The day after, Walker couldn't help but notice that something was... off. Well, at least with Team JNPR, more specifically, Jaune. The team leader had grown much quieter, and his life was reaching Blake-levels of antisocial. Not that it was any of Walker's business, but it was very off putting to see the normally at least happy guy turn into... well, whatever he was now. The one thing he did notice, however, was Jaune always taking nervous glances at Team CRDL. Something bigger than him was going on, but Walker was not in any position or even mood to find out.

For now, it was Combat Class. And his name had been called, along with Tatiana Epona, the shy Team ATUM girl. Walker wasn't sure what to expect from this particular matchup as they walked into the arena, but he decided to keep his guard up. He knew next to nothing about Tatiana, aside from her timid personality. He didn't know what weapon or Semblance she possessed, so to say he was going into this blind would be an understatement.

The two Hunters in training stood at either end of the field, preparing for the upcoming fight. Tatiana, now out of her school uniform, was wearing pink... well, everything. It was a bit distracting to be honest, but the black neck ribbon she was also wearing, though a bit hidden behind her brown hair, kind of stood out like a sore thumb. Almost like she was overcompensating with pink to try and drown out the black. Her shy demeanor was gone, now replaced with a look of steely determination. In one of her hands was what appeared to be a handheld fan; folded in, but at the ready.

Walker gripped Barentain tighter right before Professor Goodwitch called out, "You may begin!"

Almost as fast as he could blink, Tatiana drew her closed fan up to reveal a gun barrel through the handle and began to rapidly fire at Walker as he charged. Though a bit taken aback, he quickly swung his sword to deflect the bullets away from him. Once he got close enough, Tatiana's weapon unfolded to reveal the rest of the fan, but with an apparent bladed edge. They both swung their weapons, but they merely grazed each other. It wasn't until a few seconds later that Walker realized that Tatiana's fan wasn't exactly designed for a head on clash with a sword like his. He continued swinging Barentain, but each swing only grazed off of the fan's edge, deflecting it away from its wielder, Tatiana moving with surprising speed and grace.

This clearly wasn't working. Walker needed a new strategy, he needed a longer range. So he jumped back, propelled by his Semblance, and pressed a button on Barentain's handle, elongating the blade into its whip mode. He immediately swung horizontally, causing Tatiana's eyes to bug out before leaning back, barely dodging the bladed whip that went flying over her head. She tried to get in close once she recovered, but Walker began to swing Barentain erratically, creating a sort of dome around him. Tatiana folded in her fan and tried to shoot him, but only encountered the same problem. And it was then that she lowered her weapon to stare at him with her brown eyes and into his own.

Walker wondered what was going on, but mere seconds later, the world flipped. Or at least, his physical view of it. Suddenly, it was as if he and Tatiana were standing upside down on the ceiling, and their weapons were in different hands than they were before. He stumbled, blinking hard, trying to snap himself out of this disorientation, but this only left himself wide open. His opponent let out a small smile before opening her fan again and charging him. He swung out with what he thought was his sword arm, only to stumble again at the realization that though he thought that his sword was in his left hand now, his seeming right hand moved when he willed his left hand to do so.

And those few seconds cost him dearly. Tatiana was upon him before he could even react. She slashed across his torso multiple times before kicking him to the ground. Now flat on his back, Walker was now even more disoriented, but at least he had a good idea on what was happening. Whatever Tatiana's Semblance was allowed her to cause him to have a weird mirror perspective on everything. Up was down, left was right. As he got up, Walker realized that the only way he could truly fight back was if he closed his eyes, but there was no way he was going to try and fight blind. He growled as he realized his Aura level had passed into the orange zone. He couldn't take another couple of hits like that again.

But as Tatiana charged at him again, Walker was hit with an idea. He would indeed close his eyes and let his instincts take the reigns, but not rely on them. He closed his eyes and did the same dome move from earlier, swinging Barentain erratically. It definitely felt a lot easier without the distorted vision. He heard a few clanks and could only hope and assume that it was Tatiana trying and failing to get through his defense. That was fine. He could do this all day.

It was then that he heard a quiet cry out in pain, but no clank that came before it, or even a sound of contact. So he dared to open his eyes, and, much to his relief, saw that his vision was back to normal and Tatiana was clutching her head in pain. Apparently, her Semblance took a toll on her body if she used it for too long. Taking advantage of the opening, Walker charged and swung his sword hard. Tatiana tried to block, but her fan took a head on collision with his sword, and was knocked out of her hand. Walker then knocked her to the ground and held her at sword-point.

They were both breathing hard, but Tatiana was the one who held up her hands and said quietly, "I accept defeat."

Walker smiled slightly as he heard his team whoop in delight at his victory. He looked over to see his cheering friends and the bitter looks from Team ATUM, but they were still good sports and were clapping, if only out of obligation. Walker then sheathed his sword and offered Tatiana a hand up, and when she accepted, got up, and walked away, Walker realized something. He had mentally called his teammates 'friends'. He knew it was like that with his partner, but until he saw his other teammates congratulating him, he had thought he just merely respected them.

Walker smiled wider. Yeah... Being friends with these guys sounded really good.
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"Yes, students," Ms. Goodwitch announced the next day, as they walked through a red-leafed forest, "The forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful. But we are not here to sight-see. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest, and I'm here to make sure none of you die while doing so."

Walker trudged alongside his team, listening to the instructions given, as well as keep a still half-asleep Dante from tripping on a tree root and falling on his face again. Glynda stopped and turned to them all, holding a jar in one hand.

"Each of you is to gather one jar's worth of red sap. However, this forest is full of the creatures of Grimm, so be sure to stay by your teammates. We will rendezvous back here at 4:00. Have fun!"

