Hello, readers, and welcome to Volume 2 of Giant-Slayer, titled Giant-Slayer: New World.

Reception for the prequel came a bit mixed, given stories with OCs in them have bad reputations because of all the shitty stories with re-skin OCs, but I hope to see lots of old and new faces in the Review board, as well as any thoughts or comments you might have.

So, in memory of the late and great Monyreak "Monty" Oum, let's keep this party train rolling!

*NEW WORLD*

*TWEEEEEEEET!*

"Uwaaaugh!" Weiss yelped as she fell out of her bed. 'Why does this seem so familiar?' she thought to herself as her cheek rested on the floorboards.

"Good morning, Team RWBBY!" Ruby cheered rousingly while Jack removed the four earplugs he'd used to drown out the shrill whistle.

"I'll assume there's an extra B in there for me," Jack hummed as he stretched his arms above his head.

"C'mon, girls! Up and at-em, up and at-em!" Ruby cheered.

"Ugh. That's right. We've got school again," Weiss said groggily as she began running a brush through her hair. "Oh no! We have school again!"

"Don't you worry about a thing, Weiss! I got us all up with plenty of time to spare!" Ruby said happily, swinging an arm across her chest enthusiastically.

"That way there's no repeat of last time!" Yang whooped. "All that running so early in the morning was a real downer, you know?" she then slumped like a deflated balloon.

"Don't skip Leg Day," Blake said plainly, the smallest of smiles tugging at the corner of her lips.

"Right, right," Weiss sighed, the humming of Ruby's Scroll as it vibrated atop her desk flitting across the room.

"Hey Ruby, your boooyfriend's texting you~?" Yang cooed as the adorable red-head read her message.

"N-Not right now!" Ruby squawked. "Our homeroom teacher just texted me, saying he wants to talk with all the Team leaders before class starts."

"Well? What are you waiting for? Get going!" Weiss yelped. "If you're going to be the face of our team, then you need to make a good first-impression. Especially with our teachers."

"Alright! I'm going already!" Ruby whined as she hopped toward the door, clumsily lacing her shoes together with each hop before doing so to her own satisfaction, and disappearing through the doorway in a plume of rose petals.

"Well… it's nice to see she wants to be prompt about this," Weiss admitted as rose petals drifted into the room.

"If those petals had any permanence to them, she could make a killing selling scented candles or something," Blake hummed as she swept said petals into the corner.

"Yeah, but I doubt Ruby has the attention span for an eight-to-four job like that," Jack shrugged. "No offense."

"None taken," Yang replied. "My baby sis can be a bit flaky at times."

"Let's hope that flakiness doesn't bleed into her relationship," Blake hummed, secretly pleased at the cross-species pairing growing to full bloom before her.

"Eh, I'm sure they'll be fine," Yang shrugged. "What I'm more concerned with is what kind of teachers we'll have this term. No offense, but the last batch of classes were a little…"

"Dry?" Jack groused.

"I was going to say boring, but "dry" works too," the blond said with a shrug.

"Hey, our teachers last-term worked very hard for us, so show them a little more respect!" Weiss chided.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," Blake hummed, Jack nodding off to the side in agreement.

*NEW WORLD*

To their credit, both RWBBY and JNPR arrived at class with plenty of time to spare, a stark contrast from the first term where they almost missed the opening bell by the skin of their teeth. The room was much the same as any of the other lecture halls in Beacon, with the exception of there being two blackboards on rolling stands flanking the teacher's desk at the front of the room.

"Hey Ren, is it just me, or-"

"It's just you," Ren hummed as he read, even as Nora pointed conspiratorially toward the two rolling blackboards at the front of the room; one of which Nora swore she saw moving.

" . . . Hey."

"Yeah?"

"You ever wonder why we're here?" Jack asked.

"It's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it? Why are we here? I mean, are we the product of… some cosmic coincidence or, is there really a God… watching everything? You know, with a plan for us and stuff. I don't know, but it keeps me up at night," Blake responded.

" . . . "

" . . . "

"What?" Jack asked after a few moments. "I meant why are we here, in this empty classroom?"

Said classroom wasn't necessarily empty, but it only had the four Freshman teams occupying it, and no teacher in sight.

"Oh, uh… yeah."

"What was all that stuff about God?"

"Uh… hm? Nothing."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Seriously though, why are we here?" Jack reiterated. "As far as I can tell, we've been waiting for half an hour, and our teacher hasn't shown up yet."

"Yeah, and what about Ruby?" Yang asked. "She left ahead of us because she had a meeting with our teacher, but she isn't anywhere to be found?"

"Come to think of it, Jaune is absent too," Pyrrha stated as she looked around.

"You think the two of them are up to something… naaaughty~?" Nora asked with a waggling eyebrow.

"That sounds like the subject of some really creepy fanart," Jack deadpanned. "Also, Ruby has Arthur, there's no way she'd settle for someone like Jaune of all people. Plus, Jaune isn't nearly charismatic-enough to seduce her. Or any woman for that matter, really."

"What is your beef with Jaune, anyway?" Blake asked.

"I'm pretty sure I already have it figured out," Ren hummed.

"Well, don't leave us in suspense already," Nora egged on. "What kinda juicy dirt do ya got on him?"

" . . . " Jack and Ren shared a look before turning to Nora and saying, simultaneously- "Bro code."

"Gah! What a cop-out!" Nora huffed at being denied.

