HereComesTheSnow

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

yare yare

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorms

He visibly deflated, ahoge following suit and drooping in response almost immediately.

"You've been staking me out, haven't you?" he asked, entirely forgetting to deny any physical attraction to Miss Harken. Not that it mattered, anyhow... Attractive was attractive. It was one thing to adhere to politeness regarding it, but he wasn't denying anything.

At least, not to himself.

Seriously though, there was no way she'd walked in and immediately known that, right? No way, such things were impossible. She must have had some method of divining information like that, too, because from what he knew of Mindaro, little though it was, she was not one to make assumptions.

Shoulders and hair rising from their dispirited slump, he folded his arms adamantly, meeting her icy onyx gaze with his own in an already-familiar confrontation of two very different psyches.

"Miss Mindaro, I have to ask. Is this really worth going through all this trouble?"

He already knew the answer he would get, but he wanted to ask in any case.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Do you senior players want to occupy yourselves while the freshman players are out having fun, or shall I give you something to do?

@Lugubrious

I'll figure something out

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

yes

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorms

Hgrphbl--

This was too much!

W-Was she doing this on purpose?! Did the basketball ace whom he'd somehow become best friends with as a senior, also one year his junior, somehow squirm her way into Beacon under the guise of a replacement transfer student?! Had she replaced Basketball and Running for a hardcore statdump into Swimming?! Where'd she even find the Soul Vessel?!

No, that's not it. On purpose or not, she isn't this innocent, be it genuinely or just as a facade.

No, that girl is in-your-face-no-shame-at-all perverted.

This...

This was different. This degree of cuteness was natural, a different beast than that of a certain athlete. Not that she wasn't cute, either, but her cuteness was just of a different breed.

Sort of.

His head stopped swirling out of control, and he forced himself back on topic with an extraordinary effort.

"Sure, I'd be glad to help once Miss Mindaro's finished with me."

Surely her study couldn't take that long, could it?

He would, at some point during those four years he spent at the school, learn to smack himself one should he ever think or say that again. But as a wide-eyed, naive freshman, he simply did not know better.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

give him strength

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorms

S W I M S U I T

And just like that, the "cat faunus" theory went straight out of the window, never to return. Everyone knew cats (with the interesting exception of tigers, to his knowledge) had a massive disdain for the water in anything more than drinking form. Did monkeys swim? No, they were almost entirely arboreal. Sure, the likely could, but did they have a compulsion, a physical need?

Absolutely not.

What was this cute young woman, one year his junior, then? What bloodline could create a being such as her? Neither Cat or Monkey were applicable by his process of elimination, so what was left in the running?

"Oh, a pool?" he replied, gaining a helpful lightness to his voice. "There's an Olympic-sized one at the Rec Center. It's usually open around ten or eleven on the weekdays, so you should be good to go."

A place where he found himself not going as much as he'd have expected himself to. Granted, it had really only been three, four days, but already things felt like an eternity...

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorm

The church, huh?

Maybe she was orphan taken in? Being raised by priests and nuns, that would easily explain her politeness and overall demeanor. To be surrounded by paragons of morality at such a young age was bound to have that effect. Case in point, himself. The son of a police officer and a huntress was bound to produce a straight-laced young man, filled to the brim with ideals, morals, and a strong sense of personal justice.

He had no doubt the same could be said for her, even as her lithe, athletic form shimmied over to the side of the bed nearest to him in an almost mesmerizing sight. The kind one's mind repeated a few more times upon reflection, catching every moment in fine detail. The way the core tensed and coiled, springlike in preparation. The hips, the body's center of gravity, whipping over to the side in an understated explosion of motion, forcing the body to follow. Even the tail, swaying out in the other direction as counterbalance upon landing.

A fascinating movement detailing underrated poise and control. The moralistic, idealistic, and respectable young man, the very picture of an upstanding person, couldn't help himself from taking it all in.

"Me? Eighteen." he replied casually, meeting her eyes once more. "And I can get where you're coming from, a bit. Up until summer vacation last year, I was on something of a..."

How to phrase it?

"Self-imposed exilement from anything resembling a social life. And on top of it, that was with everyday society, not anything like Signal or Beacon or whatever hunter scouting programs there are. I was simply a normal high schooler, toiling away in asceticism."

Which is an altogether different story.

"So, I'm getting used to things too."

A Certain Unique Academy

Domo.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorms

"Ah, thank you." he replied, pulling up the seat and flopping down into it, bag finding itself placed underneath even as one arm rested against the back. He crossed his legs, suppressing a restless compulsion to rock back and forth in his seat, and lounged for what must have been the first time since classes had begun.

Looking over to the girl as she returned to idly toying with her scroll, he examined her once more, this time under a less reactionary lens. Tall, about the same height as the teammate he was waiting on. Deep blue eyes that bordered on black. Glossy hair, whose sheen could be found on what was easily the most oustanding part of her.

The tail. Easily strong enough to act as a fifth limb, it extended out from assumedly the base of her spine, every bit as trained and coordinated as the rest of her.

Hm.

Strong, limb-like tail, casual balance and agility, natural inquisitiveness...

He wasn't sure if that sounded more like a cat or a monkey, but either seemed plausible. Neither would surprise him, if he'd felt the need to ask.

However, when he opened his mouth to speak, he elected to instead switch gears entirely.

"So, what're your first impressions of all this? Beacon and Vale, I mean."