Avalon’s Music Class (Open to 4)

This was a bad idea. Bloody Hell was it a bad idea.

It could be worse of course. She could go and fight Grimm for Lien. That would have the merit of putting her out of her misery.

In any case, she certainly had to secure the funds for basic necessities. Like a change of clothes, new shoes (high heels would be the death of her), a properly equipped bathroom cabinet (who decided glass paper had its place there?), food that didn’t taste like the offspring of sand and tar, her own private bullhead and she wouldn’t say no to one hell of a butler.

If that meant she had to go out of her way to teach extracurricular music lessons. Well. She’d think about it.

Of course, she had already announced the activity on the scroll network, so she couldn’t exactly back out now.

''Oh For Oum’s Sake!''

She cursed as the instruments cases she painstakingly carried over to the empty classroom assigned to her clanged against the closed door and scattered around on the floor of the hallway.

She frowned angrily at the door.

A voice in her head whispered.

The door is innocent Morrigan…

Her voice grumbled.

''That door will be tooth picks if I find out its locked…''

She turned the knob and it opened, almost too shy to creek from lack of oil.

''Yeah. You better behave you sorry excuse for a waste of wood or I’ll make you sing I’m Sorry Mama.''

With guitar in hand, Fuyuko cautiously entered the rroo, "meow" :3. She saw her new friend. more like her only friend so far, "Morrigan!" She flew across the room and talked the other girl, purring as she hugged her. After a minute, she picked up her instrument and perched on a chair, "I haven't seen you in a while. How ya doing?" Fuyuko had subconsciously chosen a chair that placed the older girl between herself and the door, if a scary person came in the faunus would have someone to hide behind. She opened the case and pulled out her guitar, an older acoustic that could be plugged in. letting her mind wander,  Fuyuko played a few notes before doing a song she had heard a while back. Senbonsakura had a catchy, upbeat tune that she liked even though she didn't understand the words.

She almost dropped the portable keyboard she was moving into the room when she heard her name.

Who in the blazes…

“Oumph!”

She turned around in time to catch Fuyuko’s hug.

The friendly contact and the fluffy ears instantly made her stomach churn in protest. The cheerful tone of the cat Faunus forced to put a fist in front of her mouth before answering. She really had a condition.

“’Evening Fuyuko. Yes… Indeed.”

She had to bring it down somehow.

Think sad thoughts… like dead puppies.

Her breathing grew steadier and her bowels laid to rest. She had conflicting feelings about it.

She could afford a proper answer now.

“Truth be told I hate the place. Oh and I still think building a castle on top of a mountain is silly. I guess you learn to work through it. Like your period.”

She looked over Fuyuko as she mercifully released her.

“Tell you what. When I finally get my hands on some Lien to go clothes shopping I’ll scroll you up.”

As Fuyuko started playing Senbonsakura on her guitar, she finished moving the cases in the classroom, singing along some parts.

“Senbonzakura yoru ni magire… kimi no koe mo… todokanai yo!’’

As the final notes were dying out, she started opening the cases. She took out a violin and started testing it out for tuning. Those instruments had spent way too much time into storage.

She looked over at Fuyuko.

“Interesting choice. I like songs that have a story to tell. Do you know what this one is about?”

She cringed at the screeching sound produced by the violin as she battled to bring it back to working condition. She spared a glance at the flute laying on the desk, the guitar and bass case bound in flaking leather, the dubious looking portable drums and the piano she had previously leaned against the wall.

“Oh and give me a hand making sure none of these are also guns.”

Fuyuko smiled,  "strategically,  placing the academy here is sound since it is large enough to house the entire city if need be and is difficult to access for attackers." She set her guitar back in its case and examined the drums, "this set converts into a mortar battery." Fuyuko moved the drums and pressed some buttons as she converted the instrument of music into an instrument of destruction. She frowned as the movement made her oversized clothes slip, "I'm not good with words, so I'd have to really study the lyrics. or being noticed, if someone I wasn't comfortable with had come in I would've been unable to play" She added softly while turning the drums back into drums. She checked aa old guitar, "this one has dueling pistols hidden in it" She reached and pulled a single gun out and then pulled it apart into to guns, "why do people do this with instruments? they're supposed to be for music, not killing." She tried to keep the sadness out of her voice.

