Chapter Fifty-Two
I exhaled in relief once, when we delivered Roman Torchwick to Atlas soldiers, and I exhaled again once we set foot into Beacon academy. I exhaled a final time as I collapsed upon my bed, any thoughts of writing whatsoever report out of my mind and replaced with just how soft the bed was, and how quiet the academy was without people in it.
The rest of my team pretty much collapsed too, and as I heard the final satisfying thump of three bodies hitting three equally soft mattresses, I properly fell into the deepest slumber I could manage. When we woke up, it was late in the morning. We had slept through the evening, the night, and most of the morning. We had probably missed breakfast. The first to wake up was Chez, stretching and yawning before silently pit-patting with her feet over to where I was sleeping, face-down, on my bed.
She hopped on it, and quietly dropped down on my back.
I ignored it. I was definitely awake by that time, so I just ignored it.
A few seconds later, I heard another set of feet stand up from their bed, and I heard a softly mumbled 'Nyah' as Zhelty proceeded to drag Chez off my back and back into her bed. There was a hissing. Then some noise of quiet combat. Then a door opened and water ran. Then a shriek and a door closed sharply.
Three seconds later, Gorm hooted that he was, indeed, awake.
I grumbled as I stood up from my bed, placing a hand over my face as I heard the telltale sounds of hissing and scratching against the door, Zhelty having apparently closed Chez into the bathroom with the shower going on.
"Why?" I asked her.
"She needs to cool down a bit," Zhelty answered with a huff, arms crossed. "Get it out of her system."
I sighed as I waited patiently for Chez to actually stop her furious scratching, and start grumbling. A few minutes later, she was done with her shower and Zhelty let her out of the bathroom.
"You are a bad person," Chez muttered, passing a hand through her hair, now slick from water. "Really bad."
"News at eleven," Zhelty rolled her eyes, getting in after her.
I sighed and yawned, before glancing at my Scroll and at the seventeen missed calls on it. "Geez," I grumbled. "Good thing I put it in silent mode."
Most of those were from Winter. One was from Weiss, and one was from an unknown number which a quick search told me was professor Glynda Goodwitch. "We slept like logs through most of the morning," I grumbled.
"We did do the heavy lifting. Literally," Gorm replied.
"Once could say we trained with a train!" Chez exclaimed, sounding excited about it as she got dressed.
I sighed at that, shaking my head. Once Zhelty was done, Gorm went next. I closed my eyes, humming pleasantly. "Oi, no peeking," Zhelty pointed out even as I kept my eyes closed. "You peek, you die."
"Yeah, yeah, we've had this discussion a lot of times," I grumbled. "I am a gentleman."
"You can peek at me as much as you like instead," Chez happily added.
"Do you want another cold shower Chez? Because that's how you get a cold shower," Zhelty snapped.
"Nyaahhh, Wren, Zhelty is being mean to the cat-girl!" she mock-whimpered. "Protect the precious cat girl! I'm too cute to be bullied."
Gorm, please, be done with the shower. He actually was a few minutes later, and as it was my turn to get in, I let him deal with the mess of Zhelty and Chez cat-fighting over who'd use the hairdryer sooner.
Prepared and competent huntress-in-training they were, but they were also acting as pettily as siblings, and I had no intention of getting in the middle of a sibling fight.
The cold water of the shower was bliss, and as I got rid of the sweat, the filth and the grime, I couldn't help but wonder what the rest of the day reserved us. Had Cinder been called into questioning? Had she escaped, or evaded capture? Had she lied, and gotten away with it?
She could count on the dubious eyewitnesses of Emerald and Mercury that she had always been at the party, and then since it would be my word against theirs, they'd most definitely make it out from Ironwood's interrogation. The Breach had been stopped, which was good, but it still meant little if the perpetrators were at large. I hoped the General would send someone to check on the CCTS tower though. I couldn't have been clearer about it.
I truly couldn't have made it clearer than if I had grabbed a yellow highlighter and circled the CCTS tower on a map with the words Big Trouble written near it. I mean, where else would someone install a program?
Still, the shower had to end, if nothing else because I could hear the scuffle escalating and that meant Gorm had either failed, or joined in.
By the time I stepped out, all three of my teammates were locked in a deadly war of pillows.
"Attempting to get you lot to act like adults post-mission is like getting the desert to become a pond of milk," I grumbled as I moved to get dressed, deftly avoiding two flung pillows aimed my way. "The solution to breaking the cycle of violence is to not fight back."
