon's philosophy about randomising teams. Third, I have fought almost everyone attending Haven, and I think I will become a better fighter and huntress by fighting new people."

Pyrrha then name-checked Cardin, Yang, Weiss, Henry Boxer, June Benjamin and Lydia as opponents she believed would fight against her with the same enthusiasm as Arslan Altan. She also expressed a desire to test her skill again with Nora Valkyrie, who, for some reason, she had not fought with since her first year at combat school.

When asked the tricky question about what she would say to her fans in Mistral who would be disappointed at her attending Beacon, she said diplomatically, "I will always be a proud citizen of Mistral and a daughter of Argus. They know that, and I trust they will understand my reasons for attending Beacon. If I am fortunate enough to be chosen to compete in the Vytal Festival, I will be fighting as a Mistralian as well as a student of Beacon."

Cardin muttered to him. "Only some of that sounded as though it was written by her PR team."

Shortly afterwards, the third bullhead arrived and unloaded another sixteen initiates, including the rest of the ex-Pharos students.

For some reason, Cardin dragged him over to greet Henry and June and pass on the compliments from Pyrrha. Henry was willing to shake hands with Cardin and Dove. June nodded at Cardin but snubbed Dove.

Just then, Sky Lark approached and introduced himself. "Hello. I'm Sky Lark from Mistral. Good to meet you all. I'm afraid I have no tips for you on how to beat the invincible girl – running away can only delay the inevitable."

Cardin laughed, "I'm proud enough to be on her list of new people to humiliate. I saw her last fight with Arslan this summer."

"Good grief, she is a woman who never gives up. Loyal as well."

"Loyal?"

"You'll see when it comes to the Vytal Festival. One of her team is not as strong as he could be at tournament fighting."

Dove cringed. Part of him feared that he had gone backwards in the last year and would be a drag on Cardin.

June asked, "Why are you attending Beacon?"

"Much the same reasons as Pyrrha claimed. Additionally, a big one was not being regularly beaten up by her, so that didn't work."

Everyone laughed with him as he continued ruefully, "Well, I suppose there is a 1 in 21 chance we'll be on the same team. Don't tell if the maths is wrong unless I'm being too pessimistic."

Dove noticed that Sky had referred to "claimed" reasons. "So, was Pyrrha telling the truth about her reasons for coming to Beacon?"

"Well, she's right about having fought everyone but Nora." There was an edge in the reference, which Dove caught.

Cardin certainly did, "So Nora's good as well? I knew she and Lie Ren were doubles champions."

Sky laughed, "Rumour is in Mistral that they introduced a height restriction for the Mistral Regionals to prevent her from competing against Pyrrha."

Dove was flabbergasted. "But why would Pyrrha be afraid of Nora?"

Sky nearly said something quickly and then stopped. "Pyrrha isn't. Her sponsors may be. You've heard the phrase any given Sunday?"

Dove hadn't, but Cardin had. "Mistralian football. No matter what the form book says, if the underdog is at their best and luckiest, they can beat the favourite."

"Precisely."

Henry Boxer looked thoughtful, "Is that such a problem? It might make things more interesting if someone tried to beat her; besides, she's fought Arslan enough times."

"Arslan's marketable. She's Amber Arc but without the political baggage. Besides, Pyrrha's got her number. Nora's less predictable, and it would have been an embarrassment if she'd won."

Dove didn't understand the reference to political baggage. Amber Arc was one of the most expensive huntresses for hire. Certainly, she was one of the ones who often appeared in specialist magazines and had a reputation as one of those who was called into dangerous situations.

Henry asked, "Why?"

"She and Ren are the only survivors of Kuroyuri."

Dove was puzzled, but Cardin said, "Ah, Mistral's Mountain Glenn."

Sky looked to one side. "I suppose so. Actually, yes, but only more so. Mountain Glenn came out of nowhere, from what I understand. Kuroyuri was a slow-motion car crash."

Dove wasn't going to argue, but Mountain Glenn was more complicated than that.