She put the violin back in its case. At the very least it wouldn’t savagely attack the eardrums of anyone in the vicinity.

She inspected the flute, gathering her thoughts.

“Senbonsakura is about being trapped in a cage, surrounded by darkness, somewhere your meager voice cannot hope to reach anyone. Yet the tone of the song makes you feel like rather than wallowing in despair, the protagonist decided sing and party her heart out, making the most of it. I can’t help thinking it’s similar to how humans are trapped within cities, surrounded by the tides of Grimm. That’s how I see it anyway.”

She brought the flute to her lips to produce a few notes.

A dart blasted from the canal and embedded itself in the opposing wall.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. She didn’t know what she had expected.

She replied to Fuyuko’s worries with some of her own as she made her way to the bass.

“Words… Words are the only thing I’m good at. In here…”

She motioned vaguely at the rest of the academy.

“…knowing how to fight is more important. Some people might deny it. Its Grimm excrements. You can’t talk your way around a Grimm. You can’t argue with it, nor can you appeal to its sentiments. You can only kill it, flee until someone else does or die.”

This was probably the closest she’d ever been to complimenting someone.

She raised the bass and smirked at the dulled blade following the curvature of its body.

“That’s probably what they were thinking when they turned these into weapons. Of course since those were leftovers to gather dust, lower case d, we can assume their owners either realized it was a poor design choice or died dimwits.”

She looked at the deployed piano with apprehension and motioned towards it.

“By all means.”

"The piano turns into a shoulder - mounted AT - AP cannon with under slung gating and one....two hard points for bunker buster missiles." She reached for it and then stopped, her hand trembling, "wait...that's not.....I destroyed." Fuyuko reached around and felt the piano, searching for a telltale piece. There it was, right as she put in her finished drawing, "how old is this particular unit?" She shakily sat on the floor and stared, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the feeling of being violated as memories of her previous life welled up. scooting back from the piano until she was behind Morrigan, Fuyuko stared at it.

A few designs and that's it. You can do whatever you want

She closed her eyes and shook her head,  "this can't be one. someone else must've made this and I copied it without realizing. that's what happened. it's not my creation. it can't be, it's too old." She stood up and pressed against the other girl, trying to hide from the piano.

"That’s utter bullocks. How do you know so much about these? Are you saying you used to make them?"

She shook her head, her hair cascading around in a practiced manner.

"I found these in a storage room while trying to find my dorm. Hell if I know how old these are…"

Her skin got goosebumps when Fuyuko pressed against her back.

She quickly stepped towards the piano, trying to see if whoever had left an AT-AP… whatever that meant… had at least taken the time to remove any spare ammo before storing it. Missile and cannon were enough to catch the drift she didn’t wanted this thing going off in the classroom.

She looked at Fuyuko shriveling on herself.

"And what’s up with you? What got you so riled up? You look like you’ve seen a bloody ghost. I won’t say this piece of junk can’t hurt you, since it pretty much could, but… seems like you’re worried about more than it’s propensity for destruction."

She was carefully avoiding anything that looked like a trigger as she fiddled around with the… Canio? Piatling? Missile launching keyboard? Whatever that was. She didn’t know much about weapons, but removing ammo looked easy enough in the movies. All she had to do was look for anything bullet-like right?