"It is in the Guyble after all. Don't air another guy's dirty laundry as long as you can still blackmail him relentlessly with it," Jack shrugged.

" . . . Okay maybe not that much of a cop-out, but still!" Nora amended.

"You know… This has been bugging me for a while but…" Jack said as he looked around. "Hey, Cardin!"

"Yeah?" the red-head asked.

"How'd that meeting with our homeroom teacher go?"

"What meeting?" Cardin asked with a confused look.

"What do you mean, 'What meeting?' The team-leaders' meeting Ruby and Jaune got called in for this morning," Jack returned.

"Really?" Cardin asked, opening his Scroll and looking through his inbox. "Nope. Nothing like that on here," the teen shrugged.

"Well that's weird. It seems like the only ones who actually did get called in to that meeting were Ruby and Jaune," Yang hummed idly as she spotted both Cardin and Dominic in the room alongside them.

" . . . You think Ruby and Jaune got punked or something?" Nora asked.

"Even if they did, that still doesn't explain why our own teacher is a half-hour late," Weiss huffed at the indignity of it. Punctuality was a major strong-point for her, so for a member of the faculty to keep her waiting was just a mite infuriating.

"Hey guys… Do you hear something?" Blake questioned, her ears twitching under her bow.

"No. Do you?" Yang asked.

"Hold on… I think I hear it too," Pyrrha stated, her eyes turning to the door. "It sounds like…"

"Squeaky wheels?" Jack summarized as he stretched out his senses. 'This response…' Or rather, the lack thereof of a response… 'Are they using Soul Protect to hide their power level?' Jack mused as the source of the squeaky wheels drew ever closer, the tension thickening as the sound soon became perceptible to all the Freshman teams. For some reason, it also had an ominous chittery feeling, like something out of a horror movie as the lead-in to something quite terrifying.

Then…

Finally…

*Clack*

*CRASH*

"Uhhh… What?" Nora and a few others gawped as a tall man in a patchwork lab coat with messy silver-gray hair landed back-first in the classroom, still seated atop an office chair even as he was sprawled out on the floor.

"Damn. It's still out of adjustment," the spectacled man grunted as he dusted himself off.

"Um… Am I seeing things, or does that guy have a massive bolt going through his head?" Yang asked as the guy threw a leg over his seat, straddling it in reverse.

"I think it might be like one of those gag arrows. You know, the ones that make it look like someone has an arrow through their head," Pyrrha hummed.

"No… No, that's definitely a bolt going through his head," Ren said with a small shudder as the man manually turned it with his hand, a spine-tingling ratchetting sound echoing through the quiet air.

"Hmmm… Maybe about there?" he hummed after a few turns. "Okay!" he shouted as he rose from his seat. "Let me try that again."

And like that, the man proceeded to amble right out of the room, squeaky office chair in hand.

"Um… Shouldn't someone try and stop him?" Pyrrha wondered.

"I'm actually kinda curious to see where this goes," Nora hummed thoughtfully.

"In a weird way, so am I," Blake added.

Moments later, the same chittering noise echoed into the classroom from the hallway, the tension slowly rising until, like before, the back of the man's wheels hit a ledge on the floor and he was sent sprawling out onto the floor. Again.

'Nutty professor.' –was everyone's simultaneous thought at the sight that greeted them.

"So, did you need something?" the man asked from his place on the floor as he finally acknowledged his students' presence.

"What kind of question is that to ask?" Blake wondered.

"Quite! You're our homeroom teacher, yet you're a half-hour late!" Weiss spoke up.

"Um, you're our homeroom teacher, Dr. Stein, right?" Pyrrha asked.

"That's right."

"Can you tell us why you're so late?" Blake questioned.

"Oh. That," the man shrugged dismissively. "See, I'd just acquired some new research materials, and I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed," he said drawing a small rollable tool kit from his coat pocket.

"Okay…" Weiss hummed. "So then… what was this meeting you called Ruby and Jaune out for?"

"Oh, I decided to recruit them for some… experiments," the man said with an ominous glint on his spectacles.

"Um… What?" Yang said as the edges of her eyes bled to red.

"You'll see," the man said frankly as he got up from the ground, dusted himself off, and took a seat behind the desk at the front-and-center of the room, main blackboard at his back while he was flanked by the other two rolling blackboards on either side. "Now then, students, homeroom this term will be Plasmology, the esoteric and mechanical study of the soul and how it works. Or rather… Your souls."

"What do you mean by that?" Pyrrha asked.

"Aura, a Huntsman's greatest tool, is derived from one's own soul, something conventionally metaphysical in nature, yet at the same time, wholly tangible for each and every one of you," Dr. Stein answered. "Up until this point, it's probable that your previous teachings about Aura and its inner workings were extremely limited. In the same way that a fool who knows a tree will bear fruit doesn't know why it bears fruit or even how, while you've been taught that Aura can be used as a shield or a power-booster, you may not've been told why that is necessarily so, or how it can be used for anything else. Over the course of the next couple of months, I intend to correct that ignorance."

"Um, professor, before we go any further-"

"Doctor," Dr. Stein quipped familiarly.

"Right, um, doctor…" Pyrrha hummed realizing it was another one of "those guys". "I was wondering if you could tell us just where our team leaders are."

"Yeah, we're running two short over here," Yang huffed.