Cardin said, "I understand what you are saying. A relative of mine suffered injuries, which eventually killed him, being a hero at Mountain Glenn. No one outside the family ever honoured him or his teammates because everyone wanted to forget about it."

Dove was surprised at Cardin admitting to this. The relative in question was Lydia's older brother, and Dove had never heard Cardin's father or Cardin praise the man. However, it seemed to strike a chord in Sky.

Shortly afterwards, they were moved along to the hall for the welcome speech from the headmaster.

/-/

It had been a weird few hours for Sky. Ozpin's speech of welcome was well out of left field. Immediately afterwards, Professor Goodwitch outlined the arrangements for tonight and the morning. Goodwitch spelt out why Beacon randomised teams as much as possible. The survival rates and length of careers among huntsman and huntresses who qualified from Beacon were the highest in Remnant because, from an early stage, Beacon graduates had been forced to work with people they didn't know or even like. A Beacon student couldn't count on being on a team with people like them or who thought the same way.

She then outlined the steps which had been taken this year to reduce the chances of students gaming the system. Looking at the reactions from the Vale students, some of these were a surprise to them. Indeed, it had come as a pleasant shock when he realised from overhearing the Vale students' increasingly panicked conversations about the fact that Beacon really meant what they said about randomising teams this year.

It also meant that his chances of being on a team with a real chance of qualifying for the Vytal Festival were better than he feared. He would have been in the twenty per cent of the students at Haven. He'd met all the students who had been mentioned in the paper this morning and sized up the others. He would keep an eye on who he was lined up with on the launch pads tomorrow and see what he could do about partnering up with someone he knew was also a contender.

There had been a few hours of tours around the building and introductory lectures to fill in time before dinner. Pyrrha had waylaid him at the end of one of the periods while others filed out for coffee. She said, "I'm sorry. I didn't know you weren't going to Haven with Crimson and the others."

"Well, I didn't know you were coming either. I'm amazed the news didn't leak out."

"Virtually no one knew about it. Only Ozpin, Lionheart and my mother. Well, Brede Campion as well. I travelled with him and Weiss yesterday to Vale after a promotional trip to Atlas."

"By the way, there was no need to say sorry to me. I know I've been joking that I was trying to avoid fighting you, but I wasn't been serious." He didn't want to talk about the real reason he was here and hoped Pyrrha would take the hint.

"I know, Sky." For a worrying moment, it looked like she might apologise again.

Fortunately, Weiss Schnee then appeared and dragged Pyrrha away. Whether or not she was anywhere near as good as her sister at fighting, she appeared to be very wound up.

At dinner, the sixty-four initiates were divided among eight tables hosted by one of the members of Teams PLUM and CVFY. He was at a table hosted by Yatsuhashi Daichi, which included most of the human students from Mistral (other than Jaune Arc and Pyrrha). This made sense, he supposed, as did putting the Vacuoans and some of the Mustangs with Fox Alastair.

The rabbit Faunus hosted a table with a lot of Faunus students, including those from Mistral. About 20 students were Faunus, but it appeared that the students from Vale combat schools mostly sat with their old human classmates. He rephrased that – there were twenty obvious Faunus students. He wondered whether anyone was fooled by the attractive girl wearing the bow. For the moment, he said nothing. Not his business and it wasn't as though he wanted to be open about his reasons for being at Beacon. Besides, he might be wrong. He would be relieved if he was.

The four wild cards were on a table with Weiss, Brede, Pyrrha and the Lynx Faunus. That table was hosted by Coco Adel. His suspicion that the Lynx Faunus was a member of the Atlas Diplomatic Protection Service was reinforced by the fact that he was seated next to the girl with the bow.

Professor Port had given a speech of welcome, which was considerably more encouraging than Professor Ozpin's earlier today.

Professor Port reiterated Professor Goodwitch's message about Vale students having better life expectancy, "Not only will you live longer, but you also have a better chance of being in the quarter-finals or semi-finals of the Vytal festival than the students at any other Academy. The team ethos means that Beacon teams are consistently better than the sum of their parts."

