“Just me right off the bat, I’m afraid.” Prism interjects, trying to cut off Coconut’s rather… lascivious comment. She gives Azure’s hand a surprisingly firm shake, before shooting the only male member of Casanova a glare. Behave, or else - it seems like the leader of the team runs a fairly tight ship. “And sorry about the surprise - I think I might’ve heard you once or twice in passing, and at least occasionally on the radio? Never really spent much time listening to music.” She answers faintly. She waves her hand in the air, moving the point on - there’s a lot more to do, and it’d do good to get the rest of the team’s mind off of Amane.

“Regardless, three on one seems a bit harsh to start off, so I’m going to give you a bit of a different challenge.” She answers, taking a step away from the group and unhooking the thin metallic box from her back in one smooth motion. Shifting off the safety and flicking a lever along the outside of the weapon, a long shaft extends from one end, while the main body of the weapons delicately folds outward to form a razor-sharp blade - only taking seconds to form Prism’s characteristic glaive. “I want you to try to land a hit on me. Not trying to take me down necessarily, but just land a single, solid hit. This’ll give me a good feel of your combat skills, and give Josie and Coco hear a chance to see you in action. Sound alright to everyone?” She asks, glancing around the room and looking for approval.

Regardless, another couple steps back - and slides her stance out, gripping the staff of her weapon with both hands.

The charging Grimm goes down with Kisha’s first arrow, embedding itself in the creatures forehead before it poofs into a cloud of black smoke. The second Creep goes down in a similar fashion, and Tyrian’s headlong charge is rewarded with a Creep attempting to bite his arm off - only to be sliced solidly down the middle. Diana’s two carefully-aimed shots manage to hit home, which earns the support a quick nod of thanks from Jima. There’s still one Creep that nobody bothered to shoot, though - and it immediately capitalizes the lack of attention by lunging at the nearest target of Tieren, mouth open.

”More Creeps incoming, by the way!” Jima yells, not looking up from her weapon. True to her word, nearly double the initial crowd emerges from the surrounding arena arches, fanning out in a loose semicircle to surround the fledgling hunters. Jima gives an approving hum to herself at the fact, having really only expected Creeps to be around right away- it’d give everyone a good chance to warm up.

Which is why when the feeling of something other niggles at the edge of her Grimm sense, it’s enough to make her jerk her head up in surprise. ”Smokey, incoming!”

The ground underneath Kisha and Smokey - the two who decided to stay back -  would suddenly swell from underneath and make cause the stone crack, adding in the fun of additional tripping hazards.  That’s all the warning the two would get though, before the golden-tipped tail of Death Stalker breaks through the stone and attempts to stab the conveniently-placed immovable object.

TARGETS
Creeper x 11
Deathstalker Tail

ATTACK LOG
Creeper Lunge (7%)
Deathstalker Stab (10)

ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITION: Crumbling ground

Prism pauses for a moment as Smokey pinches the tip of her glaive, stares for a moment, and then sighs to himself. He’s not wrong - the new guy’s interruption didn’t deserve to have a weapon pointed at him. She tugs the weapon once or twice to at least signal she wants to remove it from the man’s immobile grip, before it’s transforms back into a simple steel box she slings behind her waist. Prism likes to pride herself on her self control, but after getting clocked in the face with a massive gun, listening to a creepy dude imply he knows more about some family’s murder than he should, and probably getting a concussion - well, she’d let her temper get the better of her. She lets Calen respond as she takes a few slow breaths to calm herself down, before starting from the beginning. ”Right, uh. Sorry about that Catalina - Cat? You didn’t deserve to be snapped at, much less have a glaive pointed in your face. It’s been a long night, but that really isn’t an excuse - so, yeah.”

Secondly, Calen - you’re actually right, as much as I hate to say it.” She admits, turning to face him. ”But it’s something that needs to be addressed on both levels. Institutions need to be dealt with in order to assure the perpetuation of classism and racism doesn’t continue, but the education of small-time racist and bigots is still important, because it’s one less person who agrees with those types of values. You can’t have one without the other, because those bigots support and form the institutions. Micro to macro scale and all that. Man, I really shouldn’t be doing doing this with what’s probably a concussion.” She finishes, rubbing at her forehead.

As she finishes her reply to Calen, she turns to Cat again to listen to his next point. She crosses her arms as he begins to speak, talking about the definition of oppression, the “bad taste” the Faunus Rights Revolution left in the mouth of some people, about how the people who enslaved faunus feelings should’ve been considered - and before she can stop them, the words are already leaving her mouth. ”Before we continue - Cat, I’ll put this politely and ask you to reexamine your words. The Faunus Rights Revolution happened so that the rights we earned would be upheld, and so that we wouldn’t be confined to Menagerie. You’re telling me that faunus shouldn’t have fought and rebelled to insure they weren’t isolated for the rest of the world, because they should’ve thought about how humans felt? About how the people who initially enslaved them felt? Because to me, you’re basically stating the faunus shouldn’t have fought back against the mistreatment we endured.”

Prism looks in the mirror, straightens her cravate, and gives a quiet sight to herself as her shoulders droop.

Losing someone hurt. Prism knew that better than a lot of people. Amane had voluntarily dropped out of Beacon, going off to pursue whatever task that secret agent thing she belonged to told her too - and in the process, left the rest of Team Casanova reeling. The goodbye had been brief, abrupt, barely enough time to wish her well and find out of they’d ever see her again-

And it didn’t hurt that after two hours, they would forget the face of a close friend forever more, too.

