Chapter 134: Initiation

Chapter 134: Initiation

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

Initiation

Bright and early the next morning, Adam and I were waiting in my grandmother's massive living room, watching the news as we waited for the rest of my family to wake up and come downstairs. Specifically, Adam was watching the news on the massive holographic display, listening to a reporter go on about statistics related to Haven, while I was looking out the window and parsing the signals that filled the sky. Despite the fact that the sun had only just risen, I could sense that Olivia was already getting prepared for her big dayunsurprising, honestly, since worry and excitement had kept her up most of the night. Grandmother was stirring in her bed as well and would undoubtedly be down shortly, given all her files and papers were already stored neatly in her briefcase. The rest of my family would wake up a little later to bid Olivia good luck, though it was up in the air whether or not Indigo would be able to formulate intelligible sounds at six in the morning.

Until then, however, there wasn't much to do but wait. I let Adam sleep after we got back, leaving him to rest and dream and do all that other stuff I generally avoided, and worked through the night within Naraka to get some last minute training done. But now, as the deadline drew near, there was nothing to do except wait, and so I did.

After a few minutes, Adam finished his bowl of cereal and set it down on the floor for Gou to drink from. Autumn circled him, growing into a large, pink-blossomed treea cherry tree, sort of, except eyeballs hung from it instead, retina instead of stems. They twitched and rolled in place, flickering towards anything that happened to move, but Adam had gotten used to it and so merely inclined his head and walked past her.

"So," Adam murmured as he came to stand beside me and rest his back against the wall, looking every bit the bodyguard he now officially was. "How are we going to play this one?"

I glanced away from the skyline to look at my friend, quirking an eyebrow.

"You mean if we end up enrolling?" I asked, knowing he was aware of the plan up to that point. Sure enough, he nodded at me.

"Yeah," He said. "If we end up being students, weJaune, you and I are way above that."

"Actually, a few days ago you'd have fit right in," I teased. "I've seen a few students around your level."

He scowled slightly at that.

"You know what I mean," He answered.

"I do," I confirmed, smiling easily. "What about it?"

"What about it?" He repeated. "It's a Hunter Academythey'll want to test our strength. We'll fight Grimm, each other, all that stuff."

"We'll have exams and homework, too," I chuckled. "Don't worry about that, though; I understand you're not prepared for something like that, so I'll help you."

"That's not" He paused, thinking. "Actually, define help."

"I'll do all the homework," I gestured lazily. "Should only take me a minute or so. Exam-wise, I'll just whisper the answer in your ear with Levant or take control of your pen. I know what your handwriting looks like. Don't worry about it."

He nodded slowly, looking a touch relieved.

"There goes one pain in the ass, at least," He replied, relaxing a touch. "But that's what I meant. If we end up fighting, either of us could crush anyone that gets in our way, but that might draw attention. What do you want me to do?"

I chuckled again.

"Do whatever you feel like doing," I answered. "You're a professional and I trust your judgement."

"Yeah, but" He sighed. "Playing with kids isn't really my area of expertise."

"Playing with kids?" I laughed. "You sound like an old man. You realize I'm the same age as those 'kids', right?"

"You're too fucking weird to count as a kid," He shrugged as if that was that.

"Fair enough," I smirked. "But honestly, it's probably not that different from what you're used to."

He gave me an admirably skeptical look.

"Irather doubt that."

"Remember where we are," I chided as I shook my head. "Even beyond the fact that Haven is a school for Hunters, it's a school in Mistral. And like everything else in Mistral, it's pretty much run by the Families. The people who graduate from it will work to protect the Kingdom, of course, but there's more to it than that."

He frowned for a moment before nodding slowly.

"It's about power, isn't it?" He asked, catching on.

"Being a Hunter means getting put on a fast track to power somewhere in Mistral's hierarchy and everyone knows it," I confirmed. "More than that, however, the school itself is all about power. It's a proving ground of sorts; most of the students there get their ways paid by sponsors of some kind and there's often more to it than that. Think of it likethink of them like sports stars. A lot of them get contracts and deals, support for their families, paychecks, all that stuff."

"And I take it this all leads back to the Families?" He guessed.

"Doesn't everything in Mistral?" I asked. "A lot of it's done through proxy businesses, which is why you see a lot of Hunters in commercial and on cereal boxes and stuffbut yeah, if you trace it back far enough, you'll find people in the Families signing the checks. That's part of why the tournaments are such a big deal hereit gives people a chance to see prospective students in action before they start making sales pitches."

"And Haven is where all of them gather," Adam mused, nodding slowly to himself. "I see. And these groupsfight each other?"