"I'm pretty sure I already answered that question, but I guess I'll just have to spell it out for you," the man said ominously as he rose from his chair, his spectacles glinting. "I hold no personal grudge against the two of them. In fact, my motives are quite simple," the man said as he began scrawling something onto the main blackboard in large letters. "What they'll be helping us conduct is simply a bit of observational research. Nothing more, nothing less," he said as he stepped away from the center of the board, revealing what had been written as he clapped the chalk dust from his hands.

PLASMOLOGICAL VIVISECTION

"Hey Ren, what's that big word mean?" Nora asked.

"Which one? The first word, or the second word?"

" . . . Yes."

"The first word means the study of the Soul. As for the second word… It means live dissection," Ren answered, narrowing his eyes ever-so-slightly.

"So… what? We're cutting open frogs or something?" Nora asked with a tap to her chin.

"Really spiritual frogs?" Nora asked quizzically, imagining a wizened old toad floating while doing yoga.

"Something like that," Dr. Stein answered, drawing an arm across his body before slamming the bottom of his palm against the blackboard behind him, the two rolling blackboards at his side shuddering before they flipped completely over, revealing-

"Ruby!"

"Jaune!" Yang and Pyrrha cried respectively as, on the backsides of the blackboards, were revealed to be both Ruby and Jaune strapped to them with large shackles, their uniforms replaced with white surgical scrubs that left them completely exposed beyond their preserved modesty, medical tape stretched across their mouths stopping them from crying out.

"Hey, what the hell's going on here!?" Cardin demanded.

"Like I said, observational research," Dr. Stein hummed as he went to each board, pressing a button on the side causing the stands to transform outward, the boards lowering to the ground and becoming parallel to the floor as the two team leaders were now laid out across what were aesthetically large medical slabs. "On Table A, we have Ruby Rose, a prodigy in her own combat school who was invited to attend Beacon two years early after catching the headmaster's eye," he said gesturing to Ruby who even now, struggled against her bonds. "And on Table B, we have Jaune Arc, her effectual polar opposite," he gestured to Jaune, his eyes wide with fear. "While similarly made team leader, his displayed combat ability is largely nonexistent. In addition to that, he completely lacked an activated Aura before even attending Beacon, so his initial survival during the semester's screening process was left purely to chance. If even one factor had played out differently, he most-assuredly would've died, and Team Juniper's leader would've been someone else. Most-likely someone infinitely more-qualified," he went on to say, Pyrrha shifting nervously in her seat while the Freshman around her scratched their heads in confusion. "So…" Dr. Stein said drawing the red-head's attention back to him. "For what reason did Ozpin have to raise our secondary specimen to the level of our primary one?" he asked as he adjusted his glasses. "Let's find out," he said rolling out his tool kit across his desk from which he drew both a black permanent marker, and a large surgical scalpel that glinted in the light, the prior of which he used to draw an H-shape across Ruby's stomach.

*SLAM* "What the hell do you think you're doing to my baby sister!" Yang demanded red-eyed as she rose from her seat.

"As I repeated once before, observational research," Dr. Stein answered plainly as he moved over to Jaune and did much the same. "Ms. Xiao Long, your lack of pattern recognition will obviously hurt you down the road, so maybe you should practice listening instead of running your mouth."

"Why I outta-" the blond growled before Jack and Blake threw an arm out before her.

"Just what do you intend to do to them?" Blake asked, not wanting her partner to attack a teacher on the first day until they got all their facts straight.

"My driving force is quite simple. Everything in this world is my research material," Dr. Stein answered as he looked up at her, the grin on his face tugging at the stitch marks spanning his visage. "Including myself, of course," he added as he leveled an intense stare upon them.

"Hey, Ren, is it just me, or does my tummy feel funny?" Nora asked uncertainly.

"No, I feel it too," Ren said getting up from his seat, trying to stop himself from shifting uncomfortably as the feeling of being an amoeba beneath a microscope washed over him.

"Your Soul Wavelengths aren't very stable, are they?" Dr. Stein asked. "And yet, the two of you are able to mesh extremely well together. It might be more than chance that you two met one another in the Emerald Forest before anyone else," the man observed as he grabbed his chair and reverse-straddled it in front of the entire classroom, his eyes panning from student to student, shudders running up their spines and the hairs on the backs of their necks sticking straight up. "Hmmm, yes, I think this will be a very fun year."

"Alright! I've listened to you prattle on long enough!" Jack said finally finding his BS-limit; and apparently a lot sooner than Yang did. "You wanna cut open Jaune and see why he's such a failure, fine. But if you think I'm letting you use Ruby as your point-of-reference, you've got another thing coming!" he raged as his Aura flared around him.

"Hey!" Pyrrha cried.

"Shut up," Jack told the red-head flatly before turning his attention back to Stein. "I don't care if you are a teacher, I'll still beat your ass!"

"God forbid you make me happy," Dr. Stein quipped.

"Fuck your god!" Jack growled as he got up on his desk and lunged forward, the ends of his index fingers alight with red Aura as he closed the gap. "Twin Spirit Gun!" he intoned as he shot rays of crimson light off his fingers, blasting the restraints off of ruby's wrists and ankles with four clean shots to the hinges.

"Hey, those shackles were expensive you know," Stein chided as he wheeled out of the way, Jack's follow-up attack shearing large gouge marks in the floor.

"Not as expensive as what I'm about to do to your face!" Jack growled as he grabbed the waist-level shackle still binding Ruby, tearing it free with a burst of his Semblance, before rushing at Dr. Stein and trying to bash his face in with it. "Team! Get Ruby out of here and call a teacher! This guy is clearly a deranged nutcase!"

