Slowly stepping down a dimly path amongst the trees, the blue of the clear afternoon sky poking through the gaps between the dark red leaves of the trees surrounding me, with a quiet breeze blowing around me, gently shaking the leaves and shifting the small points of light about as I stood in the middle of a cleared path.

However, ahead of me was the one thing that broke the seemingly idyllic image around me: the monstrous jet-black bear monster with glowing red eyes in front of me: an ursa, currently staring me down. As it did so, a menacing growl issued forth from the creature. It was obvious that it wasn't just out enjoying the scenery.

"Well, this is certainly unfortunate." I find myself muttering, looking up at the monstrous creature's head as it began to rear up and take a swing at me, before I could feel the whoosh of air at my back due to myself bounding back from the claw swing, able to feel a literal shockwave from the power of that swing. "Hefty."

Landing, I looked across at the creature with a slight smile on my face. Maybe this will actually be more interesting than I thought.

Now drawing the weapon from my back, a black metal weapon that got slightly wider as it went up its length, now pointing the end of the weapon at the monstrous creature, the whir of a small mechanism expanding the thicker part of the weapon into a double-sided pickaxe, a glowing red spot at the end of the weapon. "Okay, I'm ready."

Once I had the weapon fully expanded, I issued several glowing red dust shots at the ursa, each one exploding in a burst of flame as it impacted the outside of its skin, though the impact of each shot only seemed to have minimal effect as it charged at me, now taking a wide swing toward my upper body before I was pushed into the air, directly over the swinging claw, the ground itself pushing up to help get me into the air, before I jumped with a backwards flip as the earthen rise broke away under the ursa's swing.

I managed to take several more shots as soon as I had lined up the creature again, which seemed to just shrug off the rounds, despite it now being alight, the burning ursa charging me with a fell roar.

Continuing to send rounds at it until all I could hear was a hollow click when I again attempted to fire, I narrowed my eyes slightly "Of course.", my thumb hitting a latch on the side of the handle, curved, double-sided magazine dropping from the handle of my weapon, before reloading a second magazine, bounding back in an effort to get myself a little more space to prepare to combat the large creature.

However, as I bounded back, I felt my movement suddenly accelerate, as I had been unable to evade the next strike from the burning ursa, being sent into a tree. Falling back to the ground before slowly getting back up, I took a moment before noticing my jacket was now on fire, having somehow gotten past my aura. "Oh, come on!" I commented aloud, raising my hand, the air around my hand seemed to distort, a swift downward wave of my hand releasing the built-up air, the pressure wave now swiftly putting out the flame "You brute! It's going to take all day to fix this mess!" I groaned in irritation.

As the ursa prepared for another charge, the fire seemed to only make it more aggressive while it hurtled toward me, I got ready to try to put a stop to this nonsense. Stopping a moment and looking across at the creature, my aura spiking before a more physical spike seemed to just appear from the earth, stabbed into the creature's leg, my attempt to impale its center misjudging its motion forward.

Doesn't matter. No time to critique!

Taking the initiative, I pelted forward, firing several shots at the creature before bringing the flat front of my weapon forward to knock it back, several strikes impacting the creature from the front, shifting it back, and back, before jumping quickly into the air in time to avoid the next strike, finally bringing down one of the pointed ends of my weapon into the head of the ursa, a loud, resounding crack sounding from the impact before I pulled the trigger, negative inertia helping as I jumped from it back to the ground, the burning creature falling behind me and crashing now onto the ground, dissipating into a black mist, leaving only scorched grass under its remains.

Well, that, and several trees now on fire around it: too much for me to put it out the same way I did with my coat – that would only make this a forest fire...

However, as I took a moment to figure out the ideal method, several shots rang out from before me, the branches of the trees around me now being impacted by several shots, each burning branch now coated in icy spikes as the tress were now steaming rather than smoking. "You know, Jett..." my mentor, Stahl, spoke in a rough tone as he moved toward me "...you're getting to be a real handful, I can't leave you alone for a damned minute without you trying to burn the woods down." his voice betraying the light joke in his words as he made his way over, adjusting his dark grey travelling cloak as he walked, shouldering the long rifle he was carrying.

As I picked up my weapon, retracting the pickaxe end of the weapon back to its original state, I spoke irritably to my mentor "Not my fault, the ursa did it." shaking my head slightly as I now took a moment to look over my jacket, normally black, but slightly discoloured from the burn marks being a different shade. "Now I get to go to my first day not only late, but covered in burns." I commented as we had started walking again, resuming our weeks-long journey.

