….
The teachers were gallivanting along the subject material, extolling a brave team of young hunters facing off against their overwhelming foe.
It was more Port speaking, and his coworker doing artistic illustrations with incredible haste to keep up with the dialogue.
"So, with the incredible implementation of their decoy system allowing full nautical control against the Leviathan, the team managed to cut it down to size, and have enough seaworthy vessels to aid in the renewal of the village's fishing fleet. An inspiring tale of bravery against all odds."
The professor turned back to the blackboard, taking a quick glance at the expansive illustration accenting his notes.
He wheeled around, and saw with some interest that there was a significant number of hands raised. Port was looking forwards to this, as he looked around the classroom and spoke:
"Any questions?"
The glee was palpable.
"Professor. This is impossible."
"Ah!" He replied. "You'll find it's just highly improbable."
"Why would Grimm just… let you do something like this?" a male student asked.
"They probably wouldn't. This shows implementation of a good plan in the right place at a good time." Port said.
"This fails completely to mention that Leviathan is reported to have ranged capabilities." a quiet woman said from the back most layer of seats.
His hand twitched microscopically, not that the students would notice.
"I see you're well read. Care to share this with the rest of the class? Mrs…"
"Woods."
Ahck!
Ahck!
Ahck…..
… Ahem….
The professor's coughing caused confusion, further increased as he swiftly glanced to his right side. Students close to the front saw his eyes open slightly as he analysed the chalkboard.
….
… clever. When did you start this?
His assistant was sitting at the back row of the class, sitting like a well mannered and studious person. "How would you face against it if it had a breath projectile capable of slicing battleships into halves?"
He laughed, and started to talk once again, concluding his lecture.
"That depends on how well your team works together, and how well they can disable the Leviathan before it uses the breath ability. Now, You will get out of class work today, students!"
Port went and stood in front of the chalk artwork. He could recognize the elements that made up the Leviathan; reptilian head, white on black major colourations, but it wasn't nearly there.
Also, she deserves this.
"Firstly, find out what the Leviathan looks like. You can't just assume everything is always going to stay accurate throughout the years, and this is an example of it. Get copies of real photographs, or find peer reviewed illustrations of the creature. I will require sources."
After pausing, and hearing small sounds of some students taking pictures or videos on the devices they had, he walked to the front of his desk.
"Secondly, work with your team to make a plan on how you'd face this particularly deadly Grimm. Any hypothetical reinforcements are at least three hours away, and you have no support in the village you are in. For geographical locations, the village is settled in the cape directly south of Lower Cairn. There are 241 civilians, and the Leviathan is a third of a mile out from shore. If done properly, there should be no deaths."
The professor stood silently for a minute to allow the sheer difficulty of the task to settle on the students.
"Good. You are taking this seriously. Class is dismissed."
The students walked to the exit, pages rustling, and footsteps merging together into a single echoing torrent of sound.
"Wow. Heavy subject matter, professor." Paige chimed.
"Yes, Mrs Woods. It is. All of this is quite a serious matter."
"What's our next lecture on? I'm planning on doing some research-"
Port looked up at them. "On not invoking unplanned information that students would know if they researched? On how to properly-"
"Illustrate lectures, yes. If I'm going to do things like that again," she said, gesturing at the large swath of chalk Grimm, " then I should actually be drawing a proper diagram instead of an off the cuff illustration. That was a good point of criticism."
… "That would be good. I should also get you to practice actually delivering a lecture at some point instead of silently watching a student glare daggers at you or pretending to be a student. We're doing Ursa in two days."
Paige gave a small awkward laugh, and leaned in the chair. "What do you think I should do about Brown?"
"Who? I thought we were discussing Mrs Xiao Long."
…
Ah.
"I believe you should stop leaving her standing outside the classroom and talk to her about your last… interaction?"
Hmm. She's out there?
Paige stood up, stood straight, glided over to the entrance, leaned her head out the door, and tilted it ninety degrees.
"Ah, Hello, Student Br…"
Paige stopped.
She leaned back into the classroom.
She waited a second.
