Ch. 11 Group Time

A/N: Haven't found a spot to put the photos. So here you go.

Characters and their Weapons:

Back to your regularly scheduled reading

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Alabast goes through the usual nightmare, not whatever upgrades nightmare he had before.

As he watches his mother get dragged away by her white hair he struggles to see her blurry face. Then the dream transitions into a wall of the many horrified faces of the people he has killed in the recent years, some were clearer than others but the sheer number of them is what made it a nightmare. He didn't count how many he killed, so his brain is likely exaggerating. Why it would do this? He can only wonder.

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

He's stirred awake by the sound of his alarm going off. Before he can open his eyes-

"Oh My Gods~!" Nora squeals across the room.

Alabast rolls over and turns his alarm off and sees Nora sitting on Rens bed with Pyrrha standing next to her. Pyrrha's back is to Alabast while she looks at the scroll in Nora's hand.

The redhead turns around with a small smile, she's already dressed in her school uniform. "Good morning Alabast"

"Morning, Am- actually…" Alabast rubs his eyes with his right hand. "I think Ember is more fitting"

Pyrrha walks over to her desk and begins pretending to busy herself with the books and papers. "I… guess it is"

Alabast opens his eyes and looks at Pyrrha's back for a few seconds before turning to Ren and Nora. When he looks at them he sees Nora's mischievous smirk.

"This has been spreading like wildfire since yesterday" Nora holds her scroll out and Alabast sees a video playing on it.

Its a video of him and Weiss at the library yesterday. With Alabast standing behind Weiss before he has to catch the bookshelf and causes the books to fall. How he shields Weiss with his own body.

Before Alabast can speak Nora quickly launches into her hyperactive mood. "Are you ok Ashy? It must have been tough having to deal with so many annoying people! But good job saving Weiss! You looked so manly! It looks like a scene out of a romance movie!"

"Nora!" Ren tries to get her to be a little more sensitive but is unsuccessful.

Pyrrha's small smile on her face doesn't go away. She had to admit that Alabast did look cool saving Weiss, but she was also kinda… jealous of Weiss. But she's happy nobody got hurt, even if there are some nasty rumors going around the school. Glynda released what actually happened but people like to gossip and it'll take some time to blow over.

"Me and Weiss are alright" He scratches behind his ear and continues. "I guess it sort of does look like a movie scene..."

It had been so long since he had actually watched a movie. But he remembers how exaggerated they are.

Nora squealed in excitement before hugged Ren. Then she looked at Pyrrha and with her eyes said 'You have competition'

This causes Pyrrha to blush a bit before turning back towards her desk and fiddling with a book.

"Anyway, I'll tell everybody about my scars after we get through class today. It's not combat oriented today so it's probably going to be boring" Alabast tries to change the topic.

"It wasn't so bad yesterday. Professor Ports class wasn't… that… bad…" Pyrrha tried to defend the professor but slowly couldn't keep lying to herself and the others.

"Only three hours" Ren commented, trying to bring a positive up.

"But it's so boring!" Nora complained.

Alabast gets up and goes to the bathroom to get ready.

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Team ANVL left early to go eat at the cafeteria. With it being so early in the morning only a handful of first year teams were in the cafeteria. The majority of the teams were upperclassman that were used to early morning routines, some still in tracksuits from an early morning training session.

After breakfast Alabast and his team head to class early, not wanting to repeat the mad-dash across campus.

Upon making it to class early they were greeted with the sight of a very sporadic teacher that jumped from topic to topic as fast as he ran from one side of the class to the other. And he was extremely fast, even when drinking his coffee.

Nothing special happened throughout the class. It was a little interesting to some, but it was History class, so not very interesting to most.

Alabast couldn't tell if the professor had a scew loose or completely lost all his screws because the man clearly didn't have any more marbles.

When the class did end team RWBY and team ANVL met up to go get lunch.

After their lunch the two teams went outside to find a training field.

Throughout the entire lunch the more 'extroverted' members of the teams had discussed how they will train. Alabast, being the leader of his team, was asked what his plan was.

Without much of a choose, divulges his plan to make his team train almost daily. This was music to Nora's ears and Pyrrha was already accustomed to such a thing. Ren on the other hand was looking a little exhausted at the thought.

And after Ruby had heard Alabast's plan she decided that they would perform 'joint-team-training' since it would be more 'fun' as Ruby put it.

And nobody really complained, except for Blake who was outvoted by her team.

The teams get into their combat uniforms and head to the fields. They don't go to the ones everybody knows about, since those would be overused and are a little to public for 'secret training' as Nora and Ruby put it.

Luckily Ruby had found a decent spot the previous day and it was decided that both teams would share this secret training spot.

Alabast was glad they had some privacy while training. Lately, he had been in the spotlight more than he would like. Being the leader of a team with Pyrrha Nikos and the incident with Weiss Schnee.