Sky added Port's and Goodwitch's points to the reasons he would give when he answered the calls from his three so-called friends. The news that Pyrrha wasn't attending Haven must have broken back home, and they would have expected him to arrive at Haven and pretend that nothing had happened. He smiled to himself – Mother would be making the calls for him and would be very convincing in telling their parents that Sky had taken them at their word and had chosen to avoid embarrassment. Well, frack them. He would, of course, send them messages wishing them all the best at Haven – he had decided not to use the phrase "future endeavours" as that would just be tacky. Not as tacky as his friends saying, "It's business, not personal, Sky." Still, it could wait until after the teams were decided tomorrow. It would be even sweeter if he were on a team with Pyrrha or a team which looked like they could be contenders.

Port continued, "It doesn't matter which Kingdom you come from, whether you come from a rich or poor family, whether you are human or Faunus. Beacon wants you to be the best huntsman or huntress you can be and to be able to work with any other huntress or huntsman in Remnant after ten minutes of conversation. That is one of the reasons we have more students from outside the Kingdom than any other Academy and the largest number of students."

Of course, things couldn't really work like that, but Beacon at least paid a little more than lip service to it. The truth was that it got the people who didn't fit in their own Kingdoms, and Vale tolerated more differences than the other Kingdoms. He had told the truth when he had spoken to the students from Pharos about why Ren and Nora were an embarrassment to the powers that be in Mistral. He had, of course, not told the truth about himself.

It was fascinating watching Nora getting increasingly anxious about the risk that she would not be Lie Ren's partner. She'd taken it for granted that Beacon worked like Haven, which allowed the best and/or wealthiest fighters to pick their partners and, indeed, usually teams. She showed her nervousness by being, by her standards, very quiet and hunching her shoulders. It was not possible to work out what Lie Ren thought about it.

Over the meal, Yatsuhashi did the expected thing of explaining how different Vale and Beacon would be to Mistral. Sky listened and asked some questions about avoiding accidental offence. He knew that calling a Faunus boy or gal was fighting talk but hadn't appreciated some of the other pitfalls. Yatsuhashi was reassuring about the process, but no doubt it had helped that his partner was an obvious Faunus. Yatsuhashi said that they all needed to take care in the first week, but that provided you didn't really mess up people relaxed.

He also said that in his team's case, the theory of randomising team formation had worked well. He hadn't expected that his best friends would be a shy Faunus, a snarky Vacuoan and a rich fashionista. He also said that Velvet would be telling the Faunus a similar story to him. Give people a chance, and you could be pleasantly surprised.

Sky decided it was time to look around and work out whose team he would be on in a perfect world. He wanted to be on a Vytal Festival team and show his old teammates what a mistake they had made. For that reason, he had memorised Pyrrha's list of potential challenges and would see what he could do tomorrow about being their partner.

It was also intriguing to watch who from the Vale students had gone out of their way to size up the non-Vale students. Yang had kept with her friends from Signal, and the Torch students kept to themselves as well. It was Cardin and his cousin who went out of their way to introduce themselves to other people.

/-/

Dove was waiting on the cliffs overlooking the Emerald Forest, knowing that his whole future depended on the next three hours and how good his and Cardin's guesses about the relics Beacon would be using this year would be.

It was already clear that Beacon was trying very hard not to allow established partnerships to reform easily. Tom Piper had taken him and Cardin to one side and told them that Goodwitch meant it and that the choosing of Relics had been left to Professor Oobleck with instructions to be as inventive as possible.

He'd also warned them that the allocation of launch pads was designed to reduce the chances of best friends being on the same team.

Remnant, they were even doing their best to reduce the chances that former students of the same Combat College would be on the same team. Perhaps he, Cardin, Larry and Maurice should have applied to Haven, where students could choose their own partners and usually the entire team. Cardin had been among the first eight catapulted into the Emerald Forest, and Dove was in the eighth group. Larry and Maurice were in the third and fifth groups, respectively. He'd already seen that the catapults changed position between launches. They weren't even on the same launch pads. They couldn't have made it more difficult if they had been trying to.

