A Molten Fox's Tale

Time flies when you’re having fun, or in my case, finding out one of your professor's got shot, had a birthday, and training, lots and lots of training.

With my new weapon, which happened to have been named Molten Fox by Ruby I thought it was oddly fitting with this situation, Grandma took me to the Valley for training with it… after a week or two my limbs weren’t able to move. During my many training sessions, Grandma had invited Yang to come with us to the Valley. The first time she was brought into the open fields she was speechless, much like I was when I first saw the place. She even got some training from Grandma as well… and she knew how hard it was.

After a month of that we returned to Beacon, Yang now sporting a scar on her cheek after dealing with one of the wild life from the Valley, she got a scar, the other had a few broken bones and a really bad headache. A downside to the new scar was the explanation she had to come up with for her teammates. Grandma was fond of the scar, saying that it made her look as if she were a warrior. This inflated her pride. Her cover up was pretty much what we did, Grandma took us out into the wood for some training and a Grimm came and attack, got a lucky shot in on Yang. So far she was right other than where we were and who attacked us.

The biggest development was between Tak and Weiss, before I left the two of them were hanging out and were good friends, and when I came back the two were a couple. Both Yang and I had so many questions. We weren't even been told about them being together, we just stumbled upon them already in the middle of a passion filled kiss. It was quite a shock really.

After the whole debacle of being shot and the talk with Nava, Indigo had sworn off his drinking habits. His reason was… well it's actually quite funny. After having gone a full day without drinking and managing to sober up in the hospital, Indigo was bed ridden with a massive hangover. He wanted to avoid the same thing happening another time so he just stopped drinking, though now he drinks diet soda, going so far as to refilling his flask with diet soda.

Along with the change of his drinking habits, he started acting… well normal is the only word I can come up with. For one, he didn't yell at the first person that annoyed him and he was a lot harder to piss off than before. Another notable change was his attire, while it was roughly the same there were some key differences such as the colors. Gone were the gritty black colors of his clothing, now often seen in a deep ocean blue color. He looked well kept and professional looking. He even took time time to shorten his hair as it was beginning to get a little too shaggy.

A lot of students and other professors has seen this and were both amazed and shock at Indigo’s look. Blake has also spent most of her time with Indigo, saying that she was still worried that he might fall back into his drinking days. I have some doubts on that and maybe there’s another reason. I didn’t say anything but I saw that Blake was happy.

Today was an exciting day, it was the beginning of the second semester and not only that, the date in which the dance is held will be revealed during lunchtime. I sat down at the table eating when I saw Ruby and co come over and sat down.

“Hey.” I greeted them as they sat down. They said hi and started eating and talking to one another. It wasn't long before Mavis showed up, brightening up Yang's already happy mood.

“Sorry I'm late, something came up.” Mavis said as she sat down next to Yang. This of course was an excuse of having graded today's tests. Yang smiled as she pulled Mavis closer to her.

“It’s fine.” Yang said before leaning over and catching a grape in her mouth. I looked over and saw Team JPNR sitting at a different table and Nora was tossing food to Yang with a smile. This got an arched brow from Mavis, a little confused over this.

I shook my head and continued eating before Ruby stood up and pulled a large binder with the words ‘Best Day Ever Activities!’ on it. “Sister, friends… Weiss.”

“Hey!” Weiss said with frown as Ruby continued.

“Four score and seven minutes ago I had a dream…”

“This is going to be good.” Yang said as she caught a pea from Nora who was already reloading. Mavis pulled away away from Yang, not wanting to get pelted with food at any point.

“A Dream that all of us will have the best day ever!” Ruby proclaimed.

“Is that my binder?” Weiss asked, pointing at said binder.

“I’m not a crook.” Ruby said quickly. Blake arched a brow at this.

“What are you talking about?” Blake asked.

“I’m talking about kicking off this semester with a bang!” Ruby answered, which made Yang smirk.

“I always kicked off my semesters off with a ‘Yang’, Eh eh?” She said, earning groans from everyone else. This lead Nora to throw an apple at Yang, saying ‘Boo’ at her. Yang frowned at this as Ruby continued.

“Look guys, With the new transfer students coming and the tournament at the end of the year, our second semester will be great! But classes start back up tomorrow, which is why I took the liberty to plan out some fun scenarios for us to enjoy ourselves!” Ruby said happily.

