Dusty Semblances Lecture

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap He was gonna be late!

Copperfield was gliding towards his classroom window on what he called his Billowing Cloak, a cloth weaved with Wind and Gravity Dust in order to blast him into the air and glide, somewhat, to a destination. This destination was his classroom window. He didn't have time to run through the hallways to his class, so he found the next best thing. Flying. Or, the closest he'd ever gotten to flying.

But he realized that the window wasn't open. He turned his body and planted his feet against the wall and clicked his heels. He expected his Gravity Boots to kick in but as he slipped, the realization came into his head that he was still wearing his tennis shoes, not his boots. He also remembered the sticky note next to his door to change his shoes before leaving. Guess he wrote it for a reason, should have listened to himself. His cloak kept him from plummeting the three stories just long enough for Copperfield to use his Semblance with some of the Gravity Dust in one of his Focus Rings, creating a plane of gravity to pull him to the wall. He didn't have much on him, so he only had a few moments before three tall stories became three short seconds.

He put a hand on the window, only to find it not budging. He tried to pull on it with his fingernails before noticing the metal latch locking it from the inside. He also noticed some students watching him from inside. He couldn't believe that at that moment an actual bead of sweat traveled down the side of his face.

With no time to lose he kept one hand on the plane of gravity and twirled his other hand, activating his Semblance once more and now using Wind Dust in another one of his Foci. A gust of wind rattled the window from the inside, pushing heavily on the latch. The metal and glass rattled like it was all about to shatter- click! Voila! Open!

Copperfield scrambled inside, falling down onto the tiled classroom floor right as the bell rang. "Woo!" He cheered, putting both fists up into the air. "Glad I wasn't tardy to my own class!" He said, panting, to the students gathered now taking their seats. "Man, would that NOT have looked good on my report card." He leaned his head against the wall, breathing heavily and took a glance at his Gravity Ring. Empty. He'd need to fill it back up.

[Fuchsia Iris Ükhel]

Great... Class again.

You know, this whole 'being a student first and a warrior second' thing as Dargo put it was really getting to her. She was terrible at homework, awful at math, and only halfway decent at history when Miss Monarch was talking about Atlas specifically, but if there was one thing she knew even less about, it was her own Semblance and Dust. And yet here she was, signed up for a class about exactly that. She'd already decided she would probably fail.

Slouched down in one of the chairs at a desk somewhere in the middle of the left side of the room, the cat sat with an arm thrown over the back of the chair, her nails rattling out a steady rhythm of impatience on the wooden desk before her. Her jaw rolled as she chewed on some bubblegum, something she'd found out actually helped with her impatience as it gave her something to focus on while she was trapped, just sitting there, waiting for the bell to ring.

Her tail seemed distracted, though, flipping about next to her leg every couple of seconds, the biggest tell of her impatience and boredom out of everything. Her half-lidded eyes spoke of how dull she found this setting, and she didn't even have some hot teacher to ogle while she waited. Probably the biggest perk of Miss Monarch's class.

One ear twitched, however, when she suddenly picked up on a noise coming from outside the classroom. It sounded like a dull thump. Her eyes trailed sideways toward the window, and it wasn't long before some weird guy appeared there, his five o'clock shadow speaking of an advanced age and his messy hair at least somewhat relatable. What'd that creeper want? How was he floating, anyway?

A moment later and the latch on the window suddenly swung open as if on its own, and her brow quirked upward while her jaw continued to tenderize the gum in her mouth. Hm... Maybe somebody should do something? Nahhh... She'd let this play out.

When the dude spilled onto the floor, cheering about not being late, she wondered at first if this was some weird student who'd taken years to graduate. Then she slowly realized it was the Professor of this class. What was his name? Mister Cop-a-feel? In her lazy relaxation, she didn't budge, though the resounding stunned silence from the students around her said it all. Nobody was expecting this level of fail from a teacher. The silence was punctuated by a loud pop as she blew a bubble with her gum until it was big enough to burst. Then, Fuchsia clapped her hands together. Once, twice, a third time, starting a slow clap that spread to a few of the other students around her. The underwhelming round of applause was her gift to him for his success at not being late to his own class.

"Grats, teach," she said in a deadpan, earning a stifled chuckle from one of the boys next to her.

[Leonard Uaine]

Lennie had absolutely no idea why he was here. I mean, sure, he knew why he was at Beacon. But a class about Dust and Semblance? Weren’t you supposed to, you know, know what your Semblance was before taking this? But here he was, so he figured he could at least stay for the first few lectures before deciding whether to drop.

His thoughts were interrupted by a dull THUMP on the window. Looking over in confusion, he saw what was perhaps the last face he expected to see outside the third-story window of their classroom. That was totally their professor, who as far as Lennie knew could NOT fly. But a gust of wind appearing inside the classroom later, the man was inside, leaning against the wall, and celebrating his lack of lateness (which Lennie glanced at the clock to confirm just as the bell rang). The awkward silence that hung over the class was broken by a loud POP coming from his left. Turning to see, Lenny saw a very bored-looking cat Faunus had blown a bubblegum noisemaker.

And then she started to clap. Not knowing what else to do, he and a few of the other students near her clapped too. When the sarcastic applause died down, she congratulated their professor on his timely arrival, and Leonard snorted, just barely holding in laughter. In the time it took him to regain his composure, an idea popped into his head.

Leaning toward her, he spoke quietly. ”We should clap for him every time he walks into class for the rest of the term,” he said, giving her a wink and a wry smirk before turning his attention back to the front of the classroom.

[Castor Achromos]

"How do i get into this mess ?"

It was the question ringing throughout Castor's brain, still half-awake from his sudden nap's interruption by unfamiliar voices. Unlike your average student of Beacon Castor got into the school almost entirely on passing the physical aspects of the entrance exam. Due to this fact, he was made to take extra classes to help him keep up with the rest of the students academically.

It was also this very reason why Castor tends to sneak into empty classrooms when no one is looking...and steal whatever moments of sleep he can get. The last thing he wanted was to be put into another boring soul-crushing, overly long seminar on how important algebra was...just thinking about math problems was starting to give him a headache. At the moment it seemed no one had noticed him, the other students seemed to be preoccupied with the teacher's "grand" entrance.

Maybe if he was lucky Castor could slip out of there unnoticed? Hopefully no one especially the professor noticed what he was trying to do as he got up from the table. Castor didn't recognize him as one of the usual teachers, was he a substitute or something? Kind of hard to tell with all the classes he tends to skip...

Castor realized the best chance to escape his little situation was to play along until they broke for a lunch break or something, they would be his best chance to leave without causing a scene.

Worst case he could lie and say he got lost if caught?

"gold star for the effort prof," he said half-jokingly

[Keid Sharma]

The whole scene may have been funny, but it was lost on Keid who only started paying attention right at the end. He wasn't one to sit idly and simply wait for the bell to ring, so he'd been reviewing some notes from another lesson in the meantime. Focused on that, he didn't react to the noise outside, nor to most students turning to look at the window. He only glanced away from his notebook when it opened and a man landed in the classroom, loudly celebrating whatever happened.

Then someone behind him began clapping. Considering they were on the second floor and the window seemed intact, maybe the applause was warranted. Keid didn't immediately catch up on the sarcasm and clapped along politely — compared to the other's purposeful slowness. He was more preoccupied with knowing which class he was really in. The room was supposed to host a lecture on Dust and Semblances; an obvious pick since he'd unlocked his Semblance two weeks before coming to Beacon, and in his experience adding Dust to anything just made it better.

Which begged a question that he turned around to ask the first person who clapped, and easily called the man 'teach'. Therefore the most likely to know if break-ins were usual. Because for now, the whole thing seemed like a demonstration to a completely unrelated class. "Um... You're here for 'Dust and Semblance', right? Not a class on, like, criminal behavior? I'd heard this elective was later in the year... now I'm not so sure", he muttered to the two apparent faunus, although he couldn't really be discreet in the mostly silent room.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Copperfield couldn't help the tired smile that crossed his face at the slow clap, bubblegum pop, and the "Grats, teach". Black hair, black ears, lip ring and nose studs? Deadpan and mocking attitude? He knew who she was, the type of student she might be. Never met her, but her file reminded him of a lot of people he knew. To impress her and make the longest lasting impression, some people would think that they would need to reflect her disposition. Maybe say her full name to her, perfectly pronounced, or some other personal information. Shock and awe tactic. But he knew those types, those reactions normally made them retreat and pull away, not engage.

He stood up and stretched a little, then closed the window. "Thanks, Miss... Fu... Gah, I'm sorry, what's your name? I woke up-" He squinted at the clock. "-literally five minutes ago." He knew her name, but introducing herself would feel better to her and save her more of her pride than if he came swinging out of the gate with her name and all the things he could list about her strange luck Semblance. As tired as he was, it was because he had stayed up late studying his students. If she told him her name, he'd repeat it back with an added, "Love to know you have my back."