"Says a fellow deranged nutcase like yourself~"

"No-one asked you!" Jack said as he redoubled his efforts, only for the screw-headed professor to continue kicking across the floor and twirling atop his seat, his movements completely unpredictable and keeping him out of arm's reach.

"What about Jaune?" Pyrrha cried as she struggled to free her leader from his own bindings.

"Not my problem!" Jack growled as Stein dodged yet another swipe.

"C'mon, Pyrrha, don't be such a wuss," Nora said standing alongside her. "You gotta put your… back into it!" the ginger said chipperly as she ripped one of the shackles free.

"Nora, not everyone possesses your monstrous brute strength," Ren said trying to pick one of the ankle shackles with a pair of paperclips.

"I prefer the term progressive," Nora pouted as she yanked off another restraint. Off to the side, Pyrrha was gingerly trying to take off the tape binding Jaune's mouth shut. However, Nora then cut in and proceeded to rip it off in one go like a band-aid.

"AAAAUGH! My moustache!" Jaune cried as he held his quivering lip.

"Yeah, great, nature's D-student isn't pinned down like a science class frog anymore," Jack huffed as Stein continued to dodge his attacks, the chittering of office chair wheels grating at his ears all the while. "Where the hell's that faculty?!"

"It's no good! The door's locked tight! We can't get out!" Cardin said as he and his team tried to shoulder-check the door open.

"Same with the windows!" Dominic cried as he and his teammates, save Terrence, panickingly pressed themselves against the wall furthest-away from Dr. Stein.

"Then there's only one thing left to do," Yang said hefting a desk above her head.

"Oh dear. I can hear Glynda complaining about expense reports already," Dr. Stein sighed tiredly as the piece of furniture flew through the air and into a window with a *CRACK!*

"Damn, that's one strong window," Nora awed as Jaune rolled off the dissection slab, and then proceeded to land on the floor in a boneless heap.

"My body… so weak… he must've… drugged me…" Jaune whimpered.

"Really? You don't seem any different to me."

"Ha ha, Jack, veeery funny," Jaune grumbled at the indignity of it all.

"Wait, you drugged him?! What kind of teacher are you!?" Pyrrha demanded.

"I only used a mild sedative. That and a localized anesthesia for the vivisection," Dr. Stein hummed as he spun in place, twirling his marker idly in his hand.

"We won't let you get away with this," Blake growled, her ears flattening against her head.

"Sorry, but your compliance…" Stein said ominously as he turned the screw in his head, "isn't really a factor."

"If you want to, you can still cut up Jaune, it's no skin off my nose."

"Jack!" Pyrrha cried in exasperation.

"What, it's true," Jack shrugged as Cardin shoulder-checked the window Yang cracked from before, allowing CRDL and DIRT to file out and get help.

"So… looks like your little plan to keep us all penned in here failed," Yang said cracking her knuckles. "Once we tell the school you tried gutting Ruby like a science lab frog-"

"And stripped her," Jack said flatly.

"And stripped her," Yang went on to amend, "you can kiss your job here at Beacon goodbye, you deranged nutcase!"

"Oh, I don't think that'll really be an issue," Dr. Stein chuckled behind glinting glasses.

"And why's that?" Yang asked.

"Because…" he said as an ominous grin tugged at his stitched face. "I've got tenure."

" . . . Well shit, that complicates things," Jack huffed.

"What does tenure mean?" Ruby asked.

"It means that no matter what this nutcase does… he can't be fired or otherwise let go," Weiss shuddered, realizing the kind of power this deranged nutball actually did hold over them.

"That's right. In fact, Ozpin himself signed off on me being your homeroom teacher this term, so any… experimentation, is all in good fun," the screw-head chuckled ominously. "So… Who wants to help out first?"

"Jaune does," Jack said pointing a finger at Jaune.

"Jack! Seriously! What the shit!" Jaune and Pyrrha both shrieked.

"Hey, I'm trying to save Ruby's life here," Jack bit out, only for Pyrrha to level the most-intimidating glare at him she could muster.

Jaune did the same as well, but he was about-as-intimidating as a cocker spaniel.

"Alright, fine, Big Red, I'll lay off. I've got more-important shit to deal with right now," he surrendered, shelving the Jaune-beating for… whenever Jaune did and/or said something stupid. "Don't let that office chair fool you, this guy's dangerous. He gives off the same vibe as that Angel of Death guy from the last war. What was his name again?"

"Doctor Joseph Mangle," Weiss answered.

"Right, that guy," Jack nodded.

"Hmmm… Perhaps I'll make a human millipede," Dr. Stein hummed as he turned the bolt going through his head. "No. Wait," he said stopping abruptly. "That's just stupid," the man reiterated almost-immediately, completely disregarding the idea of using mouth-to-anus surgical grafting to make the two remaining teams into a conjoined nonuplet. "Honestly, anyone who'd carry out an idea like that has to be brain dead."

"What'd I ever do to deserve this?" Jaune asked as he tried to cover himself up with a nearby discarded book.

"I can think of one reason~" Jack chirped.

"Okay, you need to chill!" Pyrrha growled, quickly nearing her BS-limit.

"That was the last of it. I. Swear."

"It'd better be," the red-head growled.

"Yeah, yeah, it is. Don't get your panties in a twist."