“I don’t know if I should feel proud or scared of what you had plan.” Weiss said as Yang picked up some food and tossed it at Nora, missing a bit.

“I don’t know… I think I’ll sit this one out.” Blake said, earning a sad look from Ruby.

“Well, I for one think that for this last day, we should do it as a team.” Weiss said, earning an odd look from the others as she stood up. “I for one think-” She was cut off when a pie flew over and hit her in the face. We all turned to see Nora pointing at Ren who was facepalming. Luckily Tak was sitting beside her with a towel at the ready, wiping the pie off her face as if he was expecting this to happen. Mavis only sighed at this before Weiss retaliated only for her to miss and hit Pyrrha instead. Yang stood up with a pie on her own and yelled.

“FOOD FIGHT!” This lead to turn the cafeteria into a warzone. I pulled Tak under the table right as some food flew over at us. Mavis decided to simply leave, standing up and stopping any items of food midair and sending it back at the person who threw it. I crawled my way out from under the tables with Tak behind me.

“This is a waste of food.” I grumbled to myself as the doors opened and everyone ran outside, leaving me, Tak, Team RWBY and Team JPNR. The whole place was turned upside down, tables and vending machines were stacked up on one another and Nora was proclaiming that she’s the Queen of the casile. Then there was the battle between the two teams … a food battle.

“Uhh… Nope.” I said as Tak and I walked past two guys watching this and out of the building. Once outside, Tak and I breathed out sighs of relief. We sat down on the nearby benches, having ended up in the courtyard.

“That was… odd.” He said mostly to himself, having never heard of battles fought with food. We sat there for some time before hearing a loud crash and something flew out of the building… straight up.

“This place takes Food fights way to seriously.” I said to myself. It was then that I saw Indigo walking by, in his hands was his own tray of food. He must've been inside before the fight started, he looked a little annoyed but it wasn't worryingly so.

“They're using soda cans as grenades.” He said to us as he walked by. This got Tak and I to blink in surprise. I shook my head at this before some time later I saw Miss Goodwitch come stomping over to us.

“Students, Professor Indigo.” She said as she marched towards the warzone. Once Indigo was done with his lunch, we finally heard the fight die down and decided to check the carnage.

In side I saw tables were getting put back together and placed where they were. What ever mess there was was fixed by Miss Goodwitch. She looked over at the others as they were covered in different foods.

“Please… don’t play with your food.” She said sternly as Yang came falling down from the sky. She got up and brushed herself off as if nothing has happened. Indigo frowned at everyone covered in various foods but said nothing before raising his hands up and simply back away. I shook my head as I saw Mavis peek in and I went over to her.

“Everything is over… and for some reason Yang was launched up.” I said to her and looked up at the roof, seeing two holes in the roof. Mavis followed my gaze before humming a bit.

“I do hope this doesn't happen again.” Mavis said simply, walking into Yang's view while Weiss was handed several paper towers to clean herself off before she head back to her dorm. The others did the same and headed off, Ruby and Yang walked over to us.

“Hey, you two missed out the fun.” Yang said happily. Mavis gave her a deadpanned look before crossing her arms at Yang, no doubt unhappy she was nearly caught in the crossfire. Yang blinked at this, looking confused. “What?”

“Nothing Yang, just go get cleaned up.” Mavis said to the blonde. The latter was still confused and thought she did something wrong. She didn’t say anything before headed off to get clean.

“That uh… wasn’t part of my plans…” Ruby said with a sigh. Me and Mavis looked over at Ruby with arched brows.

“But you certainly enjoyed it.” Mavis said the scythe wielder, giving Ruby a smile. Ruby smiled back.

“Yeah, it was fun.” Ruby said. I smiled at this before asking.

“So, what’s the plan now Ruby?” I asked her. She blinked at this and shrugged.

“I don’t know really. Most of the ideas I had are.. Well, scrapped.” Ruby said with a small laugh. I couldn’t help but laugh a little as well. She looked over to me and asked. “Hey, do you want to hang out?” I blinked at this before smiling.

“Sure, I don’t have anything to do…” I looked over at Mavis. “Right?” This got a questioning look from Ruby while Mavis shook her head, smiling and saying.