Chucks… how did she go from a class on music to bomb defusal? Figuratively AND literally…

Fuyuko stayed behind Morrigan, not wanting to be near the piano but not wanting to be away from a person, "I was....encouraged to learn as much about weapons as I could back home. My" She looked for the right word that could convey her meaning without leading to more questions,  "teacher, I guess you would call them, decided that in order to maximize the potential of my semblance I should design weapons." She gave it a cursory once over, "I drew two forms of this type of weapon here but I destroyed both drawings. it's not loaded by the way" She carefully walked over and changed it, the firing pin for both barrels had been removed, but there was a bullet in the chamber, "AT stands for antitank and AP stands for anti personnel." Fuyuko breathed a sigh of relief and changed it back to a piano after removing the bullet. She shivered again and stood close to Morrigan as she eye balled the other instruments. none of them appeared to be like her designs, but now she was going to be paranoid about everyone and everything. Maybe a trip to the administration offices and and a look at student registration was in order. She wiped her eyes, "well. terrifying experience aside, I think we've cleared all the weapons out of these things." She tried to smile as she sat by her guitar.

She was definitely curious about Fuyuko’s semblance, but asking would be rude right? Her own semblance told so much herself that it was practically like asking her to model for a nude photoshoot. Which did happen in the past but that’s beside the point.

She sighed, relieved that the instruments would now behave like such. She brought the guitar case nearby in case she’d need it and took a chair next to Fuyuko to place it in in front of her.

Using the desk in front of the classroom would just be silly.

“When did you learn to play guitar?”

She held her dress with one hand before sitting, crossing her legs elegantly.

“Did you have something in mind when you came here or are you fine with anything?”

Screw it. Nude photoshoot it was.

“What is your semblance anyway?”

It ended up coming out in a very show me yours and I’ll show you mine kind of way. Which prompted a situation appropriate smirk on her part.

Fuyuko blushed, "I kind of taught myself since my parents weren't all that supportive of 'frivolous' pursuits." when asked about her semblance,  she inhaled sharply before regaining her composure.  In response, she held her hand out and a bullet formed in it. Setting it in her bag, she looked at Morrigan,  "" call it Gunpowder Saint. it lets me create anything that has gunpowder in it up to something the size of my hand." She focused again and created a partially misshapen knife. it fizzled and a wisp of smoke left it for a few seconds,  "bullets and grenades are the only things I can make consistently work, and Dust interferes with it for some reason." She tilted her head and smiled, "what about your semblance? it must be something beautiful."

All told, Marcus enjoyed his time at Syne so far. The classes were actually relevant to his interests. He liked to imagine that he made friends. Even his personal project advanced at a slow but at least steady pace.

Except now that he finally got the transmission to work decently he hit a wall with his project. No matter what he tried, he was irrevocably stuck. So rather than try and break a brick wall with his face, he decided to try out an elective to get his mind off it. As he checked out what was available, one in particular caught his eye. Music. Actual music classes, in a school dedicated to Huntsmen and Huntresses. Now this he had to see. He enjoyed music, to the point that he had a big beefy stereo installed in his workshop, but he never expected to see it on the curriculum at Syne of all places.

He heard voices from the classroom. They already started? That was quick, as far as he knew he wasn't late. As he ambled over he concentrated, trying to make out what the conversation was about. Wait was that Fuyuko's voice?

"AT stands for antitank and AP stands for anti personnel."

Excuse him what. What kind of music class was this and why had no one told him they were going to involve copious amounts of awesome?

"Well. Terrifying experience aside, I think we've cleared all the weapons out of these things."

Terrifying? He stopped in front of the door, and actually listened to her voice. She was shaken by something?

Then the class proper seemed to start and part of the conversation switched to semblances. A sensitive enough subject that Marcus decided to poke his head inside before things got too private.

"Hello there, am I late? Hey Fuyuko, kind of-Is that a mortar battery? Dibs." he said, sidetracked as he beheld pure unadulterated glory. Wait no, focus.

"Ahem. As I was saying, well hi Fuyuko. Not a surprise to see you here." he greeted the huntress. He looked at the teacher, and was surprised just how young she looked. Still she matched the profile picture for the teacher of this class. He could have sworn they were about the same age, but no that would be ridiculous. Teachers were never that young.

"Marcus Goldstein, miss Avalon I take it?" he introduced himself.