He made his way back to his desk, holding a thumbs up to her and to Castor, the snake faunus that was standing up and looking like he wanted to leave. If he wanted to leave that was up to him, he wasn't going to stop him. But he made sure to make eye contact, a significant beat of time passing so he knew that Copperfield knew what was up.

There was a mug on his desk, left from the previous night. "Ooh!" He picked it up and slurped the liquid, then grimmaced. "Cold coffee. Its... great." He downed the rest of the contents like he was taking a shot of liqour, swallowing quickly with a shudder, and held the empty coffee mug out of habit.

"So, let's talk about this class in general for the rest of the semester, what I want to do here, shall we?" He began pacing. "Semblance and Dust, their relationship, and working with each of you individually to further explore your Semblances and how they might work with Dust. Now, Semblance and its vast array of possibilities and thus restrictions may limit your ability to use Dust in conjunction with your Semblance. That is ok. My Semblance, at its base form, is I can hit things really hard from a distance. I can break a King Taijitu's spine with the force of a speeding semi-truck. And for years after discovering my Semblance I thought that was all I could do. Even though I loved Dust and making contraptions with it, it took me quite a while to figure out that I could use Dust with it. Instead of blasting my uncle's barn wall down, I carved out a hole and set it on fire." He chuckled and smiled at the memory. Oh how his uncle was mad.

He went to take a sip of his coffee by habit, realized it was empty and put it down on his desk. He began walking up and down the step staircase that ran along the middle of the room for the rows of seats, his long legs working and his tall frame easily towering over the seated students. "So even if you have a Semblance that you don't think can work with Dust, you are in the right place. Not because maybe in some future year you may discover how to make it work, which you still might, you can still learn how it works, and how to predict what your enemies may do with it. Trust me, in your line of work you will end up fighting Aura-users. And hey, maybe in three or fifteen years from now you'll run into some promising kid, they got a Semblance but don't know how to control it. Or maybe with your situation, they need help using Dust with it to help out in something. The world's crazy, you never know." He stepped back on his side of the room.

"So if you want to be that knowledgable mentor, or even that friend to help teach their friend who isn't in this class, that person who can help out, then make sure to study and come to class. If you want to be the person that nobody comes to for help because you don't know stuff because studying is for nerds, go ahead and do whatever it is you kids do these days. But any one of you who had a sponser, some Huntsman or Huntress that helped you in your talents and steered you to come here? They probably studied. They knew their stuff."

He sat on his desk, his long legs at a shallow angle as they rested on the floor, crossed at the ankles. "I could keep rambling on about things until the sun went down, but believe me I don't want to." He drummed his fingers against the desk, chewing on his cheek as he tried to think of something else to do or say. "Do you have any questions or concerns I could answer? Anything you'd like to hear about me? I got plenty of stories that could lead into lessons. This first day is sorta a bust because of everything so lets make it fun. Don't need to raise your hand, just go ahead and call out to me. Heck I could just show off what I can do with Dust and my own Semblance if you want."

[Fuchsia Iris Ükhel]

Fu gave a slow blink at the Professor's response to her clearly pointed clapping. Well, that was one way to gracefully handle it, she supposed, but a moment later a sudden smirk popped onto her face when the kid next to her said they ought to do that whenever he made it to class from now on. She turned to the ponytailed boy and gave him a quick nod as if to say yes to his proposal, before immediately having her attention pulled by another Faunus in front of her. She blinked at him too as he asked her a question, then chuckled a little and shook her head.

"Criminal behavior? This ain' Mantle, kid," she said to Keid matter-of-factly, "You won' learn that kinda stuff here."

The feline settled back in her seat, wiggling side to side and sliding a bit downward before crossing her arms and watching the Professor. How the hell did this guy get hired here, exactly? Compared with all the other hard-ass Professors she'd come across, she wasn't even sure this dude qualified for the part. Evidently, he'd been sleeping before this. Relatable, she supposed. But now he was here without some sort of plan, so it seemed, and she found herself shaking her head again, though her pointy smirk still remained in place.

"Y'had it right the first time," Fu stated bluntly, "Name's Fu."

Quite a start to the school day.

Pretty soon, the Professor launched into a lecture. Okay, there it was, she thought to herself, but at least now he had her attention. His explanation of the importance of this course felt like he was rattling off some sort of textbook introduction, but he spiced it up here and there with a couple good stories. Blowing down the wall of a barn? That sounded like something she could enjoy.

However, her interest suddenly peaked when he mentioned sponsors, and of course her mind drifted to her own. What the Professor said next made her inner eyebrows tilt upward in a show of guilt. Damn... That one had some bite to it. He was right, she was a shitty student compared to someone like Dargo. That man was a scientist, a renowned Huntsman, basically everything that she was not... And yet he'd believed in her enough to bring her here, right? Maybe she should pay attention. Begrudgingly, her eyes were now locked on the Professor, her tail slithering about beside her while he finally sat down and opened the room for questions. Fu looked about the room again, at the various students who were here, and though a handful of them seemed like the outgoing types, she had to wonder if any of them were half as interested as herself. There were at least two who looked pretty much completely checked out. The ball was in her court, she guessed.

"Sure... I gots a question," Fu started, since he'd invited it without a show of hands, "What's Dust gotta do with anythin'? Ain't Semblance already crazy enough on its own?" She'd never really bought in to the "magnificence" of Dust. In fact, she herself never really used the stuff. Even though Dargo had designed her weapon to utilize it, by itself, it was deadly enough, and she'd never really felt the need to light it on fire in the first place.

"Seems like a waste'a time if ya ask me."

[Leonard Uaine]

Criminal behavior? Lennie seriously hoped that guy was joking. At least the response of his new feline friend seemed to confirm this after she gave him a smirk and a nod to silently confirm at least her own participation in his scheme.

This professor seemed... much more relatable as a person than his other teachers. Lennie had awoken not too long ago himself, though he probably wouldn't have admitted that in front of the class.

New friend's name is, apparently, 'Fu'. Lennie wondered if she'd ever played Mahjong.

And then she opened her mouth again, and Lennie immediately reconsidered his life choices, up to and including showing up for this class in the first place. She seemed like an alright enough person (if a bit sarcastic) from the first - and only - minute or so that Lennie had known her, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to be associated with her in the Professor's mind after her question, given that they were currently in a class that was, in essence, entirely about Dust.

Tossing his hand up lazily, he decided to at least attempt to lessen the uncomfortable feeling he was getting after Fu's... tactless query. With a quick glance around, he saw that he wasn't the only one who'd cringed. "Soo, I guess mine's kinda the same question, but also, like, not? How exactly am I supposed to learn how to apply Dust to something if I don't know what that something is? Doesn't that seem a bit, I dunno, backward?" He was genuinely curious to hear what his professor had to say about that, because if there wasn't anything for him to learn here, then he'd probably show up to each class period, clap for the professor's timely entrance, and then bounce.

[Castor Achromos]

The look from the professor told him everything he needed to know, his plan was doomed to fail. Even if he could get away there was no doubt this teacher would let the rest of the mindless staff at Beacon know about it. He was in enough trouble with them as is..so taking the bullet Castor decided best to stay with the class and sat back down. Maybe next time he could find a better place to take his naps instead of an empty classroom?

And as much as he part of him didn't want to admit it, Castor knew Copperfield was right with his little speech. Set would spend many years etching the importance of being prepared for anything into his mind...even if didn't always stick. For Castor what he got from those lessons was how being able to go with the flow from expected changes and being able to adapt to said changes were key. So despite his laid-back and somewhat delinquent nature, Castor refocused on the lesson at hand, after listening to the other student's questioning the importance of dust use. It was starting to become clear Castor seemed to be one of the few people in the room with experience with the material.

Castor ignored any talks about criminal activity, it was a dumb question and he had no desire to explain why. What did catch his attention...or ire was the stray the talks about why dust was so important? "Depends entirely on who you ask In old myths, dust was considered the "blood" of Remnant, and in other stories, it's a gift from the "gods" who rewarded their faithful."

What little truth buried beneath these stories of long-gone people still showed how important dust was and still is, granted it was around this point Castor was expecting confused looks from the other students. Castor figured it would be best to stop where he was at and let the prof do his job and hopefully show them how dust can be used.

[Keid Sharma]

It felt kind of patronizing for another student to call him kid, and this girl didn't seem much older than Keid. There was a slight chance she knew him given that she mentioned Mantle, but he hadn't yet gathered a reputation as far as he knew, and he certainly would've remembered her face if they'd met. She got the benefit of the doubt anyway.
"Thanks? But my name's pronounced Ke-id, not kid", he answered after a pause, deliberately drawing out his name.

