A/N: Hey, welcome to our first multi-chapter story! Fiercesomest here, just writing a note to get you oriented. The way this fic worked is I wrote for Ruby and Weiss, while Defenestrator wrote for Yang and Blake. We planned juuuuust a little, but really not much beyond what type of enemy our fearless heroes were going to deal with. After that, well... haha, we surprised each other.

Anyway, if it ever seems choppy, it's because there are in fact TWO of us writing. So there you go. We tried to smooth it out a bit (Defenestrator was awesome at that) but you know.

Without further ado, enjoy the start of this craziness.

Crisp leaves drifted to the crimson carpet of Forever Fall, the forest locked in eternal autumn.

"There haven't been any reports of large packs of Grimm in the area, but do keep an eye out for individual threats," Professor Goodwitch adjusted her glasses as she turned the teams of Beacon Academy students loose. Her purple and black half-cape swirled at her elbows, "and stay with your groups."

She remained behind as the students dispersed.

"Alright, Team RWBY," Ruby swung her arm to point ahead, "Let's go this way!" With her red cape and dark hair and clothes, she was almost camouflaged against the backdrop of the forest.

The weather was perfect. Bright sun, blue sky, soft breeze... the birds were out and even though the class had to come to collect samples again-this time bark and leaves. Apparently the sap wasn't enough for Beacon's biologists-Ruby couldn't help but grin and skip as she and her team trekked deeper into the forest. She scooped up an armful of leaves.

"Look, guys," Ruby threw the bright red foliage in the air, "It's confetti!"

The soft breeze from earlier blew most of the leaves into the face of her trio of teammates.

"Ugh, Ruby," Weiss swatted at the bits of leaf that got stuck in her hair, the red a stark contrast against the white. "Can't you be serious for five minutes?"

"That's right!" Yang added a little bit too enthusiastically. Being outside always made her a little giddy. There was nothing quite like fresh air in your lungs and sunlight on your skin. "Leaves are serious business," she continued, imitating Weiss's scowl and adopting her best melodramatic tone. She sidled up beside Ruby. "We should use Crescent Rose to rake them all into a huge pile... and then JUMP in it!"

Blake tilted her head to the side. She had been listening from the sidelines and finally decided to chip in. "Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of raking them into a pile?" she quipped, barely concealing a smile.

"No way! Not unless you're trying to clean the place up, since it would just get messy again." Yang cranked her arm back and delivered a solid right hook to a nearby tree, knocking loose nearly a foot of dead leaves as if to prove her point.

"Crescent Rose... doesn't really work as a rake," Ruby spun her beloved scythe-rifle open, a dozen springs and bolts locking into place as the weapon unfolded. The red paint and razor-sharp blade gleamed in the sunlight. "But... maybe we could borrow Pyrrha's shield to use as a shovel! Sort of. Too bad Jaune's team went the other way."

Weiss remained unimpressed by Yang's antics or Ruby's idea. She crossed her arms and lifted her chin, cold as a block of ice, "You do realize that we're in potentially Grimm-infested territory, don't you? Just because Professor Goodwitch said-"

"Weiss, Weiss, Weiss," Ruby's cape swirled as she hop-skipped the short distance required to throw her arm around the heiress's shoulders, "It's a nice, sunny day. Relax! It'll take two minutes to collect samples, and we've got a whole class period. I'm on high-alert for any signs of Grimm, and so is everyone else, right? You hear anything, Blake?"

Blake lifted her head to listen to the sounds of the forest. A light shuffle of leaves to the left, the wind rustling a bush to the right, birds chirping all around. She glanced briefly at the ground before blinking twice and shaking her head lightly. "Sounds all clear for now."

Her eyes shifted from Ruby lovingly cradling her scythe, to Yang leaning lightly on the tree she just dented with her fist, over to Weiss with crossed arms and an equally cross scowl, then finally down at her own empty hands.

"So... how many leaves and pieces of bark did Beacon's biologists want, exactly? None of us brought a bag."

"What?" Weiss pulled away from Ruby, "No one brought bags for samples? Ruby, you said you'd pack them last night."

"Oh, uh, I forgot?" Ruby held her hands up in surrender as her partner's expression darkened, "Wait. It's okay, we can just use..." she cast about for something suitable, cringing, "... well, you do have lots of leaves stuck in your hair. Maybe that'll be enough?"

This was not an acceptable suggestion at all, and Ruby knew it. She braced for the inevitable scolding.

Big sister protective reflexes kicked in full force as Yang power-slid to stand between her little sister and the heiress, who looked about ready to explode. "Hahaha Blake, what are you talking about, we don't need a bag! We're Team RWBY!" She whirled around to Ruby's backside, deftly removing her cape in one fell swoop before holding it up like a trophy. "We have Ruby's cape!"

"Of course! Yeah!" Ruby cheered her sister with as much Weiss-distracting enthusiasm as possible. She added in a hurried aside, "Just make sure to put the leaves in first so it doesn't get sap all over it please." Sap didn't wash out well.

"Hmph. Next time make a list, or something," Weiss grumbled, picking some of the leaves she'd missed out of her hair, "As your partner, I'm not going to allow you to rely on sheer idiotic luck for everything."