"So, what's the plan? Should we cut and run, or stand and fight?" Yang asked throwing her uniform jacket over Ruby's shoulders.

"I don't like this guy," Ruby growled as she buttoned Yang's jacket and crossed her hands in front of her panties. "I feel dirty," she shuddered, feeling tremendously violated by what had transpired the moment she and Jaune stepped into the classroom.

"Don't worry, Rubes. After this, we'll get you some snuggle-time with your little boy-toy~" Yang cooed consolingly.

" . . . You'd better," the red-head pouted as she rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. 'Gonna have to clean my palette so hard after this.'

"Bow-chicka-bow-wow."

Dammit, Tucker! This early in the season? Seriously!?

"What can I say? You left yourself wide open. Bow-chicka-bow-wait! No! No, I did not mean that!"

Stop while you're ahead, Tucker. Stop while you're ahead.

" . . . I get it."

Caboose, stay out of this!

"I'm being very polite here. I am being very polite to let you have this conversation right now," Dr. Stein said as he ratchetted the screw in his head.

Wouldn't do to let the review board, or the missus, know he was hearing other-worldly voices.

Again.

"So… Fighting it is!" Jack nodded.

"Get him!" Nora whooped enthusiastically as she rushed the sitting teacher, a large hardback book raised menacingly overhead. Attempting to bring it down atop his head, spine-first, Dr. Stein caught the attack with his hand before spinning himself around, delivering a powerful roundhouse punch that sent the girl reeling to the side.

As Pyrrha carried Jaune to somewhere he'd be out of the way, Ren was the next to charge. His approach more-refined than Nora's crazed stomping, Ren flowed like water, knife-hand strikes aimed to incapacitate, not kill. Stein however showed great pedal dexterity despite his choice in footwear, small adjustments made allowing him to narrowly dodge each and every attack. Suddenly planting his feet on the floor as Pyrrha and Nora both dove back into the fray, the remainder of Juniper rushing at him from three sides, the man kicked off in a spin, his limbs like helicopter blades as he struck the three teens in a staccato of blows, knocking them off their feet as Team Ruby planned their approach.

Yang the first to run forward, followed by Blake on her left, a less-than-confident Weiss on her right, and Jack taking up the rear, Stein planted his feet on the recovering Ren's back and suddenly pushed off right into Yang. The back of his head meeting the blond's nose with a wicked *CRACK* that snapped her head backwards, the blond was sent sprawling into Weiss and taking them both to the floor while Blake faded out of the way with her shadow. Attempting to restrain him with her ribbon, as her teammates scrambled to get back up, Stein snagged her ribbon and tied it to the handle beneath his seat before spinning in the opposite direction, reeling the girl in and striking her across the cheek. Her big brother figure catching her as she reeled, the Faunus turned the momentum in his favor with a spinning kick that Stein handily nullified.

Team Juniper getting back to their feet at the same time Weiss and Yang did, while Jack set the discombobulated Blake down, Nora, Pyrrha, Ren, Weiss, and Yang rushed at Stein from all sides. However, even though they had the man completely surrounded, the attacking teens got in one another's way, opening them up for further beatings since Stein could use them all as footholds to kick off of, his tall stature and long limbs giving him incredible striking distance. Jack using Yang as a springboard shot up into the ceiling before kicking off and diving at Stein like a meteor, only for the man to slide out of the way as Jack put his fist through the floor.

Jaune, finally able to get back to his feet despite being tranquilized, was swiftly returned to his ass as Stein flicked a piece of chalk at his forehead with a *THWACK*, once more bringing the blond male low. Ruby was similarly brought low, though only when she got into a sitting position.

"How the hell's he so good at fighting from a damn office chair?" Yang demanded angrily as she wiped the blood from her nose.

"It looks like he's using a modernized take on Fudoza," Blake answered.

"Fu-what-za?" Nora asked with a confused tilt.

"It's a stance from ninjutsu that translates into "Immovable Seat". In short, you fight while sitting down," Ren elaborated. "The fact that his seat actually swivels and rolls, gives him a tremendous amount of agility despite the low stance he's taken."

"That's great and all, but how does that help us here?" Yang asked exasperatedly as Stein continued to dodge, parry, and counter their follow-up attacks as they streamed in.

"Spirit Gun!"

*Pew*THUD*

"Nevermind," Yang hummed once Jack's Spirit Gun blasted off one of the wheels and sent the nutty professor sprawling onto his back.

"Hey now, you know how expensive these things get?" Dr. Stein whined as he picked himself up.

"I'm sure the school's insured for it," Jack said lazily as he blew the smoke off his finger. "I don't care if you're a professor or you have tenure or whatever; you touch my kid sister, you're a dead man."

"Aww, that's so sweet~" Nora cooed.

"And of course this's how we start the new term," Ren chuckled.

"Hmmm… Well then, let's see you back up that claim."

The next moment Dr. Stein rushed at him, arm drawn back and fingers curled towards his palm.

'A palm heel strike?' Jack thought as the professor closed the distance between them, raising his arm to block. 'No wait!'

But it was too late to dodge. Stein's palm meeting Jack's raised arm, the strength behind the blow was surprisingly deceptive, the *BOOM* like thunder and a ripple through the air staggering the others back before Stein suddenly twisted his wrist, a discharge of off-green electricity throwing Jack completely off his feet, ears ringing as his feet left the ground before unceremoniously dropping to the floor with a loud *THUD* and an- "UGH!"