She leaned back out again
"Hello, Student Xiaolong! Don't you have class in… five minutes?"
Paige noticed the long yellow hair defy gravity and fall to the right. The owner of said hair spoke calmly, with a set face. "I do."
….
Paige watched the girl, and she watched back. Paige's eyes shrunk, and she had a suspicion on what was going to be happening this week.
Firstly, she was going to try to get this girl's team to strap her to her bed, because if this young woman's eyes were anything to go by, she definitely pulled an all nighter.
"You… want to fight me still? Even after I caused the untimely deaths of three of your four team members?"
"Especially because you caused the untimely deaths of my team. If all goes well, we'll win."
With that, she started walking to her next class in an incredibly suave glide toward the colored figures at the end of the hall. It seemed like some sort of YA drama.
Paige noticed the exact point the blonde girl actually bothered to check the time, because she shouted out "RUN!" and began to barrel towards the trio.
…
Paige turned back into the classroom, wondering if students were even allowed to fight a non-combat teacher.
…. Wait. Are there even teachers here that can't fight?
She had a bad suspicion it was probably dependent on the higher level faculty, and she had a sneaking feeling that she was not in their good books, what with the breaking into an airship, possessing a student on the first day of class, and all that stuff.
Paige slid along the floor and looked to her coworker.
"Hey, Port. Know anything abo-"
… "Are they trying to duel you?"
Paige watched and hesitated. "…How did you… know that?"
"They gave in all their work twice over in immaculate detail at three in the morning today, and asked to fight you."
Paige looked back towards the empty hallway. "So… Brown wants to get revenge on me bombing them with extra homework. That… makes some sense."
"I think, if you missed the pronoun choice, that they going to fight you."
…
…
…
"Wheeeen do their combat lessons start?"
Port didn't even look up. "Last class today. The self directed sparring is at 5:00 PM. You have… what, seven, eight hours? Eight hours to do whatever you need to before they try to get you hospitalized."
She groaned.
"Worried?" he remarked.
"I had things I needed to do today. I also had the research for our next lecture. I don't want to lose three days, Port."
Port looked up, and saw Paige's dour face drooping onto the desks.
He chuckled, "Why would you ever have to take three days off? If you're getting worried about losing a day, you should probably get started, then."
Paige flailed up, and wiggled to attention like a very drunk officer. "I'll be back with Ursa Major notes by next lecture."
Paige walked through the halls.
Okay, souls. I need a battle plan to fight four pissed off teenage girls.
…
…
Paige pulled out her phone, and eventually found an already noted useful little map of the academy in a photography interface. As she walked, a chatter of voices began to call out to her.
Rough: How do we give Blair senses? Do we find a butcher somewhere? Do we even have supplies to artificially create a nervous system?
Clipped: You took far too long. We need to get some bone marrow and blood-ink soaked pins fast.
And… excited. No… more… Giddy:
Ha! I'm going to be a real girl! Gonna get some real legs and real arms and real mature life goals!
Paige smiled at her little team, quite interested at how fast they managed to all put aside their differences for the common good. She turned into the library after a few short minutes, and she was able to find some books on various Grimm with relative ease. Sadly, she did proceed to spend one of her eight hours roaming the wood shelves and forest of literary spines in reminiscent joy.
… "Hello, Miss?"
Paige turned. There was a student behind her. "Do you know where the books on Mechashift class mechanics are?"
… Mechanics… I passed that twenty minutes ago… so that means…
"Go left three shelves, then look in the top left segment."
"Thank you!"
Paige turned to see him go, then completed the full revolution and started to walk away at a very quick pace as soon as intrusive thoughts barrelled in at full force.
Paaaaaaaige. That's a tail! It's a squirrel tail! Go talk to them! It's a squirrel right there!"
Angeline sat in the abyss, staring gobsmacked at her sister. flailing about like...
...
...
She expected some kind of reaction to seeing these weird hybrids, but… what in the world was this?
Angeline knew her sister loved animals, since she knew the girl was isolated and had an incredible interest in many of the old zoology textbooks.
But… this… This was nearing downright mania.
"Blair. Stop this asinine behaviour." she complained.
