It was with fascination that Abel spectated the brief duel between Ben and the young Wendigo.  Rarely had he ever attended a battle against a creature of Grimm secondhand.  Even when training at Pallisade, the preliminary academy of the same name had been too poorly equipped to capture and bring back live Grimm for practice, so calmly sitting by and observing such an event felt very strange to him.  For the first time, Abel was able to clearly examine the thing with more than just a tactician's eye.  He witnessed the scarlet sheen of its pupil-devoid eyes, what little bony armor it had managed to grow, and its quick, feral motions.  

Of course, he studied Ben as well, but not with the same degree of interest.  While he had never held tonfas, or had a peer back home that used them, he could tell that they were a risky choice of armament.  To really hurt something, one had to get in even closer than with fists, and even though they were bladed, swords in such fixed positions were less versatile than ordinary blades.  Still, Abel mentally applauded the leader of team BAST; without delay, Ben had gone for the wendigo's biggest and most threatening natural weapon and disarmed it.  Agonized and enraged, the cub seemingly abandoned all attempt at outsmarting its foe, and that decided its fate.  Abel considered clapping for Ben as the little thing, previously so full of hatred, that now looked like little more than a sad heap of jet-black fur on the floor.  Instead, he resigned himself to rolling his eyes as Ben made a big deal of his shirt.  [i]Little claws probably didn't even pierce his aura,[/i] the guardian observed, any trepidation he had previously felt at the cub dissipated just as it had.  [i]Dumb of me to get scared of that thing[/i]

Next, it appeared that a change of venue was in order.  Abel grabbed the Ampere from where he had laid it and joined the other students in Professor Port's wake, holding his weapon like a walking stick.  It was currently in its staff mode, which was slightly less cumbersome and dangerous to carry around than its blade mode.  He had no objection when Port singled out the besuited snarker from earlier, Bellum.  Abel dimly remembered the guy's first name, but made no attempt to dredge it up—it could only have been as dandy as the rest of him.  He could not help but raise his eyebrows in approval when he sighted Aurellius's weapon, a large, impressive tool that looked like a lance and a minigun in one, hefted over his shoulder.  

The Grimm, at least, Abel could name.  Sitting Bulls were fairly common near Pallisade.  He remembered being assigned to 'herd duty' several times, which involved making sure that no large Grimm could wander into a herd of the Bulls and trigger a stampede.  He watched the ensuing fight with declining interest, for he had expected Aurellius to either rip the overgrown bovine to shreds with his minigun, or to pin it to the ground with his lance, not dance around it before leaping onto its back.  Abel pictured what he would have done: wait for the thing to charge, dig himself in, and allow the dumb brute to drive itself throat-deep into the Ampere's blade.  He did not doubt that he could hold the weapon steady enough for self-impalement.  Still, the guardian admitted that Aurellius surprised him by wrenching the Sitting Bull's horn out and jabbing it into its body over and over again.  “Brutal,” he remarked before considering his earlier plan.  “Not bad at all.”  The information given by Port was already known to Abel, but he was also aware that what knowledge he had gained from his work on Vale's edge wouldn't last him much farther.  Some of the things that Ozpin had mentioned during the naming ceremony were downright foreign to him, like Salamanders.

Then, Port pointed out another cage and named another student.  Abel was rather disappointed that the next task was open for volunteering.  He eyed the diminutive cage.  Not many Grimm were that small, unless it was a young one like the wendigo.  Was it a Creep?  Abel hoped not.  Unless he was nuts, there was nothing to be learned from those things.