He mentally took his thanks back a minute later when Fu basically discredited the whole subject of the course. Keid's life had always revolved around Dust, and now it was apparently a waste of time. "Why are you even here then?", he muttered far too low to be heard by anyone.
Gods, and did she have to sound so rude to the teacher? At least Castor seemed to have dropped the sarcasm today. Keid hadn't recognized him earlier with his head resting in his arms, so he got a smile in place of greetings. Fu's seat neighbor was probably the most approachable of the three... and he hadn't even talked to Keid.

"Mister... Mister teacher?", he called out after them, half raising his hand by habit. He really hadn't payed attention to his name while reading the schedule. "I'm curious to see your Semblance in action. And how much Dust it consumes too."

[Rouge Ako]

The list of excuses for a student at Beacon is quite substantial and intimidating once you start reading some of the latest entries. The occasional alarm not going off or student sleeping in. A student calling in their locker by accident also has happened quite a few times or their weapons blowing up in their faces during their training hours. Finally we have the students who are late because they are locked in combat with the groundskeeper after trampling parts of the flower garden. (This has happened four times in the past year and all four times were done by a single student.) Rouge's reason adds a new line item to the ever growing list of excuses.

Rouge woke up, covered in glitter and shards of glass, his guitar case just barely out of reach from his laying body, and the melodic snoring of his friends passed out on the couch nearby. Rouge quickly came to realize that he wasn't in Beacon at the moment, in face he was at the club he occasional plays for at nights because of the insistent persuasions from his so called friend. He pulled his body from the debris of his own glass and began to recall the events that led to him staying his first night out, away from Beacon. This, however, was cut short due to the fact his scroll was screaming the last of its batteries to alert the musician. He pulled it out and saw the time for his next class was going to start in an hour. And within the next hour is possibly the current record for returning to Beacon from the city limits. "Fuck."

Grabbing his guitar case, Rouge blasted open the nearest window and jumped out of the second story building, not at all fearful of the sudden drop because of the glass slope that came to be as his body went to air. Sliding down to the ground, he rushed his way through the busy street, making glass poles, blocks, and whatever he needs to skip foot traffic and occasionally vault over cars. Luckily his semblance doesn't just make glass, because as he came to the out stretch of the city and coming closer to the airship field with the last airship starting it launching protocols. Rouge held out his open hand in front of him and pushed more energy to create a glass board that floated off the ground. In the past, the musician has never experimented with heights and distance this great, it being a hundred years away and maybe thirty feet in the air, he jumped onto the board and it propelled forward as his feet began to sink and adhere to the glass. This student has successfully and operated his first ever glass hoverboard, and it was draining him because by the time he came to the airship he crashed into the closing hatch and through all the poor students who acted as his cushion. "Sorry... Sorry" Rouge's apologies could be heard over the sounds of groans and whimpering noises of his fellow students. "My leg."

'Sorry."

Moving forward, Rouge was walking down the hall towards the classroom, glitter still floating off of him and glass shards still stuck in his hair. As he came to the door he heard a small applause, which was kinda pretentious since he was only a few minutes late. Shrugging that off, he grabbed the door handle and opened it up to reveal the class students and one teacher. "Apolgies for the tardiness Professor, I wasn’t… at beacon last night. This won’t happen again." With that, the red haired student made his way forward and into the nearest open seat. Rouge Ako has officially made it to class.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Fu, eh? Didn't like to go by her full name then. He supposed he didn't either, so he couldn't exactly blame her. Plus, those who were into the punk aesthetic as she did liked nicknames. He could work with that.

The floor was a bit quiet as the students thought, everyone looking to who might be the first to speak up. Interestingly enough, it was Fu who asked the first question. "What's Dust gotta do with anythin'? Ain't Semblance already crazy enough on its own?"

He chuckled and smiled, letting some of the students themselves comment on Fu's question. Leonard also asked a question, causing Copperfield to nod. Right, the kid had yet to discover his Keid then asked his own question, wanting a demonstration. Copperfield grabbed his strong jaw with a hand as he thought of how best to answer all these. Best answer to any inquiry, in his experience, wasn't just the answer but the 'why' to it. You can accomplish all of that with a story. "You're right-"

The door opened and in walked a late student. Handsome fellow, red hair with... was that glass in it? Did he break through a window to get in here? Copperfield had been ready to break a window, so it wasn't too unbelievable. "Glad to see you made it, at least. You can tell me later about your adventures. Go ahead and find a seat anywhere. In the meantime, I'm going to answer all your questions with a story of one of mine."

Copperfield took a deep breath and folded his arms. "I like the history expertise, Castor. And you're right, Fu. Semblance is incredibly crazy. And Leonard, Semblance is pretty much only bound by your personality and, like everything in your aresenal, your imagination. You just need to find out how to use it. But as crazy as it is, knowing just how many more levels of bat-shit that you can get could save your life and others."

He thought for a moment about a time he had to use his Semblance in a strange way. The first one that came to his mind made him cringe. Another accident that nobody could prove was his fault. Until he told this story. "There was once a time I was in an elevator shaft, going up. It was a tall building, and I had been running from a pack of Grimm. I couldn't just wallop them because I had this lady's crying baby in my arms. Turns out, even a baby's fear of being carried by a stranger and running from hungry monsters is enough to attract Grimm. Why I had the baby is, uh, a whole other story." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I thought I was safe once the doors shut. But they had broken through the doors and were crawling up the elevator shaft, chasing me. They started tearing through the bottom of the elevator. Past the hungry jaws and razor claws, I saw a straight plummet down several stories to a sudden stop. If I threw my usual punches at them I might have blown the rest of the floor out and died anyway. I could have blasted through the doors onto some floor, but who knows who would be standing on the other side? I might have killed someone. So, I had to improvise. Using Gravity Dust, I created a plane that pulled them even stronger downwards. I think I multiplied the force of gravity like, thirteen times or something."

Copperfield rubbernecked around for a moment before he opened up a closet at the back of the room, pulled out a busted-up chair, and placed it in the middle of the floor. He then retrieved a black Gravity Dust crystal from his desk and held it in his palm for everyone to see. With a wave of his hand a dark, translucent plane appeared on the floor beneath the chair, no bigger than a few feet in a square. The Gravity crystal in his hand began to crumble to powder, then disappear as the chair creaked before it shattered, every splinter and dust particle pressing against the floor as if pulled on by invisible strings. The ceiling also cracked, dust falling far faster than it normally would have. He easily dismissed his Semblance, and about four-fifths of the Dust Crystal remained in his hand. "If anyone hears about something from the class below us flying into the air and hitting the ceiling, it wasn't me. That plane drew things up as much as it pulled things down. And, uh," He pointed to the ceiling. "I'll fix that." He ignored the borken chair on the floor and continued with the story.

"Turns out, what I did exceeded the capabilities of an elevator to hold itself still, especially when it's already been damaged. It, uh, it started to fall. That baby's cries were louder than that screeching steel. Still rings in my ear sometimes. The elevator plummetted until it caught itself a few floors down, jamming against something that the Grimm pulled from the wall. Made my knees buckle. But I could tell it was going to continue falling any second. I had lost concentration on my Semblance, and the Grimm were starting to crawl back up towards us. All the electronics in that steel trap were broken at this point. Using Fire Dust with my Semblance," He looked to Keid then around the room as he pulled out a Fire Dust crystal from the same drawer as he got the other, along with a Wind Crystal, "I cut a hole in the top." The Fire Dust Crystal began to crumble and disappear as a torrent of red flames shot from Copperfield's hand. That didn't last long, not wanting to start the fire alarm. "I then lifted myself and the baby quickly with Wind Dust." He took the Wind Crystal now and, with a flick of his wrist, the other two crystals on the desk flew to his hand. A few other nick-knacks flew from the desk and past Copperfield. He put the Wind and Gravity crystals back on the desk, keeping the Fire. "I grabbed onto a cable still attached to the elevator and cut it with some more fire." He held up a finger now, and instead of a torrent of fire it was a thin line, maybe half the width of his pinky, of white-hot fire that rose about a foot into the air. Copperfield picked up a pencil that had fallen to the ground and tossed it towards the fire coming from his finger. The pencil didn't even come out the other side, only flaming ash and a small glob of heated metal. "Oh crap, now I have to clean that up." He put out the fire. "Anyhow, that whole elevator crashed down on a dozen or so Grimm, crushing them to the bottom."

He didn't really feel like ending that story. Just thinking of that mother yelling and the baby crying made his headaches come back. "So, I hope that answers two of your questions, though I do have more I can do with my Semblance. For you, Leonard, that's something you're going to have to figure out. Explore and try to activate your semblance, be honest with yourself about who you are and what you want, and you'll find out your Semblance. For applying Dust to it, taking this course prior could speed up your process of figuring out what you're capable of when you do find it. Take notes, learn how it works in theory. Or you can take this class when you discover it, no harm in that."

He let out a deep breath. "Alright, any follow-up questions? Comments? Concerns? Acts of Rebellion?"