“Not for today at least, sis.” Mavis said, putting up her sisterly act with Ruby still here. I smiled at her then looked at Ruby.

“I guess I’m free.” I said to her, earning a smile from Ruby before she left to get cleaned up, leaving me with Mavis and Indigo. The latter was talking to Professor Goodwitch, though the topic of the conversation was unknown to me.

Without anything else to do for now, Mavis and I simply decided walk around the Academy to pass the time. She even reverted back to her older self for the time being. During our walk, she began to tell me what she has in store for the whole semester and so far it sounds pretty basic. Upon saying that it sounded basic, Grandma immediately added that she was explaining the training she has planned for the others… oh fuuuck~

“Wait… what do you have planned with Viri?” Ruby asked, making me jump and realize she was following us. She didn’t seem to notice that Grandma changed her form, which is understandable since she’s good to keeping herself from being notice by others. Either by magic or just really really skilled… or both. Grandma glanced back at Ruby and so did I, seeing that she had gotten herself clean already and in different uniform.

“Viri is quite skilled in combat you see, what I have planned for the rest of the class just won't do for someone of her prowess.” Grandma said to Ruby, which only got her to be interested in this even more.

“And what’s that?” Ruby asked, I looked at her wide eyed.

“Ruby, careful what you’re saying.” I warned Ruby who gave me an odd look. Grandma chuckled a little.

“If you are curious to know, I train Viri personally and while the methods I use for class are good and all, nothing shows better progress than pushing someone over their limit.” Grandma said, chuckling to herself no doubt remembering the many times I just wanted to collapse where I stood.

“Right… can’t be that hard right… Viri why are you face palming?” Ruby asked as I was, in fact, face palming.

“Yang asked that same question… and now she’s part of the training list of hell.” I groaned which got a chuckle from Grandma and a surprised Whaaa from Ruby. I shook my head at this. “You asked… sorry.”

“I don’t get it.” Ruby asked, looking to Grandma for answers.

“Your sister had heard from Viri's sister that I had been giving different lesson to Viri. She got curious and talked to me about it, she wanted to see for herself what was so special about it. Now she and Viri are taking advanced lessons during my classes.” Grandma said to Ruby, explaining to her in a simple way that didn't complicate things. Ruby made a face that I knew pretty well. It was the same one that Yang had before.

“You want to be a part of it as well?” I asked, making Ruby look at me.

“Uhhh… kinda… maybe not.” Ruby said, looking between me and Grandma.

“You don't need to, it's your choice Miss Rose.” Grandma said to Ruby, giving her a sense of ease. Ruby was now in thought, all three of us stopped in the middle of the hallway with some but not many students passing us by.

“I think I’ll pass.” Ruby answered to Grandma after a few minutes worth of thinking. The latter gave Ruby a smile and a nod before saying.

“If that is your decision, I will respect it.” Said Grandma, gaining a smile from Ruby before Grandma turn to look at me. “Anyway, I must get going. I still need to prepare for tomorrow.” Grandma said to me and Ruby before heading off towards the direction of her classroom. I let out a sigh before looking at Ruby.

“So… what do you want to do?” I asked. She hummed for a moment before answering.

“Want to wander around Vale for a bit?” She asked me. I nodded and the two of us headed off. The rest of the was rather dull, though Ruby tried her best to liven it up a bit more and for the most part, it worked. She somehow made the dullest things a little more interesting and even fun. I was somehow roped onto a game of hide and seek with her, which she won everytime as a hider but never the seeker.

It was fun… but a little challenging, she’s so quick to go hide some place and she picks the most hardest places to hide. By the time we finished up our little game, it was nearing sundown and it was time to head back to Beacon. When we took the bullhead back, it was practically night already when we arrived.

“That was fun.” I said with a smile on my face. “But did you have to hide in the trees?” This made Ruby giggle.

“No one looks up all the time.” She said with a smile. This made me laugh a little as we got to Ruby’s door. “See you in class.” She said before heading inside the room. I let out a sigh.

“Yeah… class…” I said as I headed off, worried what Grandma had in store. I headed back to my room and didn't even check to see if Tak was here before flopping down onto my bed and letting sleep take me.