She couldn’t help but frown when she heard music being referred to as “frivolous”. She commented with acid pouring from her words.

“Your parents sound as wonderful as their taste for music.”

She watched Fuyuko’s demonstration with interest, then immediately started growing potatoes regarding it.

Her smirk creeped back in.

“Does that mean that under the shy cat attitude and the oversize clothing you’re bomb? I can’t wait to see that.”

A sharp, but genuine and melodic laugh escaped her lips as Fuyuko hypothesized her semblance as beautiful and another student entered the classroom. She didn’t feel like going through a lengthy explanation now that they had company, but she did owe her some kind of answer.

She snapped her fingers and the smoke coming off from the attempted misshapen knife scattered away, dissipated by a swift breeze that ruffled Fuyuko’s hair.

She turned towards Marcus, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re not late and you’d be right, except I’m not for the taking.”

She was on a roll.

“I’ll pass the question on to you Marcus, do you play music andashor are you here to learn?”

Fuyuko smiled at Marcus,  "meow" :3. She watched in awe as Morrigan demonstrated her semblance and then curled up on her chair, "It's an....interesting way of putting it, but I've been told that I have gotten angry and..." Her voice trailed off as she reached for her guitar again,  "anyway, you wouldn't mind if I took the piano with me? I need to find out if it is my design and I can't do that without dismantling part of it." She strummed a few notes which led to Smooth Criminal. Fuyuko tuned her instrument until she was satisfied and tried again, this time it sounded much better. When she finished she looked at both of them, "my parents weren't bad, just very focused on how they thought I should live."

Not for the taking?

"Oh what a shame." he replied instantly.

As for what he was here for, he could be blunt.

"I'm here to learn, most I ever did was sing at a steering wheel and a few renditions of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture." Marcus answered. Curiosity was only part of the reason he picked the elective. He wasn't going to stick around an elective if he didn't have at least an inkling it could become one of his passions.

He smiled briefly at Fuyuko when she gave him a cute meow. Diabetes cause number one right there. He rolled the bomb remark around in his head.

"Maybe I should start to call you a bomb then eh? Anyway, back to the topic at hand. If the piano is yours, I don't want to infringe on your birthright." he continued calmly and nodded at the drumset.

"I'll try that one then."

She answered Fuyuko.

“The piano isn’t mine. I guess as long as it doesn’t leave school grounds you’ll be fine.”

As Marcus seemed particularly interested in the drums, she invited him to sit behind them.

“Although singing is my specialty, I went past the blabbering monkey stage in a few instruments. I’ll teach you the basics, so you can practice in your free time”

She paused.

“I hope you thoroughly hate your dorm mates. If not I’d recommend closing windows, hiding ropes and putting ammo under key as you’ll probably drive them to insanity.”

She shook her head, remembering where they were.

“If they aren’t already.”

She addressed the two of them.

“Humor me for a moment. During the Great War, some wanted to abolish the practice of Music, why do you think that is?”

She got her scroll out.

“Also, we’ll be exchanging scroll IDs as I’ll be sending you tabs and audio files to use.”

Fuyuko looked at Morrigan in confusion, but she didn't dwell on the first part of the question, "in a world where individuality is rejected, control becomes easy." life lessons most people didn't know about, "People fear that which is different whether they know it or not. music is a symbol of various cultures and therefore antithesis to conformity." this was probably the most she had spoken in a single sentence since leaving home. That thought reminded her of her earlier problem,   So the Great War wasn't over heresy? What else did they lie about? she twitched her tail and stared into space a minute before pulling out her scroll and sharing her ID number for it. For once, she was actually comfortable.

Marcus shrugged as he sat down at the drums.

"I can set it down in my workshop instead, no one will bother me about noise complaints there. Or make a little soundproof cubicle, just some walls with foam or eggboxes on them. Easy fix." he said, thinking out loud. Several designs flitted by his mind's eye before he shook himself out of it and turned his attention back to class.

