[ReaperJoe]

Dust is an incredibly powerful and invaluable resource. The sheer variety of dust alone can reshape battlefields, allowing the forces of civilization to fight on even ground against the Grimm. The energy dust provides is used in almost all the technology of the kingdoms, including everything from cutting-edge weapons to the lights in the dorm room.

With all that in mind, it makes perfect sense for why team CLVS uses so much dust. When combined with their semblances, the versatility of dust makes them an unpredictable force, able to adapt to pretty much any situation. Thanks to all their dust, entire packs of Grimm have been wiped out, sometimes even in a matter of seconds! Yet, there is still one downside to this amazing resource.

"Why do we have so much dust?" Lucas sighed as he picked up another vial. Because the entire team uses an extensive amount of dust, there is an extensive amount of dust scattered about the dorm room. This isn't even necessarily the result of carelessness, the everyday use of it just lends itself to becoming disorganized. Because of that, Lucas had originally only resolved to keep his dust in his specific area, but the scattering about of dust crystals and particulate had blurred the boundaries, and now Lucas has taken on the unenviable task of trying to organize everything.

And that means scattering the dust even further, just so he can have space to gather his thoughts and properly classify all the scattered crystals. Thus, the CLVS dorm room is currently covered in different colored piles of dust, spaced out by strips of paper, with Lucas at the center with a notebook and a case full of vials. This is definitely going to take a lot of work.

[Zwei Not]

"Because winning requires burning a ton of it." Juno replied, attempting to organize a mess of crystals laid out on his desk. Their repeated victories were never without a cost, and at about 10 lien for a tube of powder, bills would be racking up if they weren't sponsored by Beacon. Even so, their dust use was kind of obscene. Their last mission had almost exhausted their field supply... over the course of a six hour deployment. Whoever was managing supply drops probably threw a fit.

The wolf leaned back in his chair, having carefully individually wrapped a nice pyramid of crystals for storage. There was still much more work to be done, ideally before everyone had to sleep, but with the amount of work left, they could be working well into dinner. "Where did the others say they were going again?"

[ReaperJoe]

"Last I heard, they were doing--and I quote--'hot girl stuff', end quote," Lucas responded, recalling the last thing Cloe said to him before dragging a helpless Prism out of the dorm. "I don't really know what that means, and I'm not really sure I want to. Besides, do you really want them around for this?" Lucas asked, sparing a glance towards his teammate before returning to his work.

It wasn't that Lucas thought the girls were incapable of doing this kind of work. Far from it, they both used dust and knew how it worked. It was more that the overwhelming lion's share belonged to the boys, and Lucas at least had developed his own system for organizing it all. Unfortunately, that system required taking up the entire floor of the dorm room, which would have surely offended the organizational senses of Prism, and it almost certainly would have been disturbed by Cloe's exuberance. Frankly, the only way they would get done with this fast is if they worked without them.

"Still though," Lucas mused, packing what was either the third or thirtieth vial of earth dust away, "It would be nice to have some extra hands with this. Either that, or we gotta cut back on how much we use. If the price tag doesn't kill us, we'll be crushed to death by the sheer volume."

[Zwei Not]

The wolf smirked. Knowing Cloe, she probably dragged Prism along for "Hot girl shit", namely errands, window shopping, and girl talk. While Juno wasn't opposed to the current task of organizing their recent dust acquisitions, he would have preferred to go along with the girls. A day out in the city was preferable to spending hours sorting and stacking dust crystals. At the very least, with the two of them hard at work, they could make good time.

An ear flicked back as Lucas spoke up again, an eyebrow raised as he complained about the volume of work. "I mean, it has to be done. N' at this pace, it shouldn't take too long." He offered, packing away another few wrapped pyramids of ice dust crystals. "Besides, doing all this in one afternoon was all your idea."

[ReaperJoe]

"Oh, it'll get done alright," Lucas mused as he sorted another pile of dust, "We have to. Otherwise, we'll end up with explosive powder scattered all over the place. I don't know how allergenic the rest of you are, but one good sneeze in a volatile area and--" Lucas accentuated his point with his own self-made explosion sound effect, nearly spilling the dust he was working with in the process.

After making sure that none of the particulate scattered on the floor, Lucas continued, "Still though, we're definitely consuming way more dust than other teams. Might be worth it to consider cutting back on how much we use, see if we can put that lien to other things, like weapon improvements or things like that."

[Zwei Not]

The wolf rolled his eyes and returned to his crystal sorting, lips pursed at the notion that they needed to cut back. Sure, it was a reasonable concern, but his own effectiveness in the field was so tied to the resource. The wolf hummed as he set down a few more bundles of crystals, leaning back in his chair with the majority of his work already done. "I mean, I see what you mean, but what good does cutting back do if it risks us losing where it counts? It's not like we have to pay outta pocket for this, we've got Beacon as a supplier, yeah?"

[ReaperJoe]

Lucas's eyes narrowed at his teammate's comment. Having assisted with his family's shop's budget himself, he knew that even generous suppliers had their limits, and no good thing lasts forever.

Turning towards Juno, he responds, "Beacon may be supplying us now, but that won't always be the case, you know? There's no saying for sure if we'll get a steady stream after we graduate, especially during our first year or so as full hunters. All it would take is one scandal or one screw-up, and we'd be left scrounging for scraps. Forget having enough dust, there's a world where we'd be lucky to have enough ammo if things go wrong."

"Besides," he continued, "if we're ever out in the field and use dust at leisure and with no restraint, we may run out before the fight that 'counts', as you put it. It's not like we can always rely on field supply drops on every mission, right?" In fact, more often than not, supply drops were guaranteed to not be available for missions. The wilderness of Remnant and the unpredictability of the Grimm made planning and organizing air resupplies a logistical nightmare; not to mention sending out an entire bulkhead for a team of four would be a drastic waste of resources for any organization.

"And I don't know about you, but I still have a sniper rifle and smoke cannisters when I run out of dust." Lucas finished, glancing at Juno's sorted pile of crystals as if to ask, "What would you do?"