Of course, that was what they had been doing, and it was probably his fault. If he'd only done what Cardin said to do and ignored the people who had refused to recognise how marvellous Cardin was. If he'd only not insulted Henry Boxer. As it was, there was a 25% chance that he would be on the same team as a Faunus. There was a nearly forty per cent chance that they would have to share a dorm with a woman.

His already stretched nerves had not been improved by seeing what happened to Jaune Arc. Jaune had not been through Combat School, so using a parachute as part of his landing strategy was not a stupid move in itself. Pulling the ripcord too early because he was surprised by Yang was unfortunate but perhaps understandable. Having half the ropes on his parachute taken out by Ruby's implausibly large weapon was sheer bad luck. Landing on one of Weiss Schnee's glyphs a second before she landed on it was hilarious to everyone but the two people involved. No doubt that would be on the blooper reel tonight. Although funny for 10 seconds, it brought home how accidents could ruin lives. He needed, for once in the last six months, to indulge in damage limitation.

He needed to ensure that he partnered with someone who would agree to Dove's choice of relic. He had been impressed by how Cardin had thought through the options and strategies, and he had no doubt Cardin could force anyone he was partnered with to choose what Cardin wanted.

If he wanted to choose who would be his partner, his best choice would be among the five people nearest him whose trajectory he could watch. In front of him was a mediocre fighter from Pharos. Sound enough, but he would not help. To the side of him was a Faunus from Torch – he didn't know anything about the man, which suggested that he was average at best, and he would prefer not to share a room with an animal –no, he must think Faunus - if he could help it. On the other side was a Mustang from Vale. Good with Grimm, no doubt, but with only two terms before the first Vytal Festival, not enough time to get up to scratch on Grimm fighting.

On one side of him was Nora Valkyrie – No, just no. She had verbal diarrhoea and no doubt had a deal with that poor sap Lie Ren as to what Relics they would be aiming for. The thought of sharing a room with her for four years was appalling and besides what he had heard about her from the other Mistral initiates told him that she was about as reasonable as Cardin's cousin Lydia.

On the other side was Sky Lark. The man seemed decent enough, and he came from Mistral, so he wouldn't be a FJW. Maybe a wet liberal by Mistral standards, which would make him well right of centre in Vale. He also didn't really know anyone here. Cardin had noted that the other Mistral initiates were polite to him, but he wasn't anyone's bosom buddy.

The man also looked quick on his feet. With Dove and Cardin being tanks, it made sense to have some more mobile team members. Sky's weapon may be unusual, but Mistral Combat schools were pretty good, and it would take time for anyone from Vale to work it out.

He looked beyond them. No, of the people he could realistically choose to target as partners, Sky Lark was the best game in town.

/-/

Cardin shrugged as he landed. Tom Piper had taken him aside last night and warned him that Beacon would do their best to mess things up for him. Tom had been lucky last year that his partner from Pharos had talked his partner from Torch into picking up the Queen Of Spades as their relic. Tom had also been lucky that he'd known Loretta socially, and she was happy to follow his lead.

It was hard keeping an eye on people as you were spinning in mid-air, especially when it was clear that someone else was screaming. To make things worse, they had been given cameras attached to their necks. Bloody hard to pretend that you hadn't made eye contact.

He heard a voice shout, "Duck", and he did so. A bullet passed over his head and took out a small Beowulf.

Well, at least whoever was going to be his partner could shoot straight. He turned around and saw the man with the ludicrous haircut. Well, he suspected that he could have done a lot worse than Russel.

He looked around and then offered his hand. "Well met, partner." He did his best to make the smile seem as sincere as possible. In a few days, he would tell Russel that he had been towards the top of his non-Pharos picks to be a partner with.