[Fuchsia Iris Ükhel]

The alleycat shrugged at Keid when she was corrected. How was she supposed to know? Ke-id it was, then. The class seemed fairly lively today, though, and before she knew it there was plenty going on again, with Ke-id muttering under his breath, causing one of her large ears to pivot his way. She heard that, not that she'd say anything. She still lifted an eyebrow and retained her lazy posture looking half like a puddle in her chair.

Fu's lack of a formal education kept her in the dark about most things history-related. The idea that Dust was seen as the 'blood' of Remnant in ages past, though, that at least made sense to her, being from Mantle as she was. The Atlesians and their Dust... always with their Dust, and the rampant oppression, profiteering, and all the protests because of it. It was as bloody as money, really, from what she knew, so that bit made sense to her.

Her head was back on a swivel as she looked around as best she could at whom so ever was speaking at various moments, until suddenly the door flew open, and in stepped a disheveled red-headed boy with a somewhat sophisticated look of laxness about him. Well now... Nobody told her that an actual cute boy would be in this class. Her smirk gave away the mischievous distractions that flitted through her head momentarily, before it was back to paying attention to the teacher.

She came in to his story just before the demonstration of gravity dust and the chair, though she'd sworn she heard something about a baby and Grimm. Sheesh, what kind of stuff did this creepy old Professor get up to? A look of judgement sprung to her face while she tuned in to the rest of the story, and, seeing his little demonstrations of various types of Dust, she still seemed unimpressed in the face of it all. Growing bored, now, she pulled a piece of paper from her notebook and began to fidget with it, slowly folding it up, making various angles and lines on the page while she half-listened to the rest of the class. Her tail never stopped dancing around in the air beside her, nor did her ears cease their restless repositioning atop her head, but all together they were the most animated parts of her aside from her hands.

Finally finishing her little project, it was time to see if it could fly. When Cop-a-feel asked for follow-up questions, she tossed it into the air, and around the time he said 'Acts of Rebellion?', the little paper plane bumped squarely into his shoulder and fell to the floor. Fu blew a bit of hair out of her face. That was at least some form of entertainment, but she'd hoped it would've flown farther.

"So it took a bunch'a Dust to send an elevator to the bottom? Y'know, if you'd had a good knife, n' yer Aura, y'could've just cut the cord with that. Easier, faster. I still don't see why ya need a bunch of fancy minerals to do what c'n already be done," Fu stated, rolling her shoulders in a shrug and sticking her hands back in her pockets. Reflexively she started to play with the knife in her pocket, as per usual.

"If yer tryin' to break a chair, just kick it. If yer Aura ain't out, use it t'help ya jump. It all seems so... I dunno, poin'lessly extra t'me." This was about the time when she started hearing Dargo's voice in her head, telling her to stop being difficult. She rolled her eyes at the air. It wasn't her fault she questioned everything, didn't he say that was a good quality to have? What a time to have a guilty conscience...

[Leonard Uaine]

"I go by Lennie, actually." He didn't hate his legal name or anything, but it was just too formal: he felt like an old man being called 'Leonard', which was a very weird feeling.

The professor's answer made sense, and Lennie respected him for admitting that it wouldn't necessarily be worth it to remain in the class until he knew what his Semblance was. He'd probably stay for at least a few weeks, just in case he found his Semblance before the end of the term.

The look that Fu had given the newest latecomer was what Uncle Adrian would describe as "the right kind of trouble". Lucky him, Lenny supposed. He'd never had anyone give him that look, but he also wasn't sure if that was something he was looking for at the moment. Perhaps he'd step onto the field later in the term, if his studies were going well.

Storytime with Mr. C was probably going to be one of the more interesting parts of this class. Demonstration time with Mr. C was probably going to be one of the more dangerous parts of this class. Experimentation time with Mr. C (which would probably happen outside) was probably going to be one of the more exciting parts of this class.

When Fu fired off more attitude after the story, Lenny slow-blinked and long-nodded once. So that's how it is, he mused to himself. If he were to guess, Fu had a story or two to rival Mr. C's, only with less Dust involvement and more... conventional methods of property damage. That might be a fun thing to ask her about later.

[Keid Sharma]

That story was impressive, moreso when considering how awful the situation had to be for Grimm to enter a building, and then an elevator shaft. The demonstration was impressive too, for other reasons... Mainly, the state of the room afterwards. Keid's silence and unblinking wide eyes could be mistaken for interest; but in reality, he was awed by how much chaos the teacher had caused in the span of two minutes, and his lack of concern for school property.
The chair had been reduced to splinters and sawdust next to a ball of sizzling metal that had surely burned the floor, surrounded by everything fallen from the desk: an assortment of pencils, sheets, the mug and — oh god, thumbtacks. Not to mention his breaking and entering plus, apparently, damage to another room as well.

Oh, Keid was okay with it. He'd much rather have a teacher demonstrate the full possibilities of Dust than rant about safety measures. He'd just make sure to never be in the front row. Poor Rouge, I think you just sat in the splash zone, buddy... At least his lateness didn't bother the professor. Neither did his disheveled state, but the glass shards in his hair fit the decor quite well after the fireworks.

Aside from the destruction, the part that got Keid's attention was the amount of Dust put into these blasts. He'd wondered if Semblances would burn through Dust as fast as some did through Aura, but the quantity used here seemed in line with common uses like his gun. Then again, a Huntsman who taught people how to use Dust would be more efficient than students. Besides, this Semblance in particular seemed like combined well with several elements: adding fire or force to a hit was a logical step to make it more deadly.
He focused on these thoughts to avoid turning again and answering Fu. She wasn't even talking to him, her brashness just reminded him of an infuriating cousin, whose remarks were better left ignored but often hard to brush off. Keid hoped that the teacher would demonstrate the effects of Dust on a cat faunus at some point, but unfortunately he didn't seem to be fazed by anything.

[Rouge Ako]

Rouge certainly wasn’t going to explain his tardiness to the Professor, and not because it was rebellious but mainly because of how bizarre the story is and the events leading up to it. Though it seems the Professor went straight to his lecture of staging a performance alongside his story, utilizing various dust to achieve some sort of wonder from the students, and from the various reactions of a few it seemed to not work. The gravity did start pulling all of the glass in Rouge’s hair and towards the ceiling and the moment the Professor stopped using it, the sharp shards of glass started falling back down. But before the shards came into contact with Rouge, they dissipated into red dust that fell gently onto the musician. ”Good story… though you could’ve done a demonstration without it.” Rouge pointed out as he brushed himself off and quickly noting he didn’t have any of his school supplies except for his guitar which made note taking difficult.

The student gave a soft groan and peered around the classroom to look at everyone else, hoping for a spare pen and paper but was met with the looks of curiosity, worry, and pity? Rouge turned back around slowly, not caring about the looks but better to let sleeping giants lay and not question them. Then came a comment from the female cat Faunus, who’s argument questioned the very need of dust. The musician could see her argument since he rarely, if ever, uses dust unless it’s one of his special magazines for his weapon and it was mainly because he couldn’t get it to work safely with his semblance. Fire and glass didn’t mix well unfortunately.

His thought process continued as his started to comb through his hair and pulling certain locks out of his eyes and securing it with black clips made of glass. Finishing up with the last clip, Rouge adjusted himself a bit until he finally got comfortable. ”Also to add onto the argument of using dust, it seems that dust works specifically well with your own semblance, and also with how much it seems to eat away at the dust it seems like added weight to those of us who can’t work with hauling around several canisters of dust. That’s also besides the point of potentially mixing them.” Rouge tossed a small glass rod towards the Professor seemingly out of either nowhere or a pocket in his sleeve. “Fire would melt it, gravity would probably crush that before something else, and wind wouldn’t work well with shattered glass and a baby.”

[Castor Achromos]

Despite the prof's creative story, multiple students were quick to point out the multiple easier alternatives to using dust. Not only that but gravity dust wasn't exactly all that common or cheap compared to other dust crystals like fire. In the end, Castor figured it would be best to attack each of their points one by one. Starting with the familiar stray cat girl, "what if you ain got a knife? what if you ain't got aura to spare? I'm all for the quick and straightforward approach." he said as he stood up from his chair and started making his way towards the front of the classroom. the professor did welcome any and all acts of rebellion after all? "Having options will only increase your chances of surviving, besides cutting an elevator cable is a lot harder than it seems, I know I've tried chewing through one...not fun." before anyone had a moment to question just how stupid or true Castor was being he continued. This time specifically talking to the latest student who arrived late. "you'd assume the only thing that matters is the quantity of dust but." going through his pocket he fetched a pair of two tiny gems, Castor could tell in his hands by the small heat they gave off and the texture between his fingers held a pair of fire dust crystals relatively the same size, from afar they'd look like little marbles. One of them was your basic dim a dozen rock you can find anywhere in Remnant, mostly used in cheap ammunition for guns and even part of simple camping kits if you know where to look. " If I threw this little shit in your face it would be like lighting a firecracker if it threw the other one though," he said as he could casually through it towards the professor who he hoped would be fast enough to catch it.