"Right," Ruby all but sighed in relief, shooting Yang a look of thanks, "Let's go collect stuff over by that ridge. That should be far enough in for what we need."

The ridge in question was maybe twenty feet high, a steep slope of dirt and shale. The roots of trees at its top showed visibly in the exposed earth. There were no signs of Grimm, or anything out of the ordinary really, though the ground did seem a bit spongier under the carpet of leaves. Or maybe the leaves were just extra thick.

After they'd laid her cloak out on the ground, Ruby asked, "Okay, so who wants to do bark and who wants to do leaves?"

A lazy grin spread across Yang's face. "We'll go ahead and take care of the bark..." She plucked one last leaf out of Weiss's hair. "...since you guys seem to have a head start on the leaves~! C'mon Blake!" With a parting wink at Ruby, Yang sprinted off towards the ridge.

Blake offered an apologetic parting smile to her team leader before chasing after the blonde. No one should have to deal with a grumpy Weiss on their own, but the scythemaster seemed perfectly capable of handling herself... sometimes. About halfway to the ridge she slowed to a stop next to Yang, who had paused in the middle of a patch of overgrown grass.

"These ones look like they have really peel-y bark!" Yang exclaimed, gesturing to the trees that surrounded the grassy clearing. The thin papery wisps of bark loosely wrapped around stout trunks reminded Yang of perfectly baked flaky biscuits. She glanced at Blake who was once again staring at the ground.

The distracted Faunus felt amethyst eyes upon her and looked up to meet their questioning gaze. "Sounds good to me," she replied with a straight-faced shrug.

Yang flashed her partner a quick smile before heading to the nearest tree. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Blake head over to a much larger tree in the opposite direction. A brief examination that consisted of one poke revealed the bark to be just as flimsy as it looked. She grabbed a huge chunk of bark and YANKED with all her might, reveling in the airy-but-surprisingly-noisy tearing sound it made as it pulled free from the trunk easier than butter. Waving the newly-liberated sheets of bark like a flag, she turned to show Blake. "HEY look how easy this... is?" An empty forest greeted her.

Senses immediately heightened, Yang spun 360 degrees, searching both the treetops and the horizon for her teammate. Nothing. Silence stretched around her. The only sounds came from a light breeze bending and twisting the tall grass of the clearing.

"...Blake?"

A crow cawed in the distance. It was then that she realized the birds had stopped chirping.

"Ideally we should be taking bark and leaf samples from the same trees," Weiss fumed, still a little miffed that Yang had the gall to touch her hair. "But I suppose since we weren't instructed to do that, any tree should be fine." She eyed Ruby's cloak, "We'll have to do some creative folding to keep the samples separate."

"Not a problem," said Ruby, who was already scoping out their options. "Do you think we should get some of the leaves that are still attached to the branches? You know, live leaves and dead leaves."

"I don't see why not. Ruby what are you doing?!" Weiss ducked as her partner swung Crescent Rose up to her shoulder.

"You don't have to duck. I'm not even close to you," Ruby glanced over her shoulder at the heiress, "I was just going to bring some of the leaves to us."

"By cutting down the whole tree?" Weiss rolled her eyes. Talk about overkill. "Not that I'm in the particular business of saving trees, but let's conserve our energy, shall we?" She drew Myrtenaster and made a few deft motions with her hand so a snowy white glyph glowed beneath her feet. With an easy leap, she sprang thirty feet to land poised among the upper branches of their target tree.

"Well, I guess that works too," Ruby lowered her scythe, collapsing it back into its compact form and stashing it at her belt. She was only a little disappointed at not getting to slice anything in half. Oh well. She headed over to the base of the tree to scoop up some of its fallen leaves.

One armload ought to be enough. Maybe a small armload. She gathered up a crinkly bunch and circled the trunk, trying to spot her partner through the branches. "How's the weather up there?" Was that patch of white Weiss or a cloud? Another step back, and the ground gave way under her boots. "Whoa-!"

Up in the tree, Weiss had collected a neat stack of leaves, plucked from whichever branches she could reach. "The weather's the same up here as it is down there," she called down in annoyance. Really, it was quite peaceful up so high. Forever Fall stretched away in every direction, save the one blocked by the ridge they were working beside. A breeze swept across the forest, snatching at her hair and the flare of her jacket sleeves. The slender branches she perched upon swayed beneath her feet. A pity she had classwork to attend to.

With a short jump and another couple of glyphs to act as platforms, Weiss hopped back to the ground, only to find herself alone.

"Ruby?" She frowned, turning back to where they'd left her cape spread out on the ground. Her first thought was that her partner was being industrious and had decided to go ahead and collect leaves from a couple of other trees, but there weren't any leaf samples on the cloak.

There was no sign of her at all. A heavy silence filled Weiss's ears. What had happened to the birds? Slowly, she raised the tip of her sword as a flicker of nervousness came to life in her chest. She called a little louder, "Ruby?"

A/N: Thank you for reading! We plan to update roughly twice a week.

Also - please never actually jump into leaf piles down south. There are spiders and you will die.

Hugs,
Defenestrator