Speed and stealth, with a sense of when to showboat, was what he needed now. He checked the position of the sun and was 90% certain of the quickest route. He conveyed that to Russel, who nodded and then repeated the orders back to him with minor amendments. Fantastic, a partner who could obey orders, let you know that he had understood them, and could clarify unintended ambiguities. There was a reason Vale and Vacuo had been allies in the Great War.

He looked at his partner's weapons. He would talk with the man later, but he had the sense that the man preferred sniping at Grimm, but if dealing with humans (or Faunus), he relied upon his knives.

He nodded at Russel. "Let's go. North, north-west from here." They jogged through the forest, and Cardin admired the man's instincts - he was watching out for Grimm but only fired when necessary. When they came across three Ursas, Russel knew when to switch to his knives. The speed with which he wielded them was impressive, while the Executioner finished the wounded Grimm off quickly. They high-fived and continued jogging. He was feeling happier about his partner already.

They quickly arrived close to the temple, and Cardin took out his binoculars and observed the relics. Ozpin and Oobleck had tried hard to mess up the prearranged schemes. He would give Dove thirty minutes to get here and then make certain that they chose matching relics. Alternatively, he would work out which one fitted in best with what he and Dove had discussed. Beacon had never done Caverns and Wyverns pieces or Searim species before.

He watched as a couple of minutes later, his cousin and the Lynx Faunus from Vacuo raced in and collected a Khajiit piece. For some reason, they didn't head off straight away to the bullhead but instead went back into the Forest. The Lynx Faunus volunteered to carry his cousin's golf bag, which contained her various weapons.

A few more pairs arrived and took pieces. After twenty minutes, Dove arrived with Sky Lark. Cardin fist-pumped and said to Russel, "Great. We're going to be a superb team."

He waved at Dove, who came over. They then chose two black Paladin pieces and strode off towards the bullheads.

He was happy. He didn't think Ozpin had any reason to pick any of the others over him as team leader; he had Dove on his team, and the two other team members seemed more than competent.

A few hours later, he was waiting for the formal announcement of the teams for the year. The four of them had showered and lunched together, confident they would be on the same team. Professor Port had come over as they ate lunch, shaken hands, and said, "Well done, boys; no, well done, men."

Cardin knew that this was deliberate, but he appreciated the message. Cardin's team were now men, and from what he had heard from Dove and Sky, they had dealt well with the Grimm they had met.

The seating before being called up was not in teams if only to keep some suspense going. Besides, some people may not know who had picked up the matching relic.

Cardin knew the order in which the teams not ranked in the top eight were announced was decided randomly. There were brief clips of them during the initiation process shown as they came on stage.

They announced teams eight to five in alphabetical order of the team names. They also showed extended clips of how they had dealt with the initiation process. The point was that the top eight teams were all perceived as having a real chance of competing at the Vytal Festival. No matter what was said about it being only one day, virtually never did a Vytal festival-contesting team not come out of the top eight at Initiation.

When it got to the top four teams, Ozpin would announce them in rough order of impressiveness of the best highlights that could be played. Cardin hoped his team would be the second or the third one called up.

He was glad for her sake to see that Julie had made it into the top eight and had even been made leader of Team SFRN (Saffron). They weren't a threat, but he knew Rupert Bartleby from Torch was a good, solid citizen. He would ask Sky what he knew about the Deer Faunus from Mistral on her team. The last member was James Norris, a Mustang from Atlas, whom everyone suspected belonged to the Atlas Diplomatic Protection Squad from how he had been hanging around Weiss and Brede yesterday. Certainly, he had been very quickly on the scene when Yang's sister, Blair Nightshade and Weiss had their difference of opinion. He and Weiss's butler had very quickly calmed things down. Probably a good but limited fighter.

To his delight, Henry and June had ended up on different teams, but both had been in the top eight rather than the top four. Their teams were competitive as far as he could tell, but they both had mustangs on the team. Also, his old mucker Maurice would be an uneasy fit on a team led by Henry Boxer. He hoped for Maurice's sake he wouldn't be too much of a jerk and for Cardin's sake that he would be a little bit of one.