"it would be like getting hit with a stick of dynamite," he said rather casually of course mostly lying just to mess with his fellow students but dust crystal was of much higher quality, and the fire it produced would be much stronger. Hopefully when it was safely caught the professor would most likely notice its apparent quality. As to how Castor obtained such a thing? well....it was a long story from before he arrived in Beacon.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Copperfield didn't move an inch, watching the paper airplane fly through the air with his eyes. He watched it hit his shoulder and fall to the floor. He knelt down and picked it up, examining the little device. Lifting an eyebrow to Fu and placed it on his desk and pulled out a blank sheet of paper. Wordlessly he squinted around the walls and corners of the room. He was judging distances and angles. He had his hands poised to make a center fold on the new paper, but after a moment or two of deliberation he made it a few millimeters right of center.

"If you didn't like the demonstration Rouge, then it wasn't for you. Keid asked for it. You ask for something I'd be happy to give it, within reason." He said without looking up.

He thought about retorting to Fu, explaining all the reasons why he couldn't use a knife in that scenario, mainly the baby, but going down that rabbit hole wasn't going to help the class learn anything and Fu would just bring up other possibilities to not use Dust instead of listening to what he had to say. He had met plenty of people like her in his career, and as a teacher she wasn't going to be the last student like herself. All he could do was try another way. Prove he understood what she was talking about, for one.

While he worked on it, Rouge, the latecomer covered in glass like he broke in a window to get here, joined in on the seeming attack against a fundamental tool of Huntsman. Dust. He looked up from his work, the most baffled expression on his face as he looked at Rouge and Fu and the rest of the class that said nothing in defense of one of their best tools. Seriously, it was like... "Oh yeah, we don't need guns, if I get close I can stab him with my sword. See? No bullets required, guns are stupid. Heck, why do we need swords? Knives are just as good, I just get closer. Hell, why use knives? My fists have Aura, I'll use those!" He said in an overly dramatic mock Fu voice under his breath, fully aware that she might be able to hear him along with any other that was close enough.

He noticed something moving through the air and on reflex, tired teacher or not he'd been killing things much faster and tougher than him for years and you get good reflexes doing that, caught the glass rod. He was almost done with his paper airplane but took the time to look the glass rod over. It was simple, clear, and made from Rouge's Semblance, he could feel the Aura in it. Hearing Rouge it seems like he also was completely turned off by the idea of exploring Dust with his Semblance. He placed it down and shook his head. "Like I said, lack of imagination is your limitation, not your Semblance."

He finished folding his own paper airplane but Castor of all people got up and defended the concept Copperfield was trying to teach. Without invitation he walked towards the center of the room, continuing to speak as he came forward. He wondered why he had tried to chew through a steel cable like that, but if Copperfield had his stories he didn't want to tell then Castor surely had some as well. When he helf up the dust marbles Copperfield instantly recognized them for what they were. One was a regular to poor quality grade fire dust crystal, while the other...

Copperfield caught it carefully in both hands as if it was an egg and it was going to break if he was too rough with it. He held it close to his eyes, peering at it. He didn't need a magnifying glass to tell how pure this was. He looked back around to the rest of the class, pointedly at Rouge and Fu. "Keep up this arguing with the teacher and I might believe the guy who flunks most of his classes is going to be better at his job than you" He was only getting a little irritated. He wasn't the most patient guy, but he was trying for these kids. He carefully handed the small marble back to Castor with an added, "Stand right here, would you?" And would motion for him to stand beside the left side his desk. "No more questions for a moment, let me talk."

Copperfield then picked up the airplane he had been folding with many tiny intricate folds along its body but slightly lopsided. He showed it around in his hand for a moment, letting everyone see, before he gave the tiny machine a nice throw towards the right back wall of the classroom. Without watching it, Copperfield pulled out another piece of paper and began folding it, an exact center fold this time. "Castor, without moving your feet, catch it before it hits me like the other airplane, would you?"

His airplane flew towards the wall before it's off-balance weight due to the misaligned center fold made it bank softly to the left. It soared around the whole of the classroom, getting dangerously close to the walls before heading right towards Castor, making a full circle as if to head back towards Copperfield's desk. He saw it soar towards Castor and, if he caught it, would chuckle and smile to himself, muttering quietly, "Damn I'm good..." He spoke now while finishing up his second paper airplane.

"You see, you can do wonderful things without Dust. You truly can. You're own ingenuity, athleticism, and smarts can take you far. It's taken many Huntsman and Huntresses very far. But with Dust combined with those things..." He made a final, decisive fold and held up his balanced airplane, essentially the same looking as his first one with all the intricate folds. It looked more like an orgami construction than your typical paper airplane.

He threw the airplane high towards the center of the ceiling of the room, watching gravity take over and have it sail towards the back of the room. Using some Wind Dust from his ring, he created a gentle gust of wind that simultaneously carried the paper airplane into a backspin, 180 degree turn, three loop-da-loops and then a 90 degree turn to slide safely onto Fu's desk, as well as mess up a lot of student's hairdo's and papers. "With Dust, we can do things we could only before imagine. That is if you can imagine such an outcome."

He decided now was an alright time to show why Fu could count on him to be her teacher. "Now I don't know yet how your Luck based semblance could work with Dust, Fu. Perhaps it could leave behind the Dust's effects once it hits your target, or maybe it influences their chances to have their luck spiral downwards by way of something complimentary to the Dust you use. Use Earth and it makes them more likely to trip rather than have something fall on their head, Fire to have them burn themselves or make their gun explode, things like that. If you could predictably control the luck of other's for the worse, firefights with you would look more like an orchestration than chaos. And then your Aura-imbued knife cuts through them like butter once they are helpless in the way you designed. That's why I want you in this class, so we can figure it out and I can help make you even stronger and better than you are now."

He turned to Rouge. He hadn't expected Mr. Glass Slipper argue against Dust. And having Castor, the kid he had been notified about regarding his personal activities and delinquencies, be the one up infront talking back? That made some steam boil.
"And you, think throwing glass around and having it sweep battlefields is all you need to do? Make some swords and cut things to ribbons? Let me introduce you to a Basic but strong Grimm type, the Death Stalker. Covered in extremely hard bone plating and an exoskeleton underneath that, no sword or Aura-imbued knife you slash at it will make a mark. You'd need a nail and a large warhammer falling at Mach 3 to punch through that. It will crush you in it's pincers if it hasn't shish kebabed you on it's stinger already. But Fire? Enough heat melts through. Ice? Make the bone brittle enough, and lighter attacks can crack the bone. You could learn to imbue your glass with the properties of Dust, creating molten glass swords or storms of knives that pierce and freeze their targets, maybe Wind Dust could make flexibile, almost living glass spears that could bend and shape around your enemies defences. And I want to figure this out with you and help you become something more than you are now."

His head moved to look at everyone seated now. "I want to help all of you become better, things your teachers and I couldn't be. Explore your talents and hone your crafts."

He looked back and forth between Rouge and Fu now. "But you have to be willing to try. Or you can give up, just say that it won't work and that there isn't any point, pack up your bags and leave. Really up to you."

After a short pause he let out a heavy breath, rant over. He shouldn't let his temper rise like that in the classroom. It wasn't even all that high, he had gotten much angrier before. But putting a lot of anger and power into his Semblance is how he had dealt with problems most of his life. Hell, why not continue? Blast the kids now where they sat, show them what Dust could do. He had read their files, he could take them no problem. He could easily throw them out the window with just two flicks of his wrist.

Right, like beating up argumentative students was going to get you praised or something. Maybe get a pay raise. Right.

He had been taught in Atlas, where most teachers had majored in Drill Instructory and minoring in Self-Esteem Butchering, along with a masters in Shut Up and Listen. They would have already thrown Rouge and Fu out of their classroom for obviously not agreeing or caring about the course material. But he didn't want to be like them.

He let out another, heavier sigh, head hanging and eyes closing as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then he remembered something. "Oh, Castor, you can sit down now if you'd like. Keep the airplane if you want it, it's yours." He kept his head down, eyeing the small glob of heated metal scorching the tile. That wasn't getting waxed off any time soon. Why'd he think he could be a teacher...

[Fuchsia Iris Ükhel]

Fuchsia sat there in her seat, a stupid lopsided smirk on her face as she watched the chaos unfold. Nobody had said it wouldn't be an entertaining day, right? Maybe this was her kind of class? Unruly students certainly made things much, much more interesting. She crossed one leg over the other, leaning back to watch the fireworks, blowing bubbles with her gum as her head swiveled left and right, focusing on whomever was talking at any given moment. Who'd have thought this'd be so easy? She could almost hear her mentor's voice in the back of her mind reprimanding her for disrespecting her teacher like this... Haha, perfect.