"Well, I'm sure they'll understand." Stahl, my weathered-looking mentor then said, in an effort to sound reassuring as we continued "After all, we have to go a long way to find an airship to Vale, about as long as it took for my recommendation to get there, I'd wager. But that's all right. You'll do fine."

As he said this, the two of us now crested a hill, able to see a small town at its base. In fact, the town was actually small enough that I was able to make out the form of an airship amidst the buildings: the craft that would actually be taking me to Vale. "See? What'd I tell you? Next stop, Beacon. You'll be there before you know it."

Sighing a bit to myself, I couldn't help but comment "Yeah, only a few days behind. Was hoping to have some time in Vale to prepare myself before the semester started, but can't help that now, can we?"

I turned to see my mentor shake his head at this "No, no we can't. Unless you're reconsidering? Hell, if you told me that a couple weeks ago, we could have gone on a tour, made a real vacation out of it."

"Now I know you're messing with me. You were the one who wanted me to go in the first place." I couldn't help but find myself commenting as we made our way into town, an impatient-looking pilot waiting for us "Well, it's about time! You guys are lucky I had extra cargo I could wait around here for, or you'd be waiting until tomorrow for a ride to Vale."

It's not like we could blame the guy for being pissed: after all, we were days behind schedule, and he wouldn't have any idea if we were still coming or not, even if he still made regular runs out here. "Are you ready to go then?" I then found myself asking. "Are you kidding? I've been ready to go for a couple hours now, so let's not waste any time." the annoyed pilot now walking with us toward the airship, a rather beat-up looking craft, but certainly still functional.

As I stepped onto the airship, still standing at the side door, suddenly, it felt like I'd taken a punch to the gut, as the realization that Stahl wasn't coming with me suddenly became real. At that point, I then called out "I'll make you proud, Stahl, I promise!" "Yeah, yeah." he responded, with a slight smirk, putting a hand up to his head and giving a two-fingered salute, before his expression became serious, nodding slightly to me as I made my way into the ship, sitting down and getting strapped in before it took off. As the craft took to the air, the town we were leaving becoming more and more of a dot in the distance.

"Beacon, here I come."

"What? What's going on?"

As my mind slowly began to return to awareness, the dim knowledge I was moving was aided by the steady hum of engines flowing to my ears, and the feel of a strange seat beneath me. Slowly opening my eyes, this fact was confirmed as my eyes began to take in the sight of small airship's interior: a narrow hallway contained inside the upper part of the vehicle, factory-standard dull grey interior broken up by stained wood trim: doubtless the pilot making his craft feel more homey, or something of the like.

Oh, right. The trip to Beacon.

Taking a moment to remember what was going on, I considered the situation from what I could see: the sun was visibly setting in the distance, or was it rising? Taking a moment to check the direction, I nodded slightly to myself "Definitely setting." I thought aloud before continuing to evaluate. The endless waves of mountain and forest that had been passing beneath me beginning to lull me to back to sleep now being broken by the sight of buildings below us: another town? No, this patch of buildings was easily bigger than the town they had come from, easily bigger than anything I'd ever seen, even from this height, it had to be our destination: Vale.

As if to confirm my realization, the craft began to drop from the sky, as I was easily able to feel the descent of the airship starting, headed down toward the city. Or, maybe it was that fortress-like building next to it.

Wait, what was that?

It definitely wasn't like any building I'd ever seen, and as we descended, I could tell the airship was headed more and more in its direction: that IS where we're going: Beacon.

The craft made its way downward, until eventually landing a fair distance from the building on an outer pad, proven as I felt a slight bounce as the craft made landfall with a metallic creak. "All right, kid..." the pilot spoke from the front through the PA system. "...end of the line. Good luck to you." nodding slightly to no one in particular, I took my bag and got off of the craft.

Just as it had when I first got aboard the airship, getting off of it just outside Beacon made it a great deal more real to me, and it felt as if someone had given me a physical shock. Knowing the airship was waiting to take off again, I quickly moved toward the edge of the pad, and almost ran right into someone who had been standing there, it was only then I realized now that someone had been waiting here to meet me.

"Oh, sorry!" I started, jumping back slightly from the grey-haired man, who looked at me silently while sipping his coffee, his free hand atop an odd-looking cane as he regarded me quietly. "I know I am late, sir, but I can-" however, I was then interrupted by the man, who held up one finger that was atop the cane, shaking his head slightly.

Once the airship took off again, and the droning of its engines became more and more distant while we stood there in silence, the man finally spoke in a calm, patient voice "Ah, that's better. You will find conversation carries better without the drone of aircraft engines immediately around us."