"What the hell did he do?" Yang gawped as the strongest male of their year was thrown completely off his feet.

"Well, this guy's a teacher, so maybe he'll tell us?" Blake asked as Dr. Stein's hand arced with electricity, the light glinting off his glasses.

"Oh please, I'm not that cliché'd," Dr. Stein said flatly. "Now then…" he said as he adjusted the bolt in his head, making a scissoring motion with the other. "Who shall I take apart first?"

"No one!" Yang said angrily as Blake helped Jack to her feet. "HIYAH!"

However, Yang's subsequent attack was expertly dodged, and Stein closed in on the frightened Weiss Schnee. The girl attempting to run, Dr. Stein's hand snaked out, grabbing her ponytail by the root and mercilessly hauling her up towards him. A moment later and Weiss' jacket was sent fluttering to the floor.

"Such silky-smooth skin," Dr. Stein hummed as he lifted the girl's shirt despite her protests, exposing the girl's midriff much to the ire of her friends, especially those too-weak to intervene. "Where shall I stick my scalpel in first?" he asked drawing a series of lines on her flawless pale skin with black marker. "Want me to turn all of your skin into sandpaper?" the professor asked maliciously, one of his lenses glinting with an ominous light.

"Hey asshole! I'm still here!" Jack said shaking the fog from his head and rushing at Stein.

"You should just stay down. Don't interfere with my work," Stein said with a half-lidded stare, his free hand arcing with electricity.

"Jack, wait, I don't see an opening!" Blake called out.

"That's why you make one!" Jack said making a claw strike towards Stein's right side. The professor still holding Weiss up, the man casually slapped Jack's hand down, the sudden force of his Soul Wavelengths snapping Jack's arm downward. The teen lowered into a rising knee strike, Blake and Yang tried to find an opening to rescue Weiss, but the professor continued to drag her around by the hair, causing stomachs to sink.

"For such a competent fighter, it seems like you're lacking in pattern recognition," Stein said as he continued to repel Jack's frenzied attacks with his Soul Menace.

"Jack!" Weiss cried as the Faunus coughed up blood.

"Guh-hah! I have more pattern recognition than you realize!" Jack said as he rushed at Stein once again. Once more he favored the side least-guarded by Weiss' body, and it was similar to the dozen or so failed strikes from before.

However, this time there was an unmistakable glint in his eyes, something Stein only realized when a familiar spark of crimson power arced off of the Faunus' hand.

'What?!' Dr. Stein thought with wide eyes, briefly shocked as Jack grabbed Weiss and pushed her body out of the way, exposing Stein's midsection.

"Ratel WAVE!" Jack shouted, calling out the first thing that came to mind as he delivered a powerful straight punch to Stein's exposed stomach, arcs of crimson electricity dancing off his form, the man's shoulders hitching from the hit.

"Whoa… Did he just copy Stein's attack?" Nora asked, still groggy from the beating she took before, but coherent enough to at least watch as she recovered.

"Jack must've been ruminating over every sensation he experienced during each blow until he could parse out just what Stein was doing to him, and how he could do that himself," Ren hummed. 'It isn't just brute strength that makes Jack so formidable. The ability to learn amidst life-threatening crisis isn't to be underestimated either.'

"But wait… Stein's still standing…!" Pyrrha said worriedly as the man remained on his feet, even continuing to hold Weiss' ponytail with minimum effort.

"Well now, aren't you the clever critter," Dr. Stein hummed as he adjusted his glasses. "You really are a fast learner."

"What the hell…! I gave that hit everything I had… Even if it didn't knock him down, it should've done something…!" Jack muttered as he looked at Weiss' pleading eyes.

"As for the reason your Ratel Wave didn't work, I checked out your soul data when you used those Spirit Gun attacks earlier. Since I knew the nature of your Soul Wavelength, all I needed to do to nullify your attack was adjust my wavelength to match," Dr. Stein explained, a bit of the color draining from Jack's face. "As for your raw physical strength, well, as long as I'm holding her," he said jostling Weiss by her ponytail, "you can't really afford to go full-out, can you?"

"Dammit!"

"Now then, let's see how fast you can pick up on the second trick I just showed you?" Dr. Stein said casually letting Weiss' ponytail go, closing the gap between him and Jack in an instant. Attempting to backpedal, Stein's foot came down atop his own, pinning him in pace before both hands dove at his head in a pincer. The Faunus raised his arms to guard his skull, but it was all for naught.

The next moment all the Faunus knew was pain as off-green arcs of electricity leapt out of both the man's palms, meeting in the middle. Jack's eyes bugging out, the others' panicked cries were muted out by the Faunus' own guttural cries as his limbs went ramrod straight and convulsed, inky tendrils of shadow dancing across the room.

This onslaught continued for a solid ten seconds, and when the blinding light suddenly receded, rivulets of darkened blood spilled out of the Faunus' mouth and eyes as he began staggering backward. The back of his head meeting the ground with a sickening *Squelch* as a halo of blood spread around the Faunus' head, the others could only gape in silence as the strongest of their number went down like a lead weight, tiny columns of steam rising from his mouth. Weiss' hands went to her mouth and her eyes widened as Jack tried to reach out to her in his final moments of lucidity, before his eyes blankened and he went completely still.

"Jack!" Yang cried as Weiss ran over to the downed Faunus. "You bastard! If you touch one more hair on his head, I'll-"

"Relax. I don't dissect damaged merchandise," the nutty professor said flippantly as he adjusted his glasses.