Still, as time wore on, she couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Perhaps her example had let the class open up a little too much on the guy? But her curiosity was piqued while Copperfield began to fold another pair of paper airplanes, her brow raising and her ears angling forward to listen. She was actually a bit surprised by what happened next.

His point about guns at least made sense. Knives weren't swords, swords weren't guns, and she guessed Dust wasn't a knife neither. But when he shot right back at her, quipping about how this Castor kid was going to be better at his job than her, she let out a little chuckle, wiggling in her seat. Okay, so he did have a bit of bite in him, huh? Certainly a great way to earn her respect; people who could stand up for themselves were her kind of people. He even shot back at Rouge, too. Aside from that, though, her half-assed paper airplane was starting to look like a tugboat compared to the precision crafting he was managing to pull off. Maybe he ought to teach a class about origami? That'd be a great elective.

Now swaddled in the warmth of amusement, the alleycat watched as Copperfield stood up to give another demonstration. Her eyes lazily followed the little plane as it circled around the room in a perfect pattern. Impressive work... She'd never get a paper airplane to do exactly what she wanted. But when he proceeded to make his point, using the second plane combined with his Dust to perform an entire series of aeronautical acrobatics, she blinked, watching it more closely. Okay... Definitely couldn't do that with just her hands. By the time it had circled round and done a dozen tricks, it slowly drifted down to her and skid to a halt on her desk, leaving the wide-eyed cat staring at it. Shit... He had her beat there. Now her attention was fully on him, and she looked up while he lectured the class on the advantages of imagination when it came to this particular subject.

Fu had always considered herself an imaginative sort... But when he brought up her Semblance directly, she lifted an eyebrow, chuckling again at his apparent enthusiasm. Oh, so he knew about that? She guessed she shouldn't be surprised, given the subject of his course. He probably knew about all their Semblances, she'd remembered submitting a demonstration during her entrance examination.

And his description of that particular type of Grimm...? She'd never fought something like that before. Bone and armor? Pincers? A spear-like tail? She had to wonder what manner of horrible creature he was describing. It seemed like a far cry from the Beowulfs she'd taken down in the northern arboreal forests. By now she was leaning forward, resting an elbow on her desk and watching him with big, curious golden eyes. She almost didn't realize that she'd actually started to pay attention, until he finally dropped an ultimatum to her that was hard to ignore. Shit... Point taken.

Giving a little amused laugh at the man's antics once more, her tail joining her in a small deal of excitement, she reached down and picked up the little paper plane on her desk, examining it closely. It was quite well crafted... She almost felt the need to ask him about his technique.

"All right, teach... Ya made yer point. Guess I'm listenin'. What'd it hurt, anyhow? But don't come cryin' to me when my Semblance ruins yer classroom way worse th'n whatcha did to the chair. She's a bit... temperamental..." As she spoke, her eyes were still on the paper plane, but when she'd finished, they flick back upward to him. She set the plane down on her desk, leaving it there, perhaps she intended to keep it? In fact, she did... A little reminder of that point he'd made. If Dargo thought this was where she should be, and she was supposed to be here to learn, she guessed she could stuff it long enough to hear him out. Besides, his annoyance was relatable yet again.

"Bonus points fer not takin' anyone's shit."

[Castor Achromos]

Castor couldn't help but laugh his ass off the unfolding scene in front of him, most people would get offended but the prof was simply telling it as it was. Most of the academic courses Castor "attended" bored him to death, so the little shade thrown his way didn't bother him in the least bit. Castor stayed oddly silent during his professor's demonstration with the paper airplane. Thinking of the best way to get the airplane without moving his feet, it was clear his teacher wanted t see if Castor could use dust to get results.

"fire? no that'll just burn the paper..lightning or earth won't help either." He'd need something fast enough to reach the target and guide it safely, gravity dust was also out of the question. Digging through his pocket Castor quickly realized which element he needed, if fire would burn it and gravity tear it then his best bet was to use the wind to guide it towards him. In most cases, a dust crystal of sufficient quality would easily slice the paper plan in bits. With enough dust and aura control, he could probably use any average wind dust crystal to get the job done.

Sadly Castor never had much of a delicate touch with anything let alone dust, chances he would end up blowing a hole through the wall and he'd rather not pay for any more property damage...again. Luckily the dust he had in mind was of such low quality that it had no chance of doing any damage. Out of his pocket, he revealed another dust crystal, this one having a strangely pastel-like green hue to it, when he randomly bought it a few days ago he thought it was a normal rock painted to look like dust. Maybe someone had been trying to prank local huntsman by mixing it in with the real stuff? He soon found out the crystal was rather rare, not for its purity but because of how absolutely worthless it was in any practical use. Unlike the pure fire dust from before this was very cloudy and muddy on the inside almost as if there was a hole hidden inside the gem where water and filth seeped into it.

Because of its inferior quality, it made for poor use for ammunition and industrial use, the only people who would make use of such crystals were the extremely poor, downtrodden, or stupid who didn't know better. The paper airplane was halfway through the room circling around everyone as it made its pass. Normally dust of this piss poor quality wouldn't be able to exert much wind, but with a little force, Castor figured he could coax enough of a push to change the plane's direction.

Putting the dust crystals to his face Castor would quickly start chomping down on the crystal, using his teeth to break the crystal into more pieces and giving himself more ammo to work with. Normally the little chunks of sharp rock would be cutting into his gums but a little aura stops that little distraction. Still, the sensation was like chewing through stained glass, before the airplane reached the point of no return. Castor spat out one of the large chunks and threw it at the target, right as the was right behind the paper airplane Castor would spit a smaller chunk of the wind dust at the first crystal.

With a quick inhale, aim, and some aura the small fragment of dust flew out like a blowgun, zipping through the air, shattering the crystal, and causing a small burst of wind to knock the airplane off course towards castor. At that point it was easy for Castor to repeat the process a few more times, making sure the plane landed safely in his hands. After Copperfield was done lecturing the other students and said he could keep the plane, Castor could only shrug "all right, will do" and made his way towards his seat with his ill-gotten reward.

After all, Castor was really hoping no one noticed the small holes in the back wall his stunt made...

[Leonard Uaine]

Was every upperclassman at this school completely insane? Lennie was starting to think that yes, in fact, they were all absolutely bat-shit crazy. He understood challenging the legitimacy of course material, especially on the first day of class - the "when will we ever use this" argument made less sense in a class like this, but it wasn't completely dead in the water, either. But throwing things - fragile or potentially explosive things - around willy-nilly was not something he'd ever do in a classroom unless he was asked to and he was sure the thing wouldn't actually explode.

Then a pair of paper airplanes were sent around the classroom, and Lennie decided that he'd be staying for the remainder of the term even if he didn't find his Semblance soon. He could always retake the class later, but the odds of Mr. C's lectures being tailored to the students in them seemed astronomically high, which meant that he'd get even more information out of the class the second time around.

Now to hope that there wouldn't be any severe property damage caused by anything he did in the class. Lennie could only slowly shake his head at that thought as he warily eyed the blob of still-slightly-liquid no-longer-a-chair that was slowly eating its way through the floor.

[Keid Sharma]

This couldn't possibly be an actual lesson... Seriously. A freebie for coming in late and arguing with the teacher? Those rarely happened in Keid's old near-military school, but it wasn't beyond expectations with unruly teenagers and a devil-may-care professor. Dissing on the lesson's subject and berating the teacher? Rouge and Fu would've been thrown off Atlas had they studied there. Throwing paper airplanes, brittle glass and high-quality Dust around?? This felt more like his first years of training than a classroom, which was both exciting and worrying. The teacher throwing paper planes himself?! Okay, what. This had to be a prank and every student bar Keid was in on it.

Thankfully, he was open-minded and willing to try and adapt to Beacon's apparent leniency, although not quite ready to question a teacher's expertise. Since other students were... participating freely, the polite faunus had less compunctions about speaking up and giving his own opinion.
Rouge, much like Fu, seemed to have very limited interactions with Dust, at least for fighting purposes. And much like her, his counterpoint about his Semblance didn't counter anything, and frankly wasn't even a point. "Honestly, Rouge", Keid began and waited for the upperclassman to turn, "molten glass sounds like a very effective weapon... and it's probably the least amazing thing you could do with a creation Semblance. I think you underestimate how far you'd go with tiny amounts of Dust." Like Castor just attacked the professor with, he didn't add. He also refrained from commenting on the purity of said crystals and the mixing issue, two problems that he avoided thanks to a sponsor who designed automatic Dust mixers.

At this point, he was totally struggling not to glare at Fu. Rouge got some leeway, since they'd met before and the guy was agreeable. Castor was... Castor, and at least he provided valuable knowledge. But the cat faunus had no excuse for talking to a professor like Keid wouldn't even dare talk to someone their age. "Guess I'm listenin'?" Why the hell would she come here for if not to listen?
You're a bit temperamental alright went unsaid thanks to the distraction that was someone munching on a raw Dust crystal. Until now, the Solitan felt like only he was familiar with the use of Dust as a sort of spice. Maybe it wasn't just a local thing after all, although Castor took it quite a bit further. It did seem like a rehearsed trick since the Dust didn't ignite inside his mouth.