And with that said, I got dressed while pillows flew all around me. Some exploded in mid-air, others against walls, feathers went everywhere-and then someone knocked at the door and I had to go answer because Gorm was currently swinging a pillow tied to a bed-sheet, and the forces of Zhelty and Chez were uniting into charging the fort that had somehow sprung up from a half overturned mattress.
I opened the door, and then quite quickly shut it.
"Mister Wren," professor Goodwitch's voice came through the opposite side of the door. "Open up."
I coughed as loudly as I could as my teammates did their very best to return the room to the natural state of affair. "We're all naked in here, professor," I said hastily. "Getting them dressed in the morning is hard, just a minute!"
"I am relatively sure I saw pillows fly behind you, Mister Wren," Goodwitch's voice came through the door. There was a soft click and the door opened to the professor's Scroll. I put my foot against it. "Please do not attempt to block the door, or I will send it, and you, flying."
I knew she could. I also had to take time. I smiled through the small opening. "Have I ever mentioned how utterly charming you are during such fine mornings, Professor Goodwitch? You would restore sight to a blind man, give hope to a hopeless man, bring water to the desert and-"
The door was pushed firmly open by her Semblance, but by this point, the majority of the room looked to be back to its pristine order.
Her eyes roved over all of us, and then the room in question. "None of you reported to the infirmary after returning to Beacon," she said.
"Well, we weren't hurt," Chez said, rolling her eyes. "All limbs accounted for. Nobody was sick. We didn't need to pay for medical service."
Glynda raised an eyebrow. "Beacon's infirmary is free to its students."
"When you say free," Gorm said, now sounding interested, "You mean free diagnosis, or also free healthcare? Like, do we get the happy pills and the happy juice if we're feeling sick?"
Glynda's eyebrows both rose symmetrically together. "The happy juice is a Shade academy secret medicine," I muttered. "I think it's some kind of painkiller mix diluted with water and cactus fruit juice, but it does work. Somewhat. You see dragons," I grinned and winked, "And they're normally nice."
The Deputy-Headmistress held back what sounded like a choke, and then took a deep, unsettling breath. "We have proper medicine in Beacon, thank you very much," she said. "And if you are really sick, there are remedies for it. Not...cure-it-all happy juices."
"We need to hit the infirmary then," Zhelty mused. "Maybe they have some pills to make me taller."
"There is no such thing as a Garden Gnome sickness, Zhelty," I pointed out. Then I ducked to avoid a swing of her leg. My left hand slammed against her forehead, and I held her at arm's length while she flailed her own arms and angrily snarled back at me about how no, she wasn't truly small but she just needed to grow up and maybe there were sicknesses that made people small and she needed to try all the medicines to get better-
I tuned her out halfway through.
Professor Goodwitch looked like she just wanted to send us back to Vacuo on an express bullhead ride, or perhaps strap us to a missile and let it land wherever it did, as long as it was far from Beacon.
"You look healthy enough to write your mission report. The headmaster would also like to hear what happened in person, so if you would make your way to his office after lunch," professor Goodwitch spoke with all the flatness she could muster, "he will be expecting you."
"If I'm speaking to him, do I actually need to write down a mission report?" I asked.
"The report must also include your impression on team RWBY, which you should have examined during the mission," Professor Goodwitch said curtly.
"Of course we did that. Zhelty, Chez, I assigned them to you, so please write the very best report you can about them," I said with a smile, giving the two girls a thumb-up and then ducking to avoid twin combined kicks aimed at my head. The two kicks this time met in mid-air, and then came swinging down. I shifted backwards, avoiding the two feet striking the ground and cracking the floor a bit.
"Lunch sounds like a brilliant idea right now," Gorm said, moving past us all. "Keep you a seat, Wren?"
"I'm coming with you, Gorm," I said with a smile, hopping past the two legs still on the ground. "Professor Goodwitch, thank you very much for swinging by. You're always a sight to behold," and then I started running.
Gorm had already a head-start on me, but we would reach the cafeteria or die trying.
Behind us, the revving of Chez' chainsaw was accompanied with the sound of Zhelty's shield starting to float. The next instant, they began their pursuit.
Reaching the safe area of the cafeteria was beautiful...
...until Gorm and I realized that no area was truly safe from the wrath of two scorned women.