Those last two words echoing in Yang's ear, her mind flashed back to the time Jack had borne his soul to her, and the utterly objective way Dr. Stein classified the Faunus caused her blood to boil.

*KROOM*

"You asshole! I'll make you regret those words!" Yang bellowed angrily as she lunged at Stein.

"Hoh? Did I touch a nerve?" Stein chuckled as he kicked the remains of his chair into Yang's face, the blond punching it into a hundred pieces before she lunged at him, the man lazily dodging around her attacks. "Since you're the only one getting this heated over it, you must know something the others don't. Am I in the ballpark?"

"That's none of your BUSINESS!" Yang growled, completely red-eyed as the embers from her hair made new shadows dance around the room. Dr. Stein continued to parry her attacks, even sending the blond reeling with his Soul Menace attacks. However, each time, Yang shrugged it off and dove right back in, the whipping air around them growing stronger and stronger with every swing of Yang's arms, furniture rattling as Yang's strength continued to skyrocket.

"Hm. Interesting. Your Semblance is actually causing your Soul Wavelength to fluctuate not unlike the tongues of a bonfire. My Soul Menace doesn't actually have all that much to latch onto for too much a period of time," the mad scientist hummed as the honest-to-goodness scientist part of himself came to fore.

"Is there a rest stop between now and the fucking point?!"Yang growled angrily.

"Only that you're more-uniquely-suited to stand against my Soul Menace than your sexually attractive friend over there," he said pointing at Jack.

"Oh, gross!" Jaune retched.

"I never said I was attracted to him, only that he is sexually attractive; if the rumors about his promiscuity are anything to go by," Stein rebutted.

" . . . Oh," Jaune hummed after an awkward pause.

"That sounded kinda homophobic… Wanna talk about it?" Ren asked.

"That came out wrong!"

"Giggidy!"

"Nora…"

"I have nothing against gays!" Jaune defended.

"Just wanted to be sure," Ren stated flatly.

"Anyhow…" Stein said as more off-green electricity danced off his fingers. "This should be a fun experiment. Let's see just what secret sauce gives you the kick I'm looking for."

"Don't worry, guys! I've got this!" Nora shouted as she threw herself at Stein.

One second later…

"I-I-I do-o-o no-o-o-ot go-o-o-ot thi-i-i-is!" Nora cried out as she was quote/unquote "electrocuted".

"Ms. Valkyrie, your Semblance lets you absorb electricity, not forms of energy that only resemble electricity," Dr. Stein chided the shock-happy girl.

"Where the heck are our teachers?!" Weiss demanded angrily.

"You don't think the faculty acquiesced this, do you?" Blake asked worriedly.

"What's stopping us from just cutting and running?" Yang asked.

"Pride and three loads of dead weight," Ren said flatly in reference to their two teams' leaders and Jack, his fists turning knuckle-white as Nora was dropped to the floor in a spasming mess. "Make that four," he amended.

"And that's two powerhouses accounted for," Stein hummed, satisfied that both Jack and Nora wouldn't be getting up any time soon. "Now… Any other volunteers-"

The next moment an entire student's desk was brought down atop the man's head, exploding in a shower of wooden splinters.

"Man that guy loves to hear himself talk," Yang said clapping the dust from her hands.

"Oh, you don't know the half of it," a voice from under the pile of splintered wood spoke up.

A hand exploding out from beneath the pile and clamping around the blond's ankle, before she could split the man's arm in half with the business end of her money-maker -i.e. fist-, off-green lightning coursed up her leg and into her body. Another dancing line of shadows cast across the room, the blond brawler was laid low a few moments later, Stein rising from the pile of broken wood and dusting himself off like nothing happened.

"Now we have five loads of dead weight…" Ren grumbled, Weiss steeling herself at his side. The heiress turning to her defeated or otherwise incapacitated friends, filled with ire at the way her midriff had been marred by him, the heiress whipped out her Scroll and punched in her RPL's recall code.

*Bz*Bzzt*

"What?"

*Bz*Bzzt*

"I was honestly wondering when one of you would try that," Dr. Stein hummed as Weiss tried and failed to summon her locker; and the Variable Action Dust Rapier held within. "Obviously I wouldn't want my data getting contaminated, so I've taken certain measures to keep things quarantined."

" . . . Oh crap," Weiss muttered unsophisticatedly.

"If we live through this, I am going to write a very strongly-worded letter to the Vale Council about this misconduct," Pyrrha hummed as she got into a fighting stance; admittedly, she wasn't as-adept at hand-to-hand as Yang, Jack, or Ren were, but she could hold her own after getting a feel of how her opponent fought.

That and she never skipped leg day.

"So… You think we really have a chance?" Weiss asked as she, Blake, Pyrrha, and Ren formed a line in front of Jaune and Ruby.

"It isn't a matter of whether or not we have a chance. We just have to win," Ren reaffirmed. "Otherwise…"

"Those poor science lab frogs," Pyrrha hummed as the two Mistrali teens cast a look Jaune and Ruby's way.

"Hey, he wants to dissect me too you know!" Weiss cried.

"But in all seriousness, we will be having words with the faculty if we survive this," Blake hummed. "I don't care if he does have tenure."

"Well, what're you waiting for…?" Stein asked opening his arms beckoningly. "The doctor… is in."

*NEW WORLD*

"How… How could this have happened?" Weiss asked with wide eyes as she beheld the defeated forms of her peers around her.