The 'secret' training field is a clearing near the edge of campus with some dense trees bordering a majority of it with the back of a random building being not so far away but also providing cover for their training to not be seen.

Alabast stood in front of the two teams as he briefly got ready to explain his scars.

Pyrrha, Nora, Yang, and Ruby were sitting against a tree in the shade while waiting to hear about Alabast, their friend. Ruby could barely hold her excitement in and Nora struggled to hold her questions back.

Weiss and Ren were standing, not wanting to sit on the ground. Weiss had many more questions from the previous day but would wait to ask them. She had to deal with her team bothering her about the library incident, Yang's teasing and bad puns were unpleasant at best.

Blake was forced to be here by her team, so she was a little off to the side and leaned her back against a tree. It made her feel better that she at least had her weapon if something were to happen.

It didn't take long before Alabast quickly explained about his scars. When he got them and where he got them. He didn't explain about his torture, just that he received them at an early age during the Bloody Hours protest.

Blake seemed to have thought of something, but didn't comment on it and kept it to herself.

He showed them his chest and back by lifting his shirt up halfway. At first some of the girls were drawn to his outrageously defined muscles, but soon the number of scars caught their eye.

They were all shocked someone could do such a thing to a 6 year old. Just from a glance you could tell the scars were once deep. And the number of them, wherever you looked on Alabast's skin you would find a scar.

A few could tell that most of the scars were in non-lethal areas but a few were cutting it very close. The scars looked like they were surgically done by an Atlesian surgeon for no other reason than looks. But Alabast would say they were anything but aesthetic. It was Ren, Weiss, Pyrrha, and Blake that could tell that. The others didn't know much in regards to the body beyond the obvious and basic level.

Ruby didn't even wait for Alabast to put his shirt down before she burst into a cloud of petals and rammed into him. When the petals cleared Ruby was latched onto Alabst, giving him the biggest hug she could. She couldn't think of any words to say and decided actions were the best in this situation.

"Hey-" Alabast was pushed back 3 feet from the impact but remained standing. He was about to try and pry Ruby off when Yang jumped on him as well.

Now having Ruby and Yang hanging on Alabast, Nora decided it was her turn.

In total, Alabast found himself standing 8 feet away from where he originally stood with 3 girls hugging him.

Pyrrha walked over and joined the hug, but remained standing on her own feet.

Weiss wasn't one to hug, but after listening to how Alabast gained his scars she found it hard to resist joking the group hug. Especially when Ruby grabbed her and pulled her into the hug.

Ren walked over, purposefully on the opposite side of Nora, and put his hand on Alabast's shoulder.

Blake was called over by Ruby, Yang, and Nora but only came as close as where Alabast originally stood. She grabbed her right elbow tightly and looked to the side, very conflicted. She didn't know if this was a ploy to get her to let her guard down or not. She wanted to keep her guard up, but didn't want to seem uncaring if what Alabast said was true. "Sorry…"

It wasn't specified if she said that to Alabast or her friends who called her over. But they assumed it was both.

When everyone else got off Alabast he had to pry Ruby off. It wasn't hard… is what he wanted to say. But the girl would reattach to whatever he used to get her off. It finally ended when she clung to Nights Fall which Alabast stick into the ground. He wasn't sure how, but Ruby ended up on his arm, his leg, his tail, and at one point she was on his head somehow.

While Alabast was dealing with Ruby, Nora was busy showing off the picture she took of Alabast and Pyrrha.

When Ruby was on the sword she saw most of the others around Nora and couldn't resist her urge to know what they were doing.

Alabast watched as Ruby simply turned to petals and flew towards the others. It made his struggle to get her off him seem stupid… well, more stupid than before.

When Ruby appeared between Nora and Yang she saw the photo and couldn't help but join the conversation as she was caught up to speed.

Nights Fall was taken from the ground by Alabast and put back in its place behind him. He can hear what the others were talking about and would rather start training.

Ruby and Yang began gossiping and whispering to Pyrrha, with Ruby being much more innocent than Yang in her comments.

Alabast tried to explain that nothing romantic happened or will happen. But he's was just ignored.

Weiss talked about indecent relationships or something but was also ignored, which only added to her annoyance.

Blake seemed worse than her previous state. She was lost in though and moved back to her original position at the tree line.

Ren was smiling while standing a little to the side. Whether it was because he enjoyed the mood or,because Nora was finally distracted from bothering him, it's anyones best guess.

Nora was smiling brightly while she joined in here and there to stroke the flames of embarrassment of Pyrrha. Pyrrha was blushing and also trying to explain nothing happened, but she messed up her words and stuttered which only added to the others enjoyment.

Not much training was done this day. Especially after they had their next class and received their first Homework assignments.