Prism’s hand pushes past her cravate, reaching for the pocket on the inside of her vest. Carefully tugging out a folded piece of paper, she unfolds it and looks over the hurried drawing, commissioned by Prism seconds after Amane had left. She’d immediately gone to that one third year she’d seen sketching realistic Grimm, and after paying a hefty fee for her immediate attention, described every detail she remembered about Amane’s face before the two hours were up. She remembers thinking it was a fairly accurate match to her friend before forgetting what she looked like, so hopefully the picture was accurate. It was something to remember her by, at least.

Folding it up again, Prism tucks it back into her best and straightens her cravate again. The rest of Casanova still needed their fearless leader, no matter how much it hurt to lose a friend. Especially with the arrival of their new teammate, who was assigned to Casanova almost immediately after Amane’s absence. With only the name Azure Blair to go by, the future looked uncertain - so Prism pulled the familiar worn bomber jacket over her wings again, steeled herself, and moved to step out of the locker room and back into the training ring.

The first she sees (and thinks) was that she managed to miss their new arrival’s… arrival, apparently coming in while she was changing into her combat gear. A minor flush of shame rises at the fact she wasn’t there to greet her, but she pushes past it to focus on the new teammate. She was tall, dressed rather loosely, absent-mindedly strumming a guitar that Prism was willing to bet was her weapon - and had a wolf’s tail hanging from her waist. The slight grin that quirks onto Prism’s face with the addition of another faunus on the team is quickly wiped away as she catches Coconut looking up thankfully at the ceiling. Right, that’d be fun to explain to the new girl.

But regardless of that, Prism had a good first impression to make - and so did her teammates. A piercing whistle shatters the quiet solemnity of the arena, and cuts off Coconut’s initial greeting - interrupted by the familiar click of Prism’s heels carrying her across the arena to join the little group. “Casanova, at attention please! We’re here to greet our new teammate, and saying hi from the ground is no way to introduce yourself, Josie!” The hummingbird faunus announces, her tone turning teasing towards the end of her sentence - there’s obviously no hostility in the leader’s tone towards her teammates.
Regardless of that, Prism pulls up short of Azure, giving a friendly grin up towards the taller faunus. “You must be Azure Blair, right? Just assigned to Team Casanova? I’m Prism Skylark, the leader of our little group - it’s nice to finally meet you!” She chirps, folding one arm behind her back before holding out the other for Azure to take.

What's Aurelia's plan and/or leadership model for dealing with the rest of Apricot, and how do you think she'll react to some of the rowdier members?

“Let’s see…” Jima ponders, fiddling with the motor on her sword. “One, about the staff knowing this is here - I wouldn’t know personally, but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone like Professor Sophos knew. Two, keeping the location of this place a secret I’ll leave up to you. If you bring more people out this way though, just be prepared for a fight and like, don’t litter. Or destroy the ruins too much. Three - c’mon, aren’t you all in the first year Grimm Studies class? Think about it. Large arena, crumbling ruins. Plenty of hideyholes, and we literally just planted ourselves in the middle of it all. Perfect environment forrr…”

Almost perfectly timed, a deep growl permeates the arena, the echo making it difficult to pinpoint. Jima grins to herself at the sound, yanking the pullchain on the side of her new sword, and the chainsaw roars to life in response - only to cough and sputter, before blowing smoke in Jima’s face. She yanks the chain a couple more times to see if it’d come back to life, only to for the lights of the motor to die out as it becomes entirely unresponsive. ”Okay, you guys can handle the first wave yourself! Good luck!”

As Jima starts to drag her weapon off to the side of the arena, a particularly brave Creeper charges headlong out of the nearest arena entry towards the group. Several more of the same Grimm follow it out of the gate, fanning out - not charging headlong like their compatriot, just quickly stalking towards the group.



TARGETS:

• Creeper x 5

Battle Log:

• Headlong Charge (10%, Group Attack)

Chantou stares on ahead as Diana and Yu make polite yet awkward smalltalk, feigning disinterest at their conversation. It was honestly kind of amusing, watching the poor girl attempt to navigate chatting politely with two strangers, while Yu dealt with outright social awkwardness. Guess this is what happens when you stick a bunch of strangers together at a dinner table. Her mask of solemnity stays perfect until Diana begins to talk about her past in Atlas, with her confession about the inherent nature of Atlas’ treatment of faunus. It’s enough to make the mantis faunus raise an entire eyebrow, turning her head to stare down Diana from behind her sunglasses with a slight tilt to her head, a curious expression on her face - and the corner of her mouth quirks up as the human awkwardly finishes, before the slight smirk vanishes as soon as it appears.

Sometimes you can find decent people in even the harshest environments.

With a bit more ease to her slouch in the chair, Chantou raises one hand and barks out a couple words in a harsh Mistralian language to signal the waiter Diana tried to previously flag - making the young man start and walk over to the table. Chantou points to something on the menu and exchanges a couple more sentences with the waiter in a foreign language, before setter her menu down on the table - apparently already completing her order. Time to get something to eat, and hopefully rescue Yu for a bit before Diana accidentally pressures him into taking his mask off. “Sweet of ya’ to offer Diana, but I’ll pass. You two go ahead n’ order anythin ya’ want, within reason of course - it’s on me, spirit of the Vytal Festival n’ all.”

Chantou glances towards Dawn, giving her a nod of acknowledgement instead of reaching for her outstretched hand. “Chantou.” She answers, before turning her attention back to Smokey. “It might help if you explained like, what you’re doin’ here dude. Instead leavin’ us wonderin’ ‘bout a fuckton of strawmen.” She answers, the amusement still prevalent in her voice. She’s not going to voice it at least, but well - what he’s doing is frankly kinda ridiculous, and subsequently very amusing.

This was better than anything she thought she’d find in the training range.