He realised that most of the people he knew of had already been announced. Frack, were the unknowns and the outsiders really that good? Ideally, Pyrrha, Yang and the weird together/not together couple from Mistral would be on the same team. Remnant, having Pyrrha, Yang, Nora and Lydia on the same team would be the perfect result for him. It would concentrate the big threats on one team and increase the chances of his team being the second-best team at Beacon.

To his disappointment, when it came to the final four teams, the first names called were Sky's and Dove's, followed by his and Russel's. He watched the highlights and told himself that it was only because all of his team was good but not flashy that they had been called up in fourth place. Although he said so himself, his and Russel's dispatch of the Ursas was pretty impressive and was applauded. He knew Cousin Lydia liked to showboat and had little doubt that Yang had strutted. Obviously, Pyrrha Nikos would be on the number-one ranked team. As expected, he was announced as the leader of Team CRDL, pronounced Cardinal.

He wasn't worried when Anne and Brede were next on stage. Brede was a first-class sniper, and Anne was a decent brawler and very athletic. They worked well together - he provided the elegance, she provided the muscle - but didn't seem a significant threat. He could see they had performed slightly better than Dove and Sky on the day, but their strengths seemed better at fighting Grimm than for the tournament. Snipers, in particular, depended on having cover, and most practice arenas weren't large enough to allow them to get enough shots in to break someone's aura. Anne also used an off-the-shelf quarterstaff and pistol rather than a customised weapon. The quarterstaff was better for Grimm than humans.

They were partnered with Cousin Lydia and the Lynx Faunus. The next clips left him with an uneasy feeling. He knew how good Lydia was, but the Faunus looked sharp. He also now knew why Lydia and the Faunus had gone back into the forest. She showed off how every item of sports equipment in her bag worked as a weapon while he showed off his expertise with his crossbow and pistol. They must have killed the most Grimm of any pairing. He told himself that they were no better than him and Russel but had been showing off. He didn't quite believe it.

The Team name was announced as Team Lilac, and, to his surprise, the Faunus was named as team leader. No sign of any dissent from his cousin or the Atlas aristocrat. The lower-class Vale woman looked ecstatic just to be on a team which looked like it was a contender.

Next announced was Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie and a clip of Ren dispatching a King Taijitu played. Sky said, "I didn't know he was that good." They were partnered with Pyrrha and Jaune. The highlight which played for them resulted in a standing ovation from those present as Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora took on an Alpha Death Stalker and won. Well, crap, that was impressive.

He wondered where on Remnant they had found that large a Grimm. He thought that the yearly initiations and regular training exercises, plus Port's expeditions to the Emerald Forest, were meant to ensure that nothing that dangerous existed long enough to get to that size.

The audience gasped with disbelief when Jaune was announced as Team Leader. Dove whispered that they had only chosen Jaune as leader as they couldn't make a colour name of any other combination. Still, the other three members of team Juniper were surprisingly convincing in pretending that this was the right call. Well, unless Pyrrha "I'm sorry," Nikos had deliberately meant to face-palm Jaune on the floor when she had patted him on the back by way of congratulation. They replayed the fight's final minute to cover Jaune's embarrassment, and Cardin grimaced. The man had told the other three what to do. He may be a waste of space as a fighter, but he wasn't useless as a tactician.

This meant that there was one team which had done better than taking out a deathstalker. Cardin watched with increasing horror as Ruby, Yang, Blair, and Weiss took out the largest Nevermore he had ever heard of. Considering that yesterday he had heard that Weiss Schnee had been a bitch to Ruby and Blair had been rude to Weiss, the fact that they had got it together that much was a shock. Weiss's glyphs would be challenging to fight against and Ruby's speed was incredible.

Oh, drat and double drat. Instead of being on Vale's best (or second-best) team, he was on the third or fourth-best. He also didn't know enough about some of the members of the teams in the top five to eight to be sure that they weren't a challenge. Any given Sunday could be a concern for Team Cardinal come the final selection for the Vytal Festival.