The Next Day

The first day back to class, and I had Grandma’s class first. I think someone out there has it out for me. I got up from bed and got ready for class. I made my way there and was a few minutes early, giving me time to sit down and read the book mama gave me. It wasn't long until Yang showed up, having made a habit on showing up early to this class. She was already panting when she got here, no doubt having ran all the way here. She then walked up to Grandma as she changed into her younger self, giving the blonde a sweet kiss before reverting back and ushering Yang to her seat. I smiled at this as I read, I don’t know how but mama knows how to suck people into her stories. I was absorbed in my book until someone put a hand over the book and I saw it was Grandma with an arched brow. I realized that class already started and was a few minutes in already.

“Please pay attention, dear.” She said to me, before grabbing my book and placing down on my desk.

“Sorry…” I said to her, which earning a chuckle from Grandma before she headed back up to the front of the class. She went on to explain today's lesson and what she plans on doing. Most of it went by my head, my mind was practically back on the book. I glanced at it every so often, my hand slowly inched its way over to it but I pulled away to listen in on the lesson. Now here's the bad part, just when I began to listen in was the moment Grandma stopped talking which left me screwed over. I felt my chair suddenly pull out from under me and so did the others. The desks and chairs of the entire classroom retracted into in the floor, forming a much larger training area which left everyone baffled.

“Oh yes, I've forgot to mention that I had some improvements done to this room.” As she said this numerous training equipment appeared from the walls and floors.

“How did you do all this?” Weiss called out, looking around as if this was something new. This got an audible chuckle from Grandma as she took a seat just as her chair popped up from the ground.

“It was only possible with some help but that is all I will say, Miss Schnee.” Grandma said to Weiss, leaving the heiress to look in awe at the changed room around her. Murmurings of the other students filled the room, making their surprise known to the person beside them and it was nearly headache inducing. A loud snap caught everyone's attention, looking over to Grandma as she lowered her hand. “Now class, before we begin I would like you all to welcome our late newcomers.” Grandma said just as the door opened, revealing… Tak!? He came walking in with a smile, with a new looking walking stick. Behind him was a man with short blond hair, tanned skin, wearing a white shirt that was unbutton, red gauntlets, blue jeans, and black and yellow shoes. A noticeable thing was that he had a yellow monkey tail.

Behind him was another guy with short blue hair with goggles on. He wore a red jacket with a black tie and black pants. Soon two others walked in as well, one had red hair that covers his right eye, wore a white shirt and pants with a red coat over his shoulders, it gave me a captain of a ship feel, the other wore a long white and green trance coat and had short black hair. He had darker skin than the others.

As the last four walked in most of the female classmates had dreamy looks on them as they watched. I rolled my eyes at this as they walked up to the front.

“Tak here…” Grandma said, helping Tak step forward a little. “Has been given a rather late acceptance into Beacon courtesy of the Headmaster.” She said before giving Tak a gentle nudge forward towards us. I walked up and helped him through the crowd. “And these four young gentlemen are transfer students from Heaven Academy, they'll be attending Beacon for the duration of the Vytal festival.” Grandma said. The four smiled at the rest of us. Most of the females were excited as I, again, rolled my eyes. Grandma told the five of them to stand with the rest of us. As he walked over I notice Cardin smirked at this and stuck his foot out to trip Tak. Right as Tak was going to step forward he stopped and side step around Cardin’s foot, earning a shock look from him as Tak continued. Class continued as normal, by that I mean nonstop sparring matches as today was endurance. Fight till you drop. Luckily I was spared from this, along with Yang and Tak. Though this wasn't all happy go lucky, me and Yang had to spar against Grandma for a while and were left beaten once again while Grandma had little to no scratches on her.

“You… trained… with her… for a long time… did you ever… get a hit off… on her?” Yang asked while panting.

“No… not… once… ugh.” I said panting as well before pushing back up with Yang. Hearing the sounds of our defeat, Tak was notified that he was up next and he stood up from his seat. He made his way over to arena and with the help of Grandma, he was positioned on the opposite end of her. Yang and I looked at one another as the others saw this as well, and starting to mutter to themselves.

“Oh this is going to be good.” Cardin said as he smirked at the sight of this. I frowned at this as I looked at the two. Grandma looked at Tak with a smile before she said.