"No."
"Then you will never be able to get close to them."
Angeline flinched slightly as her sister spun to face her, but she stood her ground on this. "Take this advice from me. My personal experiences show that if you want to get close to someone, you can't act inhuman."
"But he's not human, Angeline. As I so clearly discussed earlier, they're Faunus."
… THAT BOY?
…
…
… God. My sister is a furry.
"They're not getting anywhere near you if we can't get Paige to complete this task. Remember, soul with no physical form?"
Blair glumly flopped to the floor, groaning her annoyance out.
...
Angeline took this time to visualise her book, and start reading up on it.
..
"Angel, can you try to help me out with th-"
Her fellow occupants both looked at the bright cover and shied away from it with disgust fully evident on their faces.
The light brown cover of Elucidations on Life and Soul was lightly marked with burgundy markings, and a small indent matching the shape of a hand. This small brown book, if it was known to the rest of modern society, would probably cause the collapse of civilisation. After all, mankind loved what was bad for them. She knew by experience. Angeline, knowing this, had made it for rather unclear reasons, hiding under the phrase "she just wanted to".
Of course, she would never willingly try to admit the true reasons for writing her discoveries on paper. Angeline Hardy went through pages trying to remember everything in the right order, and did so quite quickly.
"You both don't have to look at it while I do this, you know." She muttered softly.
"Angel. Who killed it in the end?"
Angeline looked up at him.
"Killed it?" She asked.
"I think I killed the demon spawn." Angeline said.
… "Demon spawn?" Angeline exclaimed, "What are you talking about? I never did anything related to fantasy novels."
Blair stared at her hands.
"It.. It's just a book. It's my book, why are you both acting like it's a living creature?"
"It basically was, Angel. You did nothing when I died, but as soon as you came to realise it was gone, you went feral trying to regain it.
…
… You also used it on my flesh to kill your mortal enemy. You also used it on all your sisters."
She frowned at Brandon.
…"I really fucking hate that book, if you want my opinion." Blair hissed.
Angeline stopped thinking about her life's research, and faced her… family, however shattered it was now.
… "Well, how do you like the irony of us now, then?" She complained.
"That your book of denying death is only accessible to your mortal enemy?"
…
"Don't nag me about it."
… "Pkay, Angel." Brandon said. "Back to the larger point. How should we be doing this? We have a limited price range-"
"-Of nothing." Blair piped in.
"-and we need to work with everything besides the base of a wood frame for construction. Also, how do we deal with death?"
…
Silence followed his words.
Brandon sighed, and fell back onto the dark ground.
"We need actual real world information to do this now."
….
"Hello?" Paige muttered.
Hello? Folks? I need help with a battle plan here-
Paige Woods. Where have you been?"
With that, she missed a step, and walked into a very old nightmare. Blood stretched across the floor towards the door where she stood.
A single hand reached out from mangled flesh as two barely opened eyes stared in regret.
She sighed, and slowly blinked once.
Back in the hallway.
Nothing was wrong.
Nobody was wrong.
"Brandon. You horrible man." she groaned. "There's so many other ways to get my attention."
How expensive is a large array of red, green, and blue lights here? Also, a camera, and two speakers.
Paige sputtered. Brandon. SERIOUSLY?
…
…
…
… "Nothing else, eh?" she muttered in annoyance.
A nose, but that's stretching it a little bit.
…Actually, now Paige was starting to wonder, where was all the technological functioning doohickeys? She knew that there were some volatile crystals called Dust, since she grabbed some a week ago or so… but that was it.
That… may actually work though. It is red, right? And… probably transparent. It was night, after all.
… hmmmm….
They have evaluators, though, alongside flying machines and digital touchscreen devices.
A student also talked to her about Mechashift, and one of her new enemies wanted to work with her on weapon modifications at some point…
Weapon modifications.
Mechashift.
That implied tools.
That also implies someone watched too much science fiction.
"Where's the….Ah!"
Paige scrolled through her map until she found her target destination. She grinned as she saw the word:
Workshop.
With an engineer on her backseat crew and some magical prowess?
This was going to be fun.