"Adam," I chided at once. "We're all friends hereand civilized men and women besides."

He made a sound of understanding.

"Nothing that obvious, of course," He continued. "We just lie, work against each other, make shows of power, and work to gather more."

"Now you get it," I nodded with a smile. "It's more subtle than it sounds, of coursea lot of people probably don't realize that's even what's going on. On the surface, most of it will just seem like fun and games and to a lot of people, that's all it is, but the student's at Haven compete and are set against each other constantly. There are a lot of different factions within the school itself that vie for power and the faculty tends to step back and watch a lot to see how things shake out. It's one of the ways the Families still compete with each other without seeming like they are and gathering power around oneself is a very big deal, by design."

"You're right," He sighed. "This does sound familiar. And I take it we're representing the Roma."

"You got it," I said with a wink. "So don't worry about hiding your strength too muchbecause here, power is everything. If we become students, the first thing we'll do is establish the pecking order and make our lives easier. Don't hurt anyone too bad, but otherwise, go crazy. Take on an entire team by yourself if you want. It doesn't matter if you draw some attention because as far as anyone that matters is concerned, we're advertising."

"Okay," He smiled slowly. "Yeah, I can work with that. I assume that if any questions arise"

"Covering a few age brackets is pretty easy when you have eight kids," I shrugged. "But yeah, I've noticed that, too. I'm not really the heir, but I figure there was some talk when I showed up in Mistralespecially since I met pretty much all the heirs my first night. If I was anything like a normal person and my family less dysfunctional, they probably would have arranged something. As it is now, I've got bigger things to worry about."

I paused for a moment to consider it before chuckling.

"Although," I smiled and bumped his shoulder hard enough to jostle him in place. "When you think about it, I guess you and I are part of an alliance ourselves, aren't we? The grandson of Jeanne Roma and the son of Raven Branwen"

He grunted, sounding annoyed at either the bump or my words.

"Whatever," He said back. "Where are these heirs, then?"

I raised a finger and then dropped it to point down the steps.

"Right over there," I answered. "They arrived just a while ago."

"Oh, hey," A familiar voice shouted. "Look who it is. I heard you were back in town."

Turning my head so he'd know I was looking at him, I smiled at the foursome that was making their way up the stairs. I knew three of them and even without the words floating above his head, I'd have been able to guess the identity of the fourth.

"Kyanos," I said with a nod. "Ulaan, Melania, it's good to see all of you again."

Then I turned towards the last of them, a pale, dark-haired boy with tan clothes.

"And you must be Itri," I smiled, inclining my head slightly. "Kyanos said you were busy the last time I was in town. A shame we didn't get to meet until now."

"I suppose it was," He murmured, looking me up and down. "I saw your performance against Ms. Nikos. It was rather impressive."

"It's kind of you to say so," I smiled a bit wider. "I was starting to feel a bit worried, since no one seemed to recognize me. I guess the people in the stands didn't get enough close-ups for me to be recognized on sight after so much time."

"That must be it," Kyanos nodded with a yawn. "Though you look a little different."

"Time will do that," I chuckled before glancing them over. "You guys look a bit stronger now, too."

The Seventeenth Scourge

LV42

Ulaan Khagan

The Glinting Helm and Driving Spear

LV41

Kyanos Alexandria

Nymph's Shadow

LV38

Melania Delphos

The Arrested Destiny

LV42

Itri Barca

"Thanks," Kyanos replied, smiling before hanging his head in fake exhaustion. "Man, but Gramps can be a slave driver when he wants to be. Well, but I guess I probably can't complain about stuff like that to a Roma, huh?"

"I guess," I answered with a shrug. "My training really wasn't all that bad though."

"I'll take your word for it," He chuckled. "I heard you're going to be in town for a while?"

"Seems that way," I nodded. "I had to leave because of family issues and that's why I'm back now."

"You going to Haven, then?" He asked. "I heard Gramps talk about you, but he didn't say anything about you going here."

"I've given it some thought," I admitted. "I'm just waiting for something to make up my mind, you know?"

"Better make it up fast; initiations tomorrow," The Alexandrian stretched.

"I told Grandmother I'd decide before the end of the day," I nodded before glancing down the stairs. Emerald and Mercury had entered my sights and were slowly walking in the direction of the school, side by side. In response, I slipped my gaze across the city, making use of my vantage point as I searched.

"Any idea what you're looking for?" Kyanos asked as I paused.

"Maybe," I said with a slow nod, focusing completely on the words above the woman that caught my eye. "Yeah, maybe."

?

LV?

Cinder FallUpdated from novelbIn.(c)om