Sandy Black

Silva had everyone gather around the following morning to tell them about today's plans.

" Okay, everyone here?"

He got numerous replies in return, and the snow leopard faunus then told the group about the next activity.

" Today will be a sand castle/sculpture building competition where you can form teams to make something interesting, and to clarify; there is a prize for first place."

" What's the prize, Silva?"

Emerald asked with curiosity, and Silva answered with a wide smile.

" First-prize will be the winning team's favorite foods for dinner as the main dish. Is anyone interested?"

This quickly got everyone on board for the competition, and the teams were set up. The Schnee family with their butler, the Nikos family with Kali, the Xiao Long-Rose family with April, the Happy Huntresses, the Malachite twins with Emerald and Neopolitan, and lastly Silva with Argint was how the teams were divided. The snow leopard faunus had the robot chefs do lunch today since he wanted to make his favorite food for dinner. The winner will be decided by a voting system where the teams cannot vote for their own sand castle/sculpture.

Sabotage was met with immediate disqualification, so every team had to focus on their own project. Thus began another sun-filled day at Azure Island. They had until late afternoon to try and win.

***

The Schnee family was deciding what they were doing and was led by Willow.

" Okay, does anyone have any suggestions on what to make?"

The Schnee matriarch asked gently, which caused everyone on the team to think about what to make. Weiss proposed first.

" What about recreating Atlas? We can even use some Gravity Dust to make it float."

" That's an excellent suggestion, Weiss. Anyone else?"

Whitley offered his idea, much to the surprise of his family, since he has been a bit closed off after the divorce.

" What about a sculpture of Klein? We can do the seven personalities he has in a way that displays how they are in real life."

" Young master..."

Klein's heart was warmed by the youngest Schnee's suggestion, along with the rest of the family. Willow smiled at her son as she said.

" That's wonderful and thoughtful of you, Whitley, and I am inclined to go with your idea. Does anyone oppose a sculpture of the seven faces of our dear Klein?"

" I agree, mother."

" And so do I."

Winter and Weiss agreed to the idea without hesitation, and the Schnee family got to work.

***

Scarlet, Pyrrha, and Kali were brainstorming on what to make, and the mature cat woman suggested.

" You know there's an old but popular legend about Azure Island that we could try to sculpt the story."

" What's the story, Mrs.Belladonna?"

" I am curious as well, Kali."

Pyrrha and Scarlet said, respectively, and Kali told the story of the one that got away. The Nikos/Belladonna team quickly went with the idea as they didn't have a better idea.

***

" What about a replica of the world's largest railgun?"

Ruby suggested to her team with an excited expression, while Yang had a wry smile at her little sister's idea, but Raven shot down that idea.

" Ruby, in order to win, we need something that appeals to as many people here as we can, and I don't think a rail gun is going to cut it."

The little reaper looked at the former bandit chief with puppy dog eyes, but unfortunately, Raven was immune since Qrow used to do the same thing when he was just a cute little brother before he grew up. Plus, Summer did the same thing to try and convince her on certain matters, so the former bandit chief built up a rather solid immunity to this trick. April asked her leader.

" What do you suggest, chief?"

" I was thinking of recreating our home in Anima because Silva would likely vote for us then, and it's a fairly picturesque, so it could at least earn one or two more votes from the other teams."

" That sounds great, mom, but I rather have a SAND-wich."

The blonde grinned at her pun as Ruby gave her sister a deadpan look with hollowed eyes, and April wondered if Yang was really related to her leader. Raven looked at her daughter and sighed as she said.

" You definitely got your father's sense of humor, Yang."

This was by no means a compliment considering there was more than one occasion where the rest of the former bandit chief's team duct taped Taiyang's mouth after he told one joke too many. Even Summer went the extra mile to build a mechanical gag for their blonde teammate so he could eat and drink but little else unless Taiyang promised to ease off the jokes. Raven smiled as she remembered these old memories of her days at Beacon but shook herself out of it and told her current team.

" We are recreating our home at Anima, and that's final."

With their sculpture decided, they went to work on trying to win the competition.

***

Robyn looked at her teammates and asked.

" Mantle?"

The rest of the Happy Huntresses nodded in agreement and went to work on recreating a miniature Mantle.

***

Miltia, Melanie, Emerald, and Neopolitan were arguing about what to do for the competition.

" We should go with sculptures of myself and Miltia as older versions of ourselves. That would definitely earn Silva's vote."

" We need more than Silva's vote to win Melanie. We should try and make something the city of Vale or unique landmarks to try and get other votes."

The tri-colored girl conjured a sign with her Semblance that said.

" Two words."

Neopolitan then conjured a giant flashing sign that said.

" Giant Sunday!"

The brasher twin and the mint-haired girl looked at the tri-colored girl with dry expressions while Miltia sighed as she realized they were not likely to agree on anything anytime soon, so she kept her peace for now.

***

My name is Silva Branwen, and I liked a few things but disliked a lot more, and I have quite a few hobbies, and I have a fairly simple dream for the future. Jokes aside, I had already figured out what to do for this competition I had come up with for today to entertain everyone that came for the party. Before I went through with what I had in mind, I asked Argint, who paired up with me.

" Is there anything you would like to suggest, Argint?"

" I will go with whatever you have in mind, Master Silva."

The vampire bat girl has been making progress into becoming an actual person. It's slow but steady. Oddly enough, Luna, my crazy patient in my lab, has been helpful in this regard. Her shattered mind has given me some new insight into how minds work in some ways that could be applied to Argint's situation, albeit indirectly. The white wolf girl has all the pieces needed to be a fully functioning person; she needs to be well, not fixed, as that is not objective but rather mended in a way that can provide healing in the long term.

Argint, however, needs to develop the components that would allow her to be independent, so she does not need to be micro-managed, but I now have a clearer idea of how to help her. Enough of going on a tangent; I have a competition to win as I know what to do to get me plenty of votes. Raven and I have an agreement on no Magic, not because it would not be fair but because it would be a pain to explain away if people asked questions. However, I do have a method of making things easier for myself.

I took out an Earth Dust crystal and infused it with my Aura to make my sand castle/sculpture.

***

Hours after lunchtime, the competition ended, and everyone displayed what they had made. The Schnee team made a seven-phase sculpture of their butler Klein that showed his seven personalities; this earned one vote from the Nikos/Belladonna team. The Nikos/Belladonna team tried to recreate the story of the legend of Azure Island in a series but could not complete it on time so they got zero votes. The Xiao Long-Rose team went and made a replica of the home that Silva built-in Anima for Raven and they got a vote from Silva.

The Happy Huntresses went and recreated the city of Mantle with a surprising degree of detail which earned them a vote from the Schnee team. The Malachite twins plus two team failed to come up with anything on time, so they got zero votes. All of the people on Azure Island gushed over Silva's sculpture, a bunch of giant-sized kittens playing around in a city, which got a cuteness overload.

One kitten was swatting another that was sitting on an apartment building, one kitten was sleeping on its back in the middle of a football stadium, and another was in a park poking at some swan boats with its paws in a lake. Then there was a kitten that was climbing a tall skyscraper and hanging from the top with one paw outstretched like it was swatting at something, plus one that was in the middle of a four-way grooming itself as it caused a traffic jam and lastly, a kitten was licking a giant donut sign that was atop a donut shop. Overall it looked cute and silly that earned Silva four votes.

The snow leopard faunus favorite food was pizza, and Argint had yet to find a favorite food, so tonight's dinner turned into a pizza party. That no one was disappointed since Silva made a wide variety of pizzas.