Ch 15: Ready!

"Wake up, lazy butt! It's morning! It's morning! It's morning!" As Ray walked back into the ballroom, he was greeted by the sing-song wake up call of a miss Nora Valkyrie as she zipped around a groggy Lie Ren, possessing far more energy than anyone should reasonably have at dawn.

"Oh, hi, Ray!" Nora called out as Ray walked past her.

"Nora, that has got to be the most annoying awakening I have ever heard."

Ren groaned groggily in agreement as he pressed his palms into his eyes, trying to rub the sleep out of them.

As Nora continued to be the perfect example of everyone's most hated chipper morning person, Ray arrived beside his sleeping bag to find that Yang, along with most of the people in the ballroom, had already gotten up and left, but Ruby was still fast asleep.

[Now then, how shall I wake her up today?] an evil grin crossed Ray's face as he considered all the possibilities, [I could shock her awake, but she got really mad at me the last time I did that. I could tickle her awake, but she tends to squirm out of her clothes when I do that, and I don't want her showing off in front of all these people. I could kiss her awake, she really liked that one, but it could start some annoying rumors. Oh, I know...] Ray crouched down until his lips were right next to his twin sister's ear.

"Cookies~" Ray whispered and then quickly jerked his head back. Just in time to dodge his sister as she shot to her feet like a rocket.

"Cookies! Where are the cookies!? Where!?" Ruby looked around frantically, trying to find the sugary goodness that she adored.

"Morning Ruby. Sorry, no cookies this morning." Ray said with a laugh. Ruby glared down at him with a pout, mad at him for tricking her like that. Ray just laughed as he climbed to his feet and put his arm around Ruby's shoulders in a hug.

"Come on, Ruby. We got a big day ahead of us today. Go get a quick workout in to get your blood flowing, then let's go get some pancakes for breakfast together with Yang."

Ruby glared at him for a moment longer before picking up her bag and leaving for the girls' locker room without saying a word. Ray cleaned up the remains of the siblings' stuff and headed for the boys' locker room for a shower. All the while, he could hear Nora's incessant prattling in the background.

[How does Ren deal with her? Even a saint would go mad after enduring this every day. Only true love could make someone willing to weather such torture.]

######

After Ruby and Yang returned to the ballroom following their workout and shower, the three siblings went to the cafeteria to have breakfast.

Breakfast this morning was pancakes with bacon and eggs and a wide variety of fruit, a classic. Ray spotted Nora and Ren sitting at a table with some empty seats around them and motioned his sisters to follow him to sit beside them. Nora was still talking, something to do with bribing the headmaster to make sure she and Ren ended up on the same team. This was the first time Ray had gotten to see Nora in her battle outfit. She wore a black collared vest with her emblem stitched on the back. Under the vest were two layers of clothing, one red and one light-blue, and under that was a white sleeveless top with a heart-shaped cut out over her chest, granting a nice view of her D-cup cleavage, and white detached sleeves on each arm. She had pink fingerless gloves on her hands and a matching short pink skirt that stopped midway down her thunder thighs. Her shoes were a mix of pink and white with white laces. A metal brace wrapped around her hips, went up to support her breasts, and then around them and over her shoulders, along with a large turquoise bow at the back of her skirt, completed her outfit.

"Good morning again, Nora, Ren." Ray greeted, setting down his food. "These are my sisters. My older sister Yang, and my twin sister Ruby." Ray introduced his sisters, gesturing to each of them in turn. "Ruby, Yang, this is Ren and Nora. I met them last night. Nora was actually able to match me grip for grip."

"I'm the older twin, by the way."

"Hi there." Ruby and Yang greeted the two as they also set their food down.

"Nice to meet you."

"Hello." Nora mumbled around her mouthful of pancakes.

"You really like your pancakes." Ray said to Nora in wonder. When they had entered the cafeteria, he had seen her carrying a stack of pancakes that was almost as tall as she was. Now there was only one whole pancake and a bit of a second left with two empty bottles of syrup laying beside her plate, the only evidence that more had once been there.

"That is an understatement. Nora could probably live on pancakes if I let her." Ren complained.

"Sounds like Ruby and her cookies." Yang joked.

Ray nodded his head, "I know your pain, man." While the boys were commiserating on the troubles their girls caused them, Ruby and Nora had started a debate over the merits of pancakes versus cookies.

"Hello again. May we join you?" A familiar voice called out from behind Ray. He turned around to find Pyrrha accompanied by Weiss standing behind him with their food.

Pyrrha had her red hair pulled up in a high ponytail, instead of the low one she had this morning. She had changed into her battle attire and was now wearing an Amazonian armor set consisting of a small circlet, elaborate full-length greaves, a bracer on her left arm, and a large gorget around her neck, all of which was primarily bronze colored. The circlet was adorned with a pair of small, green, teardrop-shaped emeralds that dangled down below her ears from two thin chains that hung from her temples to the back of her head. The greaves started mid-way up her thighs before continuing downwards into her brown high heeled boots with bronze trim that extended halfway up her calf.

On her chest, she wore an overbust brown leather corset that cupped her C-cup breasts nicely with a vertical strip of lighter brown in the center. She also wore an elastic, black, A-line miniskirt, brown opera-length gloves over both her arms, and a red sash wrapped around her skirt and fluttered down her right leg to her ankle. A small circular bronze plate containing her emblem, a spear lying diagonally over a shield, adorned her right hip opposite to a pair of pouches on her sash completed her outfit.

"Of course, Pyrrha, grab some plastic." Ray greeted them with a smile. Weiss just humphed and turned her face away from him, but sat down beside Pyrrha anyways.

"Good to see you again this fine morning, too, Weiss. So how did our little snow fairy sleep last night?"

"Did you dream about my little brother?" Weiss ignored Ray and Yang's teasing and focused on her fruit salad.

Ray just smiled and started another round of introductions. He looked around for Blake and Jaune, thinking it would be great if he could get all of team RWBY and team JNPR together even before teams were chosen. But, alas, he couldn't find them in the sea of people that were steadily arriving in the cafeteria.

The seven of them talked and laughed together, getting to know each other as they enjoyed their breakfast. Even Weiss started to open up after a while, once Ray and Yang stopped trying to tease her. Strangely, the topic of teams never came up, maybe because they were all nervous about what the future had in store for them. Maybe because they didn't want to have to say who they would like to have on their team over others when there were seven of them talking together when each team could only have four members.

As the time for the initiation to begin approached, the group started to split off as they finished their breakfast. Nora and Ren finished first, with Nora stealing half of Ren's pancakes. Weiss and Pyrrha left shortly thereafter. Ray and Yang stuck around to wait for Ruby, who had gone back for seconds when she heard that oatmeal raisin cookies were being put out.

"And you said there were no cookies this morning" Ruby had gloated at Ray as she came back with a small mountain of oatmeal raisin cookies on her plate. Not her favorite chocolate chips. But hey, it's still cookies for breakfast.

With Ruby's cookie craving properly satisfied, for the moment, the siblings cleaned up their places and went to the prep room to pick up their stored weapons.

[Alright.] Ruby thought to herself, fist-pumping to try and psych herself up as they walked. [This is my kind of test! No more awkward small talk. No more trying to find someone nice to talk to. No more "getting-to-know-you" stuff. Just me and my scythe showing everyone what we can do!]