"Hello again everyone!" came Kurt's voice from the usual fireplace. "It's been awhile, hasn't it. Very much sorry about that. Busy, busy life, but how about we continue with the second part of initiation?"
Lunaka sat on the front steps out what was probably a church at some point in the past. It very much had been abandoned for years and was very clearly falling apart, but it did provide one useful thing. Grimm seemed to avoid it like a plague. The first batch of initiation had just finished up and LTAN were recovering a bit.
"Second batch just got launched," Tawny remarked as she dropped out of a nearby tree. "So they'll be here in 30 minutes I imagine," she added as she went over to a cooler the team had brought with them and pulling out some grapes.
Lunaka nodded. "Good, just enough time to get a new card started." The leader took out a small art kit from the cloak she wore along with an index card.
Before she began, glowing letters appeared before her. "What you gonna make?" Aerolynn asked, dangling her feet from the half destroyed gargoyle she sat atop of.
"I'm thinking a Nevermore. Something simple compared to what I did last time. Now can one of you grab Nicholas. We could use his knowledge of Signal students to discuss what we do next. Thank goodness you two went to Pharos or else we'd be out of some information."
"Got it," Tawny replied as she went inside to see Nicholas laying across one of the few pews that had stood the test of time. He had his eyes closed and his scroll face down, but Tawny could tell her boyfriend from still awake from the hearing aids he still had in. The one in his ear that she could she had a thrumming blue light on, meaning it was connected to his scroll and feeding music to him. She took out one of the grapes she had grabbed and tossed it at him to get his attention. She expected to get his attention when it hit him, but instead he turned and caught it in his mouth.
"Thanks babe, I was just getting hungry," he remarked with a small smile as he turned the hearing aids back to feeding back in noise regularly with a green coloration.
"Are you seriously using your semblance even while relaxing?" she asked.
"Maybe," he responded before standing up and stretching. "Showtime already?"
"Nah. Lunaka just wants to discuss what's next." Nicholas let out a small yawn as he followed her outside to see Aerolynn was using her semblance to project out the information they had gotten about the incoming first years, including their faces drawn in Valean Standard Code for Information Interchange
"You're getting better at that VSCII trick partner," Nicholas remarked, ruffling Aerolynn's hair before scanning the profiles laid out before them. There the second years would talk about who could make it past them in certain pairs.
Meanwhile on the other side of the Emerald Forest Nyx went into a divebomb down towards where she had accidentally dropped Amy. However she wasn't the only thing flying out there. The rustling of leaves as well as Amy's earlier shout had woken up a Griffon. The Grimm chased after Nyx as she dove down.
Reaching the ground she saw Amy do a kip up from where she had fell. "We got company," Nyx yelled as she landed. And took out Twilight Thorn and split it into Twilight Oath and Midnight Thorn. Amy quickly followed with Kagayaku in it's yumi bow form. She fired the arrow and clipped one of the Griffon's wings and sending it into a crash landing.
"Do you have a combat semblance?" Amy asked as the Grimm got back onto its feet.
"No. Purely tactical. Why?" was the response.
"I have a support semblance," she responded before unsheathing Kagayaku in a slash and actually taking off the top half of the beak of the Grimm.
"We probably won't need it though," Nyx smirked before using lightning dust in her falchions to slash up the Grimm with the charge, dealing extra damage. Amy nodded before blocking the claw slash from the Grimm that had been aimed at Nyx. She hadn't needed to worry though as Nyx had dodge it anyway and rolled under the Grimm, slashing into its underbelly as she did so.
As the Grimm began to collapse Nyx barely got out from under it. Even though the Grimm was already dissolving, the beast landing on her would have still hurt. Amy smiled as she helped her up. "I thought that Griffons were supposed to be tougher Minor Grimm?"
"I think neutering half of their ability to attack and then cutting open its gut would take down any Grimm," Nyx responded. "Why don't we get going?"
"Of course," Amy agreed before heading back towards the cliffs.
"I think you're heading the wrong way."
"Am I? I'm horrible with directions," Amy admitted, a bit sheepishly.
"Well it's a good thing we got paired up before you walked all the way back to the cliffs," Nyx remarked as the pair headed off to where team LTAN awaited.
Ruhe currently sat atop a hill that he could look down towards where LTAN was located. Half of his plan was to get ahead so that way an adequate partner could make their way to him, and the other half was to watch LTAN and any fights they have to get a better understanding of what they could do. To do so he used some water he had on hand along with the dirt of the hill to form a mud hut using his semblance. He took out a little bit of sand and metal, the objects glowed a platinum light before a spyglass formed which he used to watch the team.
At the foot of the hill was Bay fighting a beowolf with Undertow, the anchor having cleaved through a large pack of them already. Earlier he had seen Ruhe form the hut he was sat in and decided that was either where he needed to go or someone with a unique semblance that could be helpful on a team. On his way over the pack of Grimm jumped him. Compared to aquatic Grimm these minor Grimm had been cake to him as he moved to the hill.
He turned Undertow into its BLC form, blasting through the final Grimm with a hit of from the cannonball it fired. He hadn't had enough time to set up the stand to help mitigate the recoil, so his arm was pulled back a bit, but nothing his aura couldn't heal as he climbed the hill. Upon reaching the top he noticed the church and knew it had to be another student here. He went around to the open and locked eyes with Ruhe before sighing. "Oh great. The racist."
"The logical one," Ruhe corrected Bay, using his preferred descriptor for his dislike towards faunus, however he had to admit Bay was a less random faunus thanks to shark faunus being tail or teeth and he was teeth. "Now I suggest sitting down. LTAN are studying us and our classmates. You seem to be of special interest to Lunaka for some reason."
Ruhe didn't want to agree with his suggestion, he didn't want to be partners with Ruhe, but for now he'd play along. He'd talk to the headmistresses about it later. But he was curious about what the ashen haired boy had said. "Any idea why?"
"No. I lack the hearing and cannot see her lips moving due to the mask. A smart decision from her. In fact she is probably the smartest person I have seen since coming here. No visible weapons and her cloak hides her musculature so no easy way to determine her fighting style. As for the other 3 they do not seem to be as interested in you as she seems to. I wonder why that could be."
"And that shall be the question we leave on," Kurt remarked from besides the fireplace. "Why is Lunaka interested in Bay? An answer will hopefully come soon."
Wooooo! I actually had a lot of fun with this chapter. Little behind the scenes info though. Back when I first planned out TR, Ruhe and Ash were meant to be paired up with Bay and Rubrum being a pair, hence the details in the landings of last chapter, but with coming back I wanted to shuffle it around a bit.