Walker didn't like how she phrased those last two words. Ms. Goodwitch may have been his favorite teacher, but that didn't mean she liked everyone. He then noticed Jaune trying to sneak away to his own team, only to get pulled back by Cardin.

"Come on, buddy," the bully said. "Let's go!"

Jaune just whimpered as he went along with CRDL, his own team giving him looks of disappointment. Walker's curiosity tried to get the better of him, but he forced it down. Not his team, not his business. He was prepared to drop the entire subject from his mind, but his partner proved that ineffectual.

"What do you think that was all about?" Dante asked him.

Walker just sighed as he stuck a device into a nearby tree to suck out the sap into his jar, "Don't know, don't care. Not exactly our business."

"'Not our business'?" Dante replied incredulously, "They're our friends, remember? I think it counts as our business."

"Dante, it's taken me this long to open up to the prospect of being friends with my own team. Not to mention that this is Jaune we're talking about. You're gonna have to be a little more convincing than that."

His partner just shrugged, "Fine, fine. But don't come running to me when your curiosity gets the better of you."

Walker turned to him in shock, "How did you-"

Dante smirked, "I didn't. Thanks for telling me!"

And with that, he walked away to find a tree, leaving Walker so frozen in shock that his jar began to overflow. He was outsmarted... by Dante?!
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The rest of the time went by fairly averagely. Well, at least as average as you can get with this particular set of people. Ren kept having refill his and Nora's jars because she kept drinking all the sap, Auriel thought it would be funny to glue herself to a tree with the sap, and whatever the heck Dante was doing (don't ask). But at least it was quiet. Until...

"THAT'S A BIG URSA!!!"

Walker groaned. One day. Nay, just five minutes of peace. Was that too much to ask for? It must've been, considering. He turned his head to see Team CRDL, excluding Cardin, running back to the rest of the class in a fit of panic. Yang grabbed one of them, Russel, by the collar and shook him.

"Where?" she demanded.

"Back there!" Russel pointed. "It's got Cardin!"

Pyrrha dropped her jar out of fear, "Jaune!"

"Well, that makes two idiots we've got to save..." Hazel growled in annoyance.

Ruby instantly went into leader mode, "Yang! You and Blake, go get Professor Goodwitch!"

Pyrrha said the same to Ren and Nora, while the rest either went with them (Skyler, Dante, Meta, and Tatiana), kept running (CRDL) or with Ruby and Pyrrha (Walker, Hazel, Uriel, and Weiss). As for Auriel...

"Uh... guys? Hellooooo!! Some help please?!"
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Once the randomized group of Hunters in training finally arrived to where Jaune and Cardin were, the latter was getting swatted away by the paw of an Ursa Major. But just as the Grimm was about to finish him off, Jaune jumped in to block the strike with his shield. The evolved Ursa pounced back only to roar and charge again, directed at its new target. Jaune did the same and swung his sword, but it was clear to Walker that the strike would be just too low.

But then Pyrrha suddenly lifted her hand towards Jaune, and his figure shifted slightly, just enough to fix his swing to completely decapitate the Ursa Major. The Grimm's headless body fell to the ground before dissipating into thin air.

"Uh... what?" Ruby said, confused.

Weiss was equally amazed, "How did you..."

Pyrrha just gave a shy smile, "Well, you should know what a Semblance is, correct? Well, mine is polarity."

Walker groaned, "Oh, that explains so much..."

He remembered his own fight with the champion a few weeks back. Walker remembered that the only thing that seemed to have a effect on her was his Semblance, but since there were no boundaries in those matches, that did him little good. And whatever he had done with Barentain had just only barely seemed to miss Pyrrha. At first, he thought she was just that agile, but this seemed like a much simpler explanation.

"You control... poles?" Ruby asked, still confused.

"No, it's a fancy word for magnetism," Uriel explained to her. "She can basically control anything that can be magnetized however she wants."

"Magnets are cool too..." Ruby said, still in awe.

Weiss just rolled her eyes at her leader, "Dunce."

"Yeah, look who's talking..." Hazel muttered.

"What was that?!" Weiss snapped back at her.

"Oh, nothing, Ice Queen," Hazel replied with a sarcastic grin.

Walker sighed. He had hoped that Hazel would one day tell them where her beef with the Schnee heiress came from, but so far, that hasn't been the case. As the two girls continued to bicker, the rest noticed Pyrrha walking away.

"Wait, where are you going?" Uriel questioned.

"Yeah!" Ruby added. "We gotta tell them what happened!"

"We could..." Pyrrha responded, looking in Jaune's direction, "Or perhaps we could keep it our little secret?"
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"So what do you think that was about?" Hazel asked Walker as they made their way to the rest of the class.

Walker shrugged, "Dunno. I stopped trying to understand girls a long time ago."

Hazel gave a nod, "Fair enough. Doesn't stop you from being curious though, right?"

Walker was silent for a moment, in thought. He then glanced back to a brilliantly smiling Pyrrha as she walked next to Jaune, who was rambling out an apology, as well as a awkward Cardin, who hung back behind the group, feeling isolated. But Walker mainly looked at the former two and gave a small grin.

"No... no, I suppose not."
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As everyone was returning to class, Meta looked around a bit before asking his team, "Hey... I feel like we're forgetting something..."

Uriel blinked before going into deep thought, "Now that you mention it, yeah... Tatiana, did we forget something?"

Tatiana then froze in her tracks, "Oh crap, Auriel!!"
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Auriel, still stuck to the tree, was just looking around in acceptance, "So this is my life now, huh? Welp. This'll be fun."
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And that finally completes Forever Fall! Hope it was worth the wait. But for now, back to Rukia vs. Sakura! Till next time guys!