“Now don't be afraid to give it your all.” Was Grandma said to the blind bat faunus. The latter nodded before charging forwards towards Grandma with alarming speed, it could rival that of Ruby's. Tak swung his cane as if it were a club, to which Grandma stopped but upon making contact with the cane, it extended and wrapped around her arm like a whip. This actually surprised Grandma and before she could catch her bearings, was soon thrown towards the spot Tak stood on mere seconds ago. This action of course left him very winded but he still stood tall. Grandma was quick to recover at the edge of the ring, shocking everyone around at how quick Tak was close to winning. Grandma turned back to face Tak in time to see his cane retract back to normal. The two clashed once again, this time Grandma wasn't caught off guard with the whole whip cane thing. They traded blows for the longest time before Grandma sent the poor guy flying off the ring and onto the floor. The latter groaned while Grandma panted as she was out of breath. Everyone was surprised at this as Weiss ran over to check on Tak.

“Wow… he’s good.” Yang whispered to me, only for me to nod. We went over to check on Tak while Weiss was beside him, helping him sit up.

“You okay?” I asked him. Tak placed a hand on his head with a groan, I could swear I saw his eyes have the cartoonist swirls in them.

“Y-yeah, I'm fine.” Tak finally said after shaking his head. “So… how did I do?” He asked us.

“Pretty damn good if I had to say.” Yang answered with a smile.

“Yeah, other than Yang, I haven’t seen anyone give the professor a surprise in a fight.” I said with my own smile. Weiss smiled at Tak and gave him a small hug before helping him up to his feet. Once he was up, I handed him his cane. The others were still talking amongst themselves, surprised at how well Tak handled himself against Grandma. I noticed that Cardin was frowning at this but I paid no mind to that before Grandma continued on with today's class before it was time to move to the next class.

“Remember to never slack off from your studying. You may never know when I may give you a written test.” Was Grandma's advice to everyone. No matter how many times she would warn them to study in case of a surprise exam, they never take her seriously. I made sure to grab all my things, including my book which I plan to read in the library during free period.

As I did I ran into Ruby. “Hey Viri, what’s up?” She asked me.

“Nothing much, heading to the library for free period.” I told her.

“Cool, mind if I tag along?” She asked me. I smiled and nodded as the two of us headed to the library. When we got there I sat down in a chair and opened my book where I left off. I looked up to see a number of books Ruby got, seems that she was studying, as well as some books on weapon design. I shook my head as I remember Yang telling me that Ruby was a bit of a weapon nut. It wasn't long until the others showed up, each of them holding a book of their own with the exception of Tak. Seems like me and Ruby weren't the only ones that headed straight to the library.

We chatted for a bit, I was convinced that I had to study as well, pulling me away from my book. I was a little bent about it but they were right as I was handed a book and started to study. During the time I had to lightly kick Ruby to wake up from napping on her book so she could study.

This continued until the bell ringed and we had to head off to our next class. The next class, along with the majority of the other classes were rather dull and it was killing me with how boring I felt. Professor Ports class was the worst of it, while he does teach some good techniques against certain Grimm, he has a habit of rambling on about some story he may or may not have made up of his past. When lunch came around, I swore the ringing of bell was a chorus of salvation.

I sat with Team RWBY and Tak at lunch and we talked about some plans we had before the bell ringed again and we had to head off to the next class.

This one was going to be interesting since it was Indigo’s class. If you don’t know the weight of this situation let me rephrase that for you, it was Indigo’s class sober. We all walked into the room and sat down and waited for the bell to ring for class to start. Once the bell rung, we waiting for Indigo to show up and it wasn't until five minutes in that the other started to get rowdy. With no professor in sight, some student pulled out their scrolls and began texting or playing games, others simply talked to one another. It wasn't until I looked down at my book that I noticed something odd, with the light shining over me there should've been a shadow under the book. I looked around and saw that other peoples shadows were moving away from their owners and it wasn't long till someone noticed. Some people yelped in fright at this, some even jumped up onto their seats as the shadows moved around. The shadows suddenly sprung from the ground, as if they had taken a life of their own before they all headed onto Indigo's chair, each of them sitting and merging with one another before leaving a silhouette of a man. A snap of his fingers and the shadows dissipated and reappearing where they belong, leaving Indigo sitting in the chair. Everyone looked at him in surprised, well everyone other than Tak who looked confused.