The four of them mere minutes ago had rushed at the nutty professor; even if they couldn't defeat him, the ruckus they kicked up should've caused someone to come up and investigate.

Of course, it wouldn't be until much later that they'd learn the school feared Dr. Stein as much if not moreso than the Grimm. Something about people having the toes on their feet swapped around or some nonsense that-wasn't-actually-nonsense.

Ren was the first to move in with Pyrrha right behind him, winding up the same Force Palm technique he'd used in the Emerald Forest during the Initiation. However, like before, Stein modulated his Soul Wavelengths to match Ren's own, rendering the attack useless before delivering a brutal uppercut to the teen's gut that folded him in half.

A literal moment later and Pyrrha jumped in with a flying kick, uncaring that in her current attire she was giving the man an unabashed look up her skirt. To Dr. Stein's credit he wasn't bothered by it at the slightest, rising up to meet her with his own kick well before hers even connected. The girl reeling from the sole lodged in her visage, Stein closed the gap between them with an instant before wrapping his hand around her face and planting her firmly into the floorboards, unconscious but not dead.

Blake's lunge was placed as the splinters from the previous attack still hung in the air. The girl becoming three perfectly-identical duplicates, using Pyrrha's face as a springboard Stein hauled himself up into a handstand before swinging out his legs in a helicopter kick that turned them all into smoke, the original having another Shadow take her place as she attempted a knife-hand strike from above, only for the man to snap his feet shut around said hand like a bear trap before contorting his body and flinging her into a row of desks.

Given all she'd seen before, the heiress shouldn't have thought it would play out any different, but try she did to restrain him with her Semblance. Hauling him into the air by his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck, for a moment it seemed like her Glyphs had successfully held the man in place, but all of a sudden the Glyphs around him began to spin wildly of their own accord before shaking themselves to pieces like CDs exceeding their structural spin limit, the recoil sending the heiress flat on her back.

All of this happened in under a minute.

A whole minute if you decided to highball it.

Suffice it to say, the heiress' spirits were sufficiently crushed.

"Well… Now that that's out of the way," Dr. Stein said turning away from the last of the defeated teens, clapping the dust from his hands in the wake of his handiwork. "Let's get to the fun part. I always did want to see how the Schnee Semblance works."

"Ah…! Ah…! Ah…!" As ice-blue eyes beheld the defeated forms of her peers around her and Stein approached her unimpeded, Weiss remained rooted to the floor, petrified with fear. The light glinting ominously off the man's glasses, the hand descending towards her felt like a headman's axe, every passing second heralding her eventual demise.

With faculty nowhere to be found and her peers laid out on the floor around her, the heiress clamped her eyes shut, praying for someone… anyone… to come and save her.

"I WON'T LET YOU TOUCH HER!"

The sound of rustling cloth meeting her ears, Weiss' eyes snapped open in time to see Ruby draping herself above her on all fours, the girl's silver eyes narrowed in defiance as she imposed herself between she and Stein.

"Oh? You really intend to get in my way?" Stein asked ominously as he worked the cricks out of his fingers.

" . . . "

Ruby's answer was none at all, the girl remaining resolute even as the terrifying professor's hand descended upon her in Weiss' stead.

"Hm. Good answer," Dr. Stein smirked, drawing his hand back from the scythe-wielder's head. "You passed."

"What-"

"Class dismissed, see you all tomorrow," Dr. Stein said chipperly as he straddled a replacement office chair, kicked off his desk, and shot into the hallway.

" . . . What the fuck just happened?" Jaune gawped as their homeroom teacher just cut and run, right when things were at their most ominous.

*NEW WORLD*

In numerous other stories I've read, the NAME "Dr. Stein" (inspired by Doctor Frankenstein) has been mentioned whenever a doctor has been needed, but to MY knowledge, the one from Soul Eater has not been used in a RWBY story that is not specifically a Soul Eater crossover.

The REASON for the Soul Eater crossover (as established in the prequel) is obvious; the series revolves heavily around the utilization of spiritual energy, as well as transforming weapons. True, those weapons don't transform mechanically, instead transforming meta-physically between Weapon and Human forms, but the fact that Soul Eater revolves so heavily around souls, which Aura essentially is, and adding Dr. Stein to the cast only seemed natural. And of course, I made a ton of foreshadowing in the prequel for future events so… yeah, that.

Dr. Stein's use of Soul Menace/Soul Force should make it obvious (for those of you familiar with Soul Eater) that Soul Resonance will be one such topic covered in his class, and this in itself offers up a wide array of story-altering ideas.

Soul Menace is used "by resonating with one's own soul", though since SELF-resonance is harder to explain than two SEPARATE people resonating their souls, I'll try and illustrate this with a visual imagery.

Imagine a square-shaped tray filled with water. Now, toss a pebble or something into that water. The "ripples" are the user's Aura, and the edges of the tray are the "confines" of their own body. When the "ripples" bounce against the walls and begin criss-crossing WITHIN the tray, that would be "self-resonance". That's how I imagine Soul Menace Works.

And… That's it for the first chapter. I'm going to try a new writing model where I write shorter chapters so I can post more-frequently, and while this will result in more LITERARY arcs… it should offer me some more freedom to work with and smaller time-gaps where writer's block slows me down.

Anyway, hope to hear from you soon! Be sure to Review so I know what-works, what-doesn't.

Until next time on Giant-Slayer: New World!