Ozpin then announced the team leader as Ruby Rose. He wasn't certain whether Ruby or Weiss was more shocked by the announcement. Yang was delighted, and Blair seemed to smirk.

He wondered how they would work as a team. Team RWBY had an obvious Weiss problem. The woman was horrified by the choice of leader with whom she had already had two disagreements.

From what he had gathered from Loretta, if anyone picked on Ruby, they would face the wrath of Yang. So far, Yang had regarded the disagreements with Weiss as amusing spats, but who knew how long that would last. Another plus of having Ruby as their leader is that she would find it hard to stop Yang from being a party girl. Let's see how the bar worked out tonight.

Blair seemed semi-detached. She had hardly spoken to anyone yesterday and had been reading a book at breakfast. The one person she had interacted with was Weiss, and according to Russel, who had been closest to the argument, she had taunted Weiss about the SDC's record on workplace safety and the treatment of Faunus.

Puzzlingly, despite the animals' remark, Russel agreed with Blair on what she had said about the SDC. He would have to spend a lot of time with Russel to work out what made the man tick and defuse the risk of unnecessary arguments with other students. He felt that the man could easily rub people up the wrong way. Well, Dove would understand when Cardin told him that for the first few weeks, they should spend more time with their partners than with each other. Tom Piper had mentioned that his team had had teething problems because of having two students from Pharos together with one from Torch and another from Signal.

Let's think positively. Russel and Sky were satisfactory teammates; even better, they had no real friendships with other students from Vacuo or Mistral. Dove had been his best friend since childhood. Team Cardinal's strength would be their team spirit. To that end, he would be in touch with Aunt Agnes about her promise to help upgrade his team's weapons and provide them with team armour.

After Ozpin had made a reference to things shaping up to be an interesting year, Ozpin had paused and added, "In three hours' time, you have the really tough part of initiation to face up to. Team CFVY and Team PLUM are organising the initiation drinks and karaoke in the college bar after dinner tonight, and last orders are at midnight. All the beer, lager, Academy house wines, cider and soft drinks are free. Everything else is discounted to reflect the cost of a glass or bottle of house white."

The man touched his glasses, "I'm told that the landing strategy and blooper reels are particularly impressive."

Jaune Arc looked particularly panicked at this thought. Cardin had missed whatever had gone wrong with his landing strategy but found it hard to believe it had been as inept as Dove said it was. Cardin wondered how self-confident the man could be. If he only had his aura unlocked six months ago he would have missed all the training at combat school.

Coco Adel said, "Teal Cardinal, Team Ruby, Team Juniper, Team Saffron and Team Lilac, follow me and Fox to your dorms."

The five teams were led across the courtyard to one of the blocks of dorms. She took them to the top floor and handed each of them access cards. These opened the communal fire door as well as their individual dorms.

Coco called him, Jaune, Julie, Ruby, and the Lynx Faunus into the corridor. "Dinner is at six. There will be nibbles and cocktails outside from 5.30. Each team will have its own table. You will be served at the table. Ozpin does not believe in overdosing on the speeches, so with luck, you will all be in the bar by 7.30, where there will be plenty to drink. There are no lessons tomorrow, although some of you will meet with Glynda to discuss additional lessons. This tends to be for the wild cards, students from Vacuo and Mustangs. You five will also have additional seminars on leadership to be timetabled. I know you have one on the first day of term because I am part of the panel for that one."

Fox added, "Despite what Coco will try and tell you, solo or duet karaoke this evening is not compulsory, although past nine, you cannot expect to escape the group songs. Miming is permissible in those, provided not all of you try it."

There was a communal kitchen/dining room and a lounge, as well as the five dorms. Each dorm had two bathrooms, and there was also an additional couple of toilets off the lounge. He was glad they were next to Team SFRN and the door to the main building.

OK. Time to start the team bonding process. He was going to make it clear to his team that they were in a great position to qualify for the Vytal festival in nine months but that they would need to work hard.