[h2]Luke Schwarz -- Mission Control[/h2] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQRKY-lGXyc][i]Gonna get down on FRIDAY[/i][/url] [hr] One black-haired member of the contingent of four walking down to the pavilion bright and early, or at least what counted as bright and early to a former high-schooler who really wished he could schedule classes on his own time blocks as opposed to having periods to fill, yawned and raised his arms to the sky, stretching languidly with an oddly relaxed demeanor for a Friday morning at Beacon. The week had passed by quicker than he had expected, and had been, in very basic terms, an entirely average week. There were highs-- [list][*][i][color=fdc68a]Language.[/color][/i] [*][i][color=fdc68a]Psychology.[/color][/i] [*] [i][color=fdc68a]Newfound understanding of mathematics.[/color][/i] [*] [i][color=fdc68a]Getting to know the class a little better.[/color][/i][/list] --and there were lows-- [list] [*] [i][color=fdc68a]Practice.[/color][/i] [*] [i][color=fdc68a]Ending up unable to show Beryl Harken to the pool.[/color][/i] [*] [s][i][color=ec008c]Missing an oppurtunity to convince Beryl Harken to ride double when they headed for the pool[/color][/i][/s] [*] [i][color=fdc68a]Being acutely aware that his scalp was under constant scrutiny by one or more Vignobles--[/color][/i][list] [*][i][color=fdc68a]Whenever possible.[/color][/i][/list] [/list] --But in its totality, the week was a normal, balanced week. While it may have seemed at first glance to have been strange from the get-go, especially judging from the events told about Monday, through the objective, 20/20 lens of hindsight, he had come to recognize that it was actually entirely normal for a day in Beacon. High concentrations of extraordinary individuals lead to high concentrations of extraordinary events. As such, what was extraordinary to him quickly and suddenly became ordinary. Unusual became usual. Outlandish became routine. And he had begun to adapt. Not as quickly as he was sure his mother had, or his sister would, but that being said, he had been faced with a far more jarring transition than to simply be eased into the program by Signal. That [i]also[/i] being said, he was an obstinate young man by nature, almost foolishly so. The adaptation had been going at a slow burn rather than the typically foretold explosion of freedom and change one was purportedly to experience in colleges, or college-like settings. He still found himself surprised, for example, to learn that one of his classmates, the leader of Team RWBY, was a girl barely a year, if even that, older than his little sister at Signal. He was surprised to learn that he shared a class with a famous athlete, on team JNPR. [color=fdc68a][i]I hated that cereal, though... Count Chocula to the grave.[/i][/color] Lucas Schwarz, 18-year-old-hunter-in-training-and-sophist-at-large, was, as we just established, still obstinately finding surprise in things even as he was adjusting to life amongst his peers at Beacon, and acknowledge daily (hourly) wackiness as the status quo. So with that in mind, then, it should come as little surprise that he found himself very surprised when he woke up Friday morning. As everyone knew, even well before they transferred or enrolled into Beacon properly, Fridays were dedicated to mission days. At least once a week, a team would go out and gain field experience. This was not the surprise being described, for even the desultory, foolish, easily-surprised Lucas Schwarz was privy to the weekly routine in terms of his classes. His last mission was arguably the worst experience of his life. By necessity and unfortunate timing, he was in both senses of the phrase thrown into the fire on his first day of school. Having likely set a record for "World's shortest span of time between departing and arriving from and to Beacon's Airdock", before he could even unpack he was en route to the Underground Casino. From start to finish, he had felt as though he would snap from his own sheer tension-- everything from simply slipping under the notice of a very bored security officer to the climactic confrontation with the ringleaders themselves, he thought himself a hair's breadth from losing it. He'd had his hand crushed in a closing steel door, and nearly fallen victim to the same fate in his entirety to the automated version. He'd had to bring his A-game combat performance to fight not one, but two senior officers of the White Fang contingent stationed within, after drawing literally every eye in the casino onto himself by making the most overblown scene he could imagine. [color=fdc68a][i]Maybe I should join theatre-- No. I'm not thespian enough.[/i][/color] He'd had more close encounters with fire than he dared dream to happen in a year fending the two of them off, and the very closest one had come from poor Cian, under the hallucinatory effects of Morgan's Semblance. Were it not for his teammates exploitation of cognitive dissonance and their opponent's willingness to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, it was likely that Officer Murphy would have dropped into a much bloodier mess. Would it have been a complete rout? Maybe not. their leader's own combat prowess was formidable, and with that lightning-like speed of his he was probably more than capable of taking out Morgan before she could work her semblance's powers upon him as well, especially if he had taken out their ringleader by his lonesome. [color=fdc68a][i]Nonetheless: It was an experience that I had reservations upon the idea of repeating.[/i][/color] So what, then, was the surprise? It may have been Jack, eternal lover of a good fight, influencing him and his judgement. It may have been Cian, whose eagerness to better herself and put that incident behind her, spurring him on in turn as he watched her leave in the evenings for the firing range, helmet in tow. It may have been Mokuren, her seemingly-constant absences, distant nature, and unrepentantly strange sayings leaving him with more questions than answers about her character, ones he thought may be illuminated in a context so much more reliant on [i]actions[/i] than [i]words[/i]. It may have simply been his own mind, tired of dredging up singular facts and formulae from the flood of information he had absorbed through each and every class, longing for a change of pace. A type of insanity that came from without, rather than generated from within as it tried to keep up, furiously collating information in the most valiant effort put forth in the XXth century. Whatever the reasoning may have been, the surprise came all the same to the black-haired man: He was [i]looking forward[/i] to their mission today. Even in the face of the hard times the first was, he still felt a curious breed of excitement overtake him as he shook off the cobwebs when JCML rolled into the pavilion at precisely 8:50 AM, just ahead of a lively team of Seniors. As a team, they approached one of the many information terminals, and as if hearing them coming, it [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38t3d2xPN9g]flared to life[/url]. Gray eyes casting their vision over the screen as it flashed for them, he searched for the now all too familiar combination of JCML in the headers, blinking when he found none. He scanned again, noting that a certain few clumps of letters were in pairs-- Wait. He picked out the three secondary names, his face impassive even as his mind began to comprehend the meaning behind their placement. JNPR, with CODE. IFRA, with KNVS. And finally, nonchalantly tacking itself onto a mission he felt a tad guilty for not reading anyways in the first place-- JCML, with BASL. [color=fdc68a][i]And now IFRA, too. A typo? [/i][/color] [b]"A joint mission,"[/b] he noted carefully, to the team as a whole. [b]"And S-Rank. It looks like we're going to have our work cut out for us, if they plan on sending two teams in, with senior backup."[/b] As he awaited the response from his teammates, he looked over his shoulder on either side, in search of four specific pairs of eyes. [list] [*][i]Benjamin Lloyd[/i] [*][i][color=ed1c24]Amaranth Desire[/color][/i] [*][i][color=f7976a]Sangue Naga[/color][/i] [*][i][color=8882be]Lorena Negasi[/color][/i] [/list] [b]"Good thing it's with BASL. They seem to have good heads on their shoulders, and I'm pretty sure we all know how well they do in fights."[/b] he continued with a touch of wry humor, relating back to that first wild Monday session of sparring.