Still, the most impressive display was the professor's. There were no words to describe the extreme control needed to drive a paper airplane at the other end of the room, not obliterate it, and guide it into those precise movements. He'd only ever seen one person come close to such accuracy, but he had no idea how much the teacher's Semblance factored in it.
"Can I have one too?", Keid asked out of the blue, in the relative silence after Castor sat back down. Trying to replicate the stunt would be a good exercise that could be practiced anywhere, although he wouldn't know how to make an airplane as sophisticated as the professor's. He didn't register how childish that question sounded.

[Rouge Ako]

A raised eyebrow was the immediate response to the profesor commenting about Rouge’s lack of imagination when it came to his semblance, the irony in this being that Rouge’s semblance is almost entirely utilized by his imagination, but the student knew the Professor was right. Rouge’s semblance will only grow as he expands his borders and experiments with new ideas. He looked at Copperfield with a different light though when he came to realize that the Professor knew and possibly understood the bases of Rouge’s semblance in an instant. That is until he talked about a stalker Grimm, one of the few creatures Rouge had difficulty with at first when he came to beacon during his first year. Copperfield was correct with his assumption that it would be a difficult Grimm to be tasked against, and it was until Rouge was able to get the creature to consume some of his glass and he was able to tear it to shred from the inside. It was only until that encounter did Rouge start expanding his arsenal to incorporate the gun/sheathe. The Professor was correct again in the end, maybe it was time for Rouge to experiment with his glass and glass a few more times.

”Then I guess we will see the results of this class soon enough.” Rouge stated as he leaned back against his chair and slowly tapped his fingers, rhythmically, across the wooden desk. His thoughts were taken away as he watched the paper airplane fly through the air and Rouge couldn’t help but exhale. It wasn’t because the act of using dust to effect the plane was boring but a second demonstration of dust wasn’t at all needed, but when a student took control of the plane to make it land safely with the assistance of a few chunks of dust? Rouge had to pull his attention away from that too listen to his other classmates, The cat Faunus seemed to finally comply with Copperfield and from the looks of the students, Leonard and Keid, Rouge and the female weren’t really on the well like list. Which was really uncalled for since he was just expressing his disagreement with using dust as a shortcut to become a huntsman or huntress before you condition your body and weapons.

With that in mind Rouge stopped tapping his fingers before creating a bundle of glass rods in front of him. He knew the implications of glass and what happens to it is it’s cold, hot, or affected by other types of elements but then idea to start throwing molten glass at people dropped Rouge’s stomach fast. ”So when do you think it becomes to dangerous to use dust? Overtime our latent abilities will grow alongside our semblances and with certain abilities walking around this school, do you think introducing them to dust become a hazard? Of course they’ll be traidor properly but at some point, what if they mess up?” Rouge said this on the quieter side than out loud to the class. The first and only time he had to use molten glass was to cauterize an amputated leg of his team member. The image of her limping on a glass prosthetic was holding still in his mind as he spoke. ”I agree with you professor, we should learn about dust and how to safely use it. I can’t agree with mixing it with every different semblance out there just yet.” He pulled his head up to look at Copperfield in the eyes, his ruby colored irises held some of the emotion he was thinking of but not showing on his face.

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Copperfield looked up from the hand that covered most of his face, staring at Rouge and Fu. Maybe it was how he was taught at Atlas, despite him never following any rules, but... He was silent for a long moment, only giving Keid a brief, almost imperceptible nod and focusing back on the two. Speaking of not taking anybody's shit...

He straightened up and took a few steps forward, eyebrows furrowed as his gaze switched from Fu to Rouge and back. "Guess you'll listen now? Guess we will see the results?" He scoffed. "Who the hell do you two think you are?" He spread his arms out to the side. "You enroll in Beacon, take a class about Dust and Semblance usage, which you haven't been able to achieve yet, and on the very first day within the first five minutes of class you argue against learning, against using, and only once I jump through several hoops am I finally good enough as your teacher? Only after I demonstrate twice are Dust and Semblance combinations good enough for you?" His voice was rising in volume, his boots taking slow steps forward to the edge of the desks.

"I don't care who the hell you think you are or what you're owed, but in my class your nothing but a couple of toddlers I need to teach how to safely control their weapons of mass destruction before you get yourself and other people killed! Castor and Keid here are the only ones I'd actually trust with any sort of responsibility so far, while you two have only proven to me how much you want to slink into the corner and take a nap because this shit ain't worth your time! This class isn't for me to prove myself to you, its for you to prove yourself to me, that I can trust you with the knowledge and skills to save people's lives, hell, that I can trust you to walk down a hallway and plant your ass in a chair, shut up, and listen."

He was fuming now, not caring to control his voice. Invisible lines of force radiated off of him like heat waves, distorting the air. His mad eyes turned to Rouge, now very close. He put his hands on the young boy's desk, looming over him. "When is it dangerous to use Dust? When you don't think you can use it. When you don't respect what it can do. What if someone messes up? They pick their mud-covered selves back up and deal with their mistakes!" He grew earielly quiet now, speaking barely more than a whipser as he stared down at the red-head. "That's. Life. You mess up, and you either lie down and die with everyone you got killed, or you stand back up and try again. So before you ask any other teacher "what if I mess up?" Use that brain of yours to know that I already answered your question." He pushed off from the desk and walked back to the middle of the room.

With a little flurish of his hand, a touch of his Semblance and using Water Dust, a stream of water flowed from his hand and surged into his mug, rattling it and splashing water. The cold, pure water mixed with the last dregs of cold dried coffee and he drank it down, glup after gulp, not caring for the diluted bitter taste. He needed to calm down. He wasn't sure if this water was doing anything, but it was something to do besides chewing their heads off. Those kids needed to hear what he was telling them, but he was ready to punch a hole through the wall. A big one. Like the whole wall. The audacity of some of these brats.

"The point of school is to learn. Now is when you study, and you apply it out there. If you can't learn now, you'll be learning too late in the field and blow your arm off doing it wrong because you thought yourself too smart and too cool to pay attention. I have literally seen it. And if you're this prideful with Professor Wednesday or Honeydew? Boy, you'll be wishing it was me who humbled you by the way of several sheets of drywall." He slammed his mug down on his desk and snatched another piece of paper. He needed to do something with his hands before they started making punching motions towards some students. "Making you your airplane, Keid!"

He glanced up at Fu while he made a fold. "And don't worry about my class room, kid. I burnt my last one to the ground. You can't do much worse."

[Fuchsia Iris Ükhel]

Fu had thought she'd made it clear that she was ready to listen, to give him the benefit of the doubt. She'd conceded he had a point, she'd given him his credit where it was due... But how did he react? Something Rouge had said must've riled his fury. Copperfield quickly seemed to shift gears and instead of calming down, he ramped up. The hair on the back of Fu's neck bristled, as did the inside of her chest, and she already felt her pulse quicken in the throes of anxiety when the air in the room suddenly became tense. By the time his voice had gone up, she was already feeling cornered.

Her eyes went wide, like a cat's might when a loud noise startled it, her golden gaze locked on the man while she froze. Her brain suddenly stirred, kicking into gear as it discussed with itself her options. There were a half dozen ways out of this room. Several people here were armed. She felt it, rather than thought, when she had suddenly started identifying threats. Her hands curled tightly around her arms, nails scratching the leather of her jacket, adding to the various scuff marks it already had. Her ears were facing forward, alert, while her tail froze in place, the hair at the end of it bushing up. Her jaw clenched. Her emotions shut off, replaced instead by a deep, dark nothing that neither existed nor didn't exist, a familiar state that, after a year of therapy, she recognized instantly as a dissociative episode. She knew when it was over, she'd feel all sorts of things. Her eyes watered slightly, and she didn't speak at all while she endured his yelling, watching him with a look of confusion, of fear.

Any point he'd been trying to make was, at this moment, entirely lost on her. In her mind, his words were replaced by formless emotions and blurring sounds. Anger, that's all it sounded like. Her worst enemy.

By the time it was wrapping up, coming to its end, his fuse burnt down and the dynamite already exploded, Fu watched, without really seeing, as he paused to fill a cup with water and drink it. It was only some relief, not really all she needed now, but she was finally able to pry her eyes away and stare at the wall instead. This was a bit of a bad idea, of course, for the second he slammed his mug on the table, she visibly jumped in her seat. After that, she sunk low in her chair, embarrassed, upset, and doing her best to hide behind her desk without making it so obvious that she didn't want to be here anymore.

In response to Copperfield's statement about his classroom, all he got was the mildest of shrugs while her eyes remained elsewhere. She wouldn't remember what he said. Couldn't, even.

[Leonard Uaine]

. . .