"Fair enough, sir." I couldn't help but respond with a nod.

After this, he resumed "As for the late hour, it is quite understandable, given the remoteness of where you came from. I am Professor Ozpin, and on behalf of myself and my staff, I welcome you to Beacon, Mister Stremm. Come with me." now directing me to follow him.

Now starting to walk with him and looking around at the rather impressive sight of the building, the low light of the sunset thrown upon the side of the building and casting a large shadow toward the right side of the courtyard, I was rather in awe at the sheer size of the building.

As far as I was concerned at present, every grimm on the continent wouldn't be enough to take this place down.

"What do you think of my school?" he then asked me, once he noticed what I was doing.

"It seems..." I started, before pausing a moment to come up with the right word "…imposing, if I may say so, sir." I stated honestly, as I continued to follow him with my bag slung over my shoulder.

"I imagine so, if you are unused to such things." he then responded to me, as we continued. "Luckily, we have not yet covered any essential class material, so there will be no need to catch you up to our current state. There will be an initiation tomorrow, however, so you may wish to network in the time you have remaining for today. I believe the rest of your classmates are staying in the ballroom tonight."

As the two of us made our way toward the door to the ballroom, he then stopped me just before we went in, moving his cane between me and the door on a very slight angle. "There is only one more thing. In the short time we have walked together, I sense a great deal of apprehension from you, as if some part of you still does not believe you are here. You must free yourself of that, or things may end badly for you. Good night." At this, Ozpin abruptly turned on his heel and walked away from the door, having left me alone now, my only information currently was what was going on tomorrow. But this left me with no real idea of where to go from here.

Eventually tipping the door open and stepping into the ballroom, which had been lined with row upon row of sleeping bags, I found myself entering the room, immediately noticing the clash with the otherwise luxurious surroundings unused to having to house people.

As I started through the hall, I noticed that many of the people near the door had turned their heads to see who had intruded on their hall as they got ready for bed. Even then, many of their eyes lingered, doubtless wondering who I was now as I made my way over to the side of the hall most off on its own, though, with the number of people present, that was pretty much impossible.

Sitting down by an empty patch of wall and laying out a place for myself, before now slipping off to get changed into proper sleeping attire, my mind was still dwelling on what Ozpin had told me, though I hadn't a clue of how to go about handling it. Eventually, upon returning, something seemed, well, off: was it the air? No, it was probably that blue-haired girl that was sitting on my sleeping bag.

Wait, what?

"Oh, hiya!" the girl then called cheerfully as she saw me coming back to my sleeping bag.

"Ummm, what are you doing on my sleeping bag?" I found myself asking her, feeling as if I had to ask the obvious question.

"Oh, that." she started, seeming as if she was confused by my asking that question "Yeah, I was coming over to talk to ya, but then you wandered off, and I was just waiting for you to come back." the strangely perky girl then told me. "Oh, I'm Azure by the way, Azure Klejnot!" she then announced, immediately introducing herself.

"J-Jett Stremm." I managed to get out in response to her introduction.

"Oh? Well, nice to meet ya, 'J-jett'!" she said with a giggle, emphasizing the way I had answered her.

At this, I could feel my face fall slightly "It's just Jett, all right?" at this, she looked a little surprised, like I'd just shot her down or something. "Oh. It's nice to meet you too." I continued at that point.

"Hey, Azure! Come on back!"

A voice from across the room had called out to her. As she heard this, she nodded slightly, saying "Sounds like my friends want me back. Guess I'll see ya later!" now bounding to her feet and starting to sprint back across the room, before running headlong into a guy walking across the aisle. As the guy fell over, she jumped back up immediately "Sorry 'bout that!" she responded cheerily before resuming making her way back to her friends.

Groaning slightly to myself as I went over to the guy, who was still in the process of getting himself up "You all right, bud?" I asked him, now taking a moment to help him up, trying not to look at his bunny slippers, as, after all, it would be bad form to be laughing about something like that while helping someone up.

"Oh, y-yeah." the blonde responded, getting back up and dusting himself off a moment, "I'm fine! I'm fine!" he attempted to reassure me, before then introducing himself "I'm Jaune by the way, Jaune Arc."

"J-jett Stremm." I responded, barely stifling a yawn. Why was I still so tired after sleeping most of the trip here?

After introducing myself, I nodded slightly to him before saying "Sorry, b-but I'm a bit tired right now. Best be getting to bed."

"O-oh, right. Well, good night, Jett." he then stated, as I slowly wandered my way back to the sleeping bag, my previous rested energy having left me without reason, I found myself falling flat on my face and passing out as soon as I laid down.