“There we go, took a few tries but I finally got.” Indigo said mostly to himself as he kicked up his feet on his own desk. “Afternoon, class and welcome back to a whole new semester of wondrous learning and hellish training.” He said in a chipper tone. Most of the students groaned at this, me and Yang though not so much. Indigo arched a brow at the others. “Oh get used to it. You all signed up for this, so act like you care.” He said to everyone who groaned while me and Team RWBY were still flabbergasted at the new Professor Indigo. I looked over and saw Blake smiling at Indigo. I shook my head at this and listened to what Indigo had to say. “Now as you all may have heard, I finally kicked off my bad habit, so gone are the days I keel over into a drunken sleep and gone are your scrolls from interrupting my class!” He said last bit while smacking his hands against the surface of his desk, startling those who still had their scrolls out. “My assistant will take care of those pesky devices.” Indigo said just before his beowolf companion, whom I've only seen a handful of times, jumped and took several scrolls into his mouth, carrying it back to Indigo's desk. Upon dropping them off, Indigo rewarded his canine like companion with a series of scratches behind the ears. Of course the students that had their scrolls taken away complained that he couldn't do such a thing. “You'll get scrolls back after class, any word from either of you will be given a minus twenty point disadvantage on their next tests.” He added with a frown. This got to quiet the complaining students now. It’s a good thing that I got my book instead of my scroll out. I'll admit that Indigo's class was somewhat similar to Ports but Indigo doesn't go on a rambling story about his past and his class doubles as training though the classroom wasn't like Grandma's, Indigo had been given his own training hall for us students to use as long as he permits it.

This went on before I heard some buzzing from my pocket. I frowned at this as I looked down to the pocket that had my scroll in it and ignored it. After a few minutes the buzzing was getting louder. I quickly pulled it out and turned it off before Indigo heard anything. I did that with a minute to spare as Indigo turned to say something before my scroll buzzed loudly that he stopped and looked at.

“I turned you off!” I said as I pulled my scroll out and saw it was a call from my aunt. I blinked at this before realizing that Indigo somehow got up to my desk and frowned at me.

“Have anything to share with the class, Miss Warren?” He asked me with an annoyed tone. I laughed nervously at this, not knowing what to do before he looked down at my scroll as it buzzed. “Hmm… fine. Go out into the hall and have your call.” He told me, I nodded at him before he quickly added. “But you only get one freebie!” He quickly said as I hurried down the steps. I went out to the hallway and closed the door, sighing before answering the call.

“There you are, I was wondering why you’re not picking up.” Auntie said before I could say anything.

“Sorry I was in class.” I told her with a frown.

“Really? I thought you had Indigo’s class, mostly he’s passed out drunk for most of it.” Auntie said in a surprised tone.

“Well since he was in the hospital for a few days it kinda sobered him up and made him go clean.” I pointed out of her.

“Oh, well good for him, never really like the sight of men drunk off their asses… speaking of Indigo, sorry for this being really long but I had to look into it some more.” She said to me, surprising me with the last part. I was left confused and decided to ask.

“Huh?” I asked, blinking in surprise. Not the greatest question but it'll have to do.

“That bullet you sent me, I finished doing some looking around and found some interesting stuff.” She started to say.

“Really?” I asked her.

“Yes, as it seems the metal that was in the bullet was most interesting, it could simply block the connection the Huntsman have with their auras, kinda like putting a stopper in their bodies.” She started to explain which made me frown, if the White Fang has this then it would mean trouble for everyone else. Luckily Auntie continue to add. “The bright side of things is that the ore that has these properties are scarce in all of Reament, and just so happens in some spots I’ve just planned to build and buy.” I let out a breath I was holding.

“Right… so we good now?” I asked before adding. “If that’s all then can I go back to class?”

“Huh? Oh yes sure, go ahead. I will go talk to my sister about this. Toodles.” She said before the line went dead. I sighed at this before turning my Scroll off and put it into my pocket before entering. Upon entering, I received glares from the few that had their scrolls taken away and I quietly made my way back to my seat. It was fortunate for everyone that today's class was a simple recap test that was fairly easy though I did get stuck on some things but I managed to finish it in time.