He nodded at Fuyuko's answer. It was the same reason why colours were a symbol of defiance, a way to strike back at the rampant insanity that was the grey empire.

"What she said. There was also the policy of stoicism. They thought 'strong negative emotions attract grimm, therefore if we don't feel emotions period we don't attract them'. What was that quote again? Contrast is our enemy, we need to banish not just the negative emotions but all of them, for what is sadness without happiness to contrast it with? Only complete uniformity... something something something." Marcus added, brow furrowed in thought.

He shrugged. "I can't remember the details. History isn't my strong suite outside of weapon designs. Either way, aside from the non-conformity music gave off positive vibes, which was about as bad as negative ones as far as they were concerned."

The philosophy was doomed from the very start. Stoicism was no defence against the grimm, not long term. Sure, people who were completely apathic were less likely targets than someone with strong emotions, but grimm would still kill them. Just slightly later than everyone else.

Wait. What?

Morrigan’s eye twitched and she glanced at Marcus.

“You have your own workshop? Do you live in Belmuse or did Syne Academy just gave you one?”

If the academy was so generous, she might have to review more seriously her list of basic necessities. A walk in shower would be nice.

She nodded at both of their answers. She had been taught similar things and those were perfectly valid.

She absent-mindedly registered Fuyuko’s ID under Fluffy Bomb on her scroll and took her picture in the same motion.

“As for the Great War…”

She straightened her posture, teaching was getting to her. Maybe it wasn’t such a terrible idea after all.

“My tutors weren’t even born 80 years ago, so what I’ve been fed up with and what I came up with on my own is worth just as much as your own. Which might not be more than manure for all we know. History being written by the victors and all that.”

There was a strange strength behind her self-deprecating words.

“Let’s assume for the sake of the argument that there was truth behind their motivations. We believe, most likely rightfully so, that they were madmen. But what if they were on to something?”

She pointed at the drums and then vaguely around them.

“We have drum-mortars and build castles on top of mountains. Atlas invented technology that let us conquer the skies and build robots to fight our battles.”

She frowned and her tone seeped slightly into anger.

“So why is it that they are still out there!? Why are we not any closer of being rid of their Oum forsaken nightmarish kin as we were when we fought with stones and sticks?”

These were more curses than actual questions. She looked at Marcus to relate to some of the points he had brought up.

“What if, rather than simply being attracted to negative emotions, Grimms were born from them?”

She then turned to Fuyuko.

“What if those lunatics saw individuality as a source of conflict? Doesn’t individuality by definition means that nobody is the same? In other words, that nobody is equal. Therefor individuality leads to inequality. Which in turn leads to conflict. If everybody was the same, do you think even half the stuff that turned you into a scaredy cat would have happened?”

She stopped mid-rant.

Where was she going with this again? Music. Oh. She had derailed quite a bit hadn’t she?

Fuyuko got a blank, faraway look on her face, "And behold, from the darkness of men's hearts, seeds of evil were planted. The death of those hearts brought life to the evil sowed for the reaping. The children of Grimm, the souls of those who hate and died hating were brought back from beyond. Hatred of the light led the children of darkness to seek out more darkness to create new children so that they may en shroud the light. When all lights have been extinguished, the new age shall be born anew and all that was shall cease to be. The world redeemed from the corruption the light had brought." She blinked and realized where she was, "I....ah......The Master taught me that EEP!" She covered her mouth with both hands,  "imeanforgetisaidthatweweretalkingaboutmusicwhatkinddoyouguyslikeilikeprettymuchanythingexceptfirthenewerrapsongssincetheyreallaboutdrugsrapeandmurder." She turned red and tried to shrink within herself.

“You have your own workshop? Do you live in Belmuse or did Syne Academy just gave you one?”

"Bit of both. You know how custom weapons have this connection to a huntsmen or huntresses soul? Helps with channelling aura through it and all that? Pops owns a workshop where hunters can make their own weaponry, and he provides them with materials, tools and know how. In case of family heirlooms, he gives advice on maintenance. As for the one in the academy, I borrowed one of the aircraft maintenance work shacks. As long as I maintain the aircraft that it normally serviced it's basically mine." Marcus explained, head cocked to the side. Why was she so upset about this?