There was clearly something in their professor's past that had been brought to the surface by Fu's and Rouge's behavior. Furthermore, his sudden aggressive response seemed to have a profound effect on the feline sitting next to him. There were many things that Lennie wanted to ask Rouge, not least among them being 'what exactly are you doing here if you don't want to learn', but putting aside the fact that it was probably a required class that he'd just been putting off as long as possible, Lennie really didn't want to antagonize anyone this early into the term.

Instead, he shifted his gaze to Fu, who was now making a point of not looking at anyone, her bristled tail holding uncharacteristically still (if the first few minutes of class were anything to go by, anyway) and her form slouched in her desk. He should probably leave her be for a bit, in case something he did somehow made her mood worse. Lennie didn't know much about her, after all.

Turning his attention back to the front of the room, he watched Mr. C make Keid the requested plane.

[Keid Sharma]

Okay... so the teacher wasn't just all fun and paper airplanes, got it. As far as telling offs went, this one was impressive and most of all unexpected. Keid had been berating Rouge and Fu mentally, but he now felt a little sorry for the two, and sheepish even though he wasn't the one being yelled at.
He just stood straight and barely nodded when the professor called his name. The only thing he could focus on was not to drop a pen, or anything else for that matter, and why his lights didn't help with camouflage like they were meant to.

If Keid was stunned by the sudden switch, he couldn't imagine what went through Fu's head and didn't dare turn to find out. He only saw Rouge's reaction to a mad Huntsman powered by cold coffee and warping the air by sheer force of anger alone. Damn, they fell from a high horse... In fact, the whole atmosphere plummeted down after that. And Misses Wednesday and Honeydew were supposed to react worse? What a worrying prospect.

[Rouge Ako]

Well this reaction was not at all what Rouge expected from the professor, certainly after all the student has done was bring up debatable questions that would at least bring some light to the subject at hand and also possibly answer whatever the other students could be thinking. Instead the answer Rouge received was nasty looks from some of the students and the feeling that his views aren't shared in the very least. This feeling was massively magnified as the professor began strutting towards the front row of desks, one filled by a very unfortunate Rouge, and began to basically belittle the only two students who had some sort of questioning attitude towards his subject and praise those who followed like sheep as if they were attending some prison, like Atlas Academy. Rouge knew the professor was correct, and even stated it quite clearly to him and only had some reservations of it.

The musician kept his eyes on Copperfield as he neared closer and closer, feeling some sort of heat radiate off the man until he came to Rouge's desk. The smell of coffee was palpable as it escaped the man's open mouth, and it was almost strong enough to pull away the student's attention fully. That is until hands fell onto the wooden desk and all the glass on Rouge or near him cracked and webbed as Copperfield's voice grew quiet with his last comment towards him. When the professor pushed away from Rouge it would become obvious that something changed in his demeanor and appearance, the glass hair clips that usually held up his scarlet hair were gone and caused it to fall and cover a good portion of his face. However the calm rubies he has for eyes were sharper and his pupil were small and focused on the professor.

Rouge rose a hand upward towards his hair with glass needles held firmly in his palm, after a few moments of pushing and pulling his hair was back to being held up to free his vision and no longer obscure his face, and the look in his eyes were gone and back to the almost expressionless and cold stare they held prior. There was no reason to be upset with the professor, he was doing the one job he is paid, possibly quite handsomely, for; to teach the students here how to survive hunting some of the most dangerous creatures on this land, and who was Rouge to blame him for bursting out at the occasional student. Though his warning at Rouge that compared to the other professor's, Copperfield wasn't as terrible, was interesting. Rouge has had classes with both and is currently scheduled a field mission with Professor Wednesday later in the week, maybe he just never had a conflicting point of view with them just yet.

The comment of Copperfield burning down his last classroom was possibly the only word that didn't hold Rouge full attention because the student has destroyed a few training rooms before and considering the size difference with the classrooms being much larger, Rouge also wondered what was the limit of the comparability between dust and Copperfield's semblance. So he decided now was not the time to fight against the opposing force, instead he gave a fake smile his team used to spend days teaching him how to do, and say what Eleanor would've said if she was sitting next to Rouge in this class. "If it takes a few classroom to burn down and a couple of sheets of drywall to get thrown through to learn what you offer, then lets start the fire, Professor."

[Professor W B Copperfield]

Copperfield was halfway through the paper airplane when he realized the entire classroom was quiet. Except for Rouge, seemingly all in now. He glanced up and noticed that Rouge's smile didn't exactly reach his ears. It was a fake smile, but it was a good one. At least he was willing. He had to smile, a real smile, at his comment.

His eyes moved to Fu. She was practically hiding behind her desk. Then he remembered a detail he had noticed from her file the previous night. Pretty much no recorded past besides the mention of an orphanage. That meant a lot of time alone or with dangerous people. She had given him 'bonus points for not taking any shit', but with his very dignified and completely justified response, she herself had shrinked. Looking back, he would have predicted her to yell back or storm off, or maybe a slim chance to swallow her pride and move on like Rouge was seemingly willing to do. But shut down and hide? Something, or someone, had yelled at her like this before and taught her not to talk back. He felt a twinge of guilt spike into his stomach, but like hell was he going to apologize.

He looked at the clock and sighed. Man he wished the bell would just ring so he could deal with this tomorrow. But here he was. He looked around at the rest of the students. Some teacher he was. Blowing up at his students and making one hide. The world out there was cruel and was going to be meaner than him, but they were still just kids. Hell, many were first-years, just hitting puberty as far as he was concerned. He had really screwed this up.

He finished up his airplane and sent it Keid's way before he sat on the front of his desk. It had been quiet for some time now, most students either not daring to catch his eye or watching him carefully. Humor was a good uplifter, right?

"So, we got time before class ends. Go ahead and put away your books. Anyone want to hear the time I was hit by a car?" He smiled, showing teeth. "Just imagine for a few moments the intimacy that grew between my head and the hood of a car. And it was traveling pretty fast when it hit me." He held up both hands, one acting as the car and the other as himself, standing. "Just WHAM!" His hand that was the car drove through his other hand, the facsimile of himself rolling on the imaginary floor. "And WHAM!" He did the same thing, though from a different angle that had 'him' flying through the air like a ragdoll.

He paused for a few moments then continued. "The truth is it didn't hit me from the side. It fell on me. From the sky. And I was in the middle of a forest. Turned out some Nevermore had plucked it up and bombed me with it. The ton of steel was traveling at terminal velocity when it hit me, and I was only able to get a shield up with Dust and my Semblance in time because I heard it break a few twigs on the way down. My back was out for a week." At that he arched his back, a couple pops sounding out. He wasn't sure if that story was funny, but maybe it lightened the mood.

"Anyone else have a funny story? Or a joke? I'd love a good joke."

[Castor Achromos]

This was a first for Castor in his short time in Beacon, usually, he would be the one being chewed out by the professor for whatever kind of trouble his smart mouth got him in. By some bizarre series of events, Castor was one of the few people being praised by Copperfield it was...weird. If nothing Castor had enough respect for the professor that he simply watched from the sidelines, as he berated them over their laziness...again another weird occurrence today and if this info hadn't been beaten into him he might have turned out the same. At least he wouldn't have to write down any notes for this class, what did catches his interest was the stray cat's reaction, she seemed rather frazzled by Copperfield. In a way, he was kinda disappointed but she seemed she was all hiss and now claw, "could have sworn I've met her from somewhere before...oh well." he thought to himself as quickly went through his pouch of dust crystals.

Inside had a variety of different dust crystals both for combat and practical use, but this next dust crystal with its large round and smooth surface looked more like a toy in comparison. It fit snuggly in Castor's palm its deep brown complexion made it look more like mud than a crystal. With a gentle squeeze, the dust ball started to squish and contort. It took only a moment for Castor's finger to render to ball unrecognizable from its original shape. Once his fingers separated the ball soon started to undo whatever damage he had done to it and with a small shimmer of orange, the ball of dust regained its original shape.

Unlike normal dust combinations, This strange ball was made by the mixture of not only various dust crystals but from natural material such as from a unique tree and some other stuff either his mentors didn't remember or Castor fell asleep through. It didn't matter to him at the end, and yeah it was probably primitive compared to anything Beacon folk got but it always helped when he needed to keep his mind occupied. If nothing else it would be a half-decent peace offering...or free ammo to hitting him in the face. Despite its appearance that ball of dust was rather durable. Using a nearby pen, Castor quickly wrote a simple message of "reeelaaax" on it and with a simple lob threw it in the stray cat girl's way. Hoping it would land right in front of her the ball and not on her head or tail...if that were to happen the best chance of survival would be through the window...

"I almost got eaten by..um what were those big ass bird Grimm bastards? anyways gave that little shit's gut a bit of ache with some rock dust and ripped out its guts with Fidi." Chances are they would assume Fidi was the name of his weapon since he never made it a habit of showing off his summon to the other students.