Oh wait, before he forgot better send her his ID. Semblance active, he only brushed his hand over his scroll once. The device beeped instantly and sent the data over. That done, he quietly listened to both Morrigan and Fuyuko go on about possible causes for the grimm. The discussion edged far too close to religion for his tastes. Scratch that, when Fuyuko recited a passage from a holy book it did not 'edge into' so much as 'leap with great gusto face first into'.

"Look if Grimm were truly born from our emotions and our thoughts, then they're born of the very things that make us human. You can dress people up in the same uniform and yell at them to stop feeling, that's not exactly going magically change them. As demonstrated, because hey we are still around, they were relegated to the stock video game enemy for the next few generations." Marcus gave his view on the whole thing. He glanced at Fuyuko.

"And you're onto something, let's change the subject. I'm a big fan of Sabaton and their odes to the various less well known battles and heroes. My favorite is probably Smoking Snakes at the moment, but it varies. Resist and Bite 's a good one too. Other than that I like pretty much everything but dubstep." he said, ready to turn the conversation back to what they were actually there for.

She looked puzzled at Fuyuko and whistled.

“Bloody cow. I stepped on a blistering landmine here didn’t I?”

She turned to Marcus as she registered him under Drum-Mortar Mechanic. She completed in her head with a smirk.

Because bad ass isn’t a job description.

She dropped the Grimm subject as suddenly as she had brought it up and nodded at Marcus choice in music.

“An appropriate choice. They have pretty solid execution and contrary to so many in metal their vocals involve more than tearing their throats out.”

She shook her head.

“What I actually wanted to bring up earlier is that music can have a mysterious effect on people. It can make them feel emotions with what is essentially just vibrations. The effects vary from person to person, but there is no doubt some songs can dig up memories like a shovel. May that be good… or bad.”

She lightly bit her bottom lip before continuing.

“Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D will have me running to the nearest bathroom. It’s not bad music, but it will mess me up like a ninja raccoon would a trash bin.”

She laid back against her chair’s back.

“Do you have songs that hold particular meanings to you?”

She added for Fuyuko.

“I won’t ask you to expand on it if you don’t want to. I rather not bite more than I can chew.”

She breathed a sigh of relief as the discussion went back on topic, "if I had to choose a single song that felt best to me, I would say Elements." She thought of the first time she had heard a song that wasn't a religious cant. "When I hear it, I feel like everything in the world is connected and makes sense for once." She twitched her fingers as if strumming, "I also feel like Bring Me to Life resonates on some level that I can't quite explain." She looked out the window, a puffy cloud floating by at the moment, " I'm afraid I don't know many songs beyond those and most where heard poorly."Fuyuko thought back to her old life, when her name had been different.  She had no idea if she was facing towards home.

"Tearing their- You mean grunting? Can't stand that." Marcus admitted. Sounded far too much like the grunts and growls of the Grimm for his tastes.

He took his time to answer the question about his own personal tastes, content to let Fuyuko go first.

"Two. 1812 overture, that was the unofficial anthem of the artillery corps where my mother worked. The first time I heard it, it was performed live. With actual cannons. That when I was three or four, and it's stuck with me ever since as the song of safety. The second is a little known piano piece called 'voyage 1969'. Written in memory of the first time a probe successfully made it to a stable orbit. An ode to what we can really do, to the heights we can reach if we put our mind to it. Counting everyone with that 'we' here, both faunus and human." he said eventually. These were the songs that best exemplified his core beliefs. No matter the challenge, Marcus believed with all his heart there was a way to surpass it and grow stronger for it. Not necessarily by brute force, though that played a part, but also by wit and wisdom. With that said, he looked over to Fuyuko.

"Elements doesn't ring any bells. Can I hear it at some point?" he asked curiously.