"Cold-hearted orb, that rules the night,
Removes the colours from out sight,
Red is Grey and Yellow White,
But we decide which is right,
And which is an illusion.
Moody Blues, Nights in White Satin
The curtains rose with a slight sigh as the string was pulled, blinding Weiss with the scarlet light of the dawning day. The heiress grunted in her sleep before her eyes very slowly opened. Yawning and stretching her arms out as her body soon regained its normal functions, she looked up to three pairs of differently coloured eyes stare down at her; one of silver, one of amber and one of lavender. Weiss immediately knew what was going to happen before it did, however her still resting form could not react until her teammates, fully clothed in combat gear, jumped on her.
"I call the feet!" Yang shouted as she ripped the blankets off and grabbed a foot.
"No fair!" her sister yelled back with a laugh, then lifted Weiss' upper body up with hands under her arms, "in that case I get the armpits!"
"Then it seems that I get the dubious honour of holding our dear heiress down," Blake replied smoothly, just barely able to keep her amusement down as she gracelessly sat on Weiss.
"Wh-what…this is…s-stop!" Weiss shouted in-between her laughter as the tickle torture began, struggling with all of her might but to no avail. "This…is not…how…you treat…your…team…mate…STOP IT!"
"Sorry Weiss, but orders from our leader! This is your punishment for sleeping in all the time!" Yang answered with a wide grin as her fingers danced a crossed the sensitive soles of the girl in white's feet.
"Yeah! Especially when you know that we have a field trip today," Ruby confirmed as mercilessly attacked Weiss' armpits.
"Ruby, it's an assignment, not a field trip," Blake corrected though with a wide smile on her face.
"Same thing!" Ruby laughed.
"A-alright!" Weiss shouted, still laughing non-stop, "I get it, I get it! I've learned… my lesson… now please…stop…can't…breath!"
"What do you think, Ruby?" the cat faunus asked.
"I think she got the message," Ruby answered as she let go.
"Aww, but I was just having fun!" Yang replied with a pout but also let, moving to the side of the heiress' bed at the same time as her other two compatriots.
For a few moments Weiss could only lay there, panting hard as she regained her breath. Once she had enough air in her body, she sat up on the bed and glared hatefully at her supposed teammates.
"You know, I'm starting to miss the whistle…" the girl clad in white commented.
"Yeah, I realized that wasn't really doing the trick, so I figured we'd try this!" Ruby replied proudly, smiling wide and placing her hands on her hips to emphasis the fact.
"So you better get moving!" Yang concurred. "It's time for you to get up and get dressed!"
"But we still have a couple hours before we have to report…" Weiss began to argue but seeing the devious smiles on all three of her teammates, the heiress made no other complaint and jumped out of bed.
-/-/- -/-/- -/-/-
Ruby skipped along the path that leads to the Emerald Forest, her steps light in excitement the coming day. This would be their first assignment where they would be specifically fighting monsters! Nothing like collecting pieces of something, or gathering sap or some other fairly inconsequential thing that just happens to involve the creatures of Grimm, as everything out side of the city did, but actually hunting them! It was almost too good to be true.
The red-hooded girl's team was also excited, including Weiss though she continued to feign anger over what happened that morning. This would be a real chance for her to put everything she had been practicing to the test and continue to perfect her technique; just one more step in truly inheriting the Schnee Dust Company in her eyes. For Blake it would help in her quest for redemption after all that she did in and for the White Fang. Though it wouldn't be enough, it never would be, it was at least a start. For Yang it would give her the perfect opportunity to let out some steam and really cut loose. Not of this holding back during sparing, aura or no aura, here she would be able to let it all out!
"Hey! Wait up guys!" A very familiar voice called out and RWBY turned collectively to see Jaune running towards them, a smile on his face, with his own team not far behind.
"Hey there yourself, took you guys long enough," Yang said with a smirk.
"We're not that much later than you!" Jaune grunted as he caught up, "actually we saw you guys go down the hall when we left out room."
"Yeah! We thought that you guys would be the one who were late," Nora chimed as she marched towards everyone, the other two members of JNPR joining at the same time.
"Indeed, you caused quiet the ruckus," Pyrrha pointed out with a smile, "woke us and I'm sure a couple other rooms up as well."
"Ooh! I know what happened," Nora declared, "a Nevermore flew into your room! And then it got into Yang's hair and then she was all like "RAWR!" and then there was fire which Weiss had to put out and Ruby tried to catch it but missed and her rose petals-thingies caused Blake to sneeze while Yang was throwing books at the Nevermore and-"
"Nora," Ren said while everyone else could only stare at the hammer wielder.
"Yes Ren?" Nora asked, immediately stopping her tangent.
"I doubt that's what happened," the monk pointed out.
"Well…it could have!" Nora said, only slightly deterred, "And this is was more exciting!"
"Yeah…we didn't really do anything quiet that elaborate," Yang said with an uneasy laugh, rubbing the back of her head.
"We were just teaching our esteemed heiress the consequences of not getting up on time," Blake answered.
"But your story was…kind of cool," Ruby said, trying to compliment the Valkyrie.
"Really!?" Nora asked, her eyes lighting up. "Because I was thinking that one of the books hit you and then-"
"I think we should be going, before Goodwitch starts to notice we're not there," Pyrrha interrupted quickly.
"Oh, do we have to?" Jaune asked, already dreading the coming day.
"Now Jaune, you know that's not how a lead should act," Ruby said, her face turning dead serious as she stomped over to the knight and began to poke his head, saying with each thrust; "We. Need. To. Set. An. Example!"
"Ow! That hurts!" Jaune complained after the assault and rubbed his forehead.
"Don't worry Jaune, just remember our training and know that your team is behind you," Pyrrha said as she rested her right hand on his left shoulder and smile encouragingly.
"Yeah…I know your right but still," Jaune said with a sigh.
"Um, hate to break the kumbaya," Weiss interrupted, "but if we don't hurry than we ALL are going to be late for this assignment. Honestly, for how early you guys get up-"
"Gah! She's right! We better get going," Ruby shouted and immediately began to run to the forest.
Weiss just sighed as she turned followed after her partner, everyone else doing the same. It only took them a couple minutes to reach the gates that lead into the Emerald Forest. Many other teams were already gathered, with Goodwitch standing at the front with her arms behind her back as usual. She simply watched RWBY and JNPR and a few other straggling teams before nodding to herself.
"Now that we're all here, I will make haste with giving you your assignment," the Huntress said, "for reasons we have yet to determined, the number of Grimm has greatly increased as of late. While thankfully none have gathered en-mass to attack any populated area we as hunters and huntresses must see that this never happens. As such Beacon has made this their top priority, using students from all years to make sure that this threat is dealt with as quickly as possible. As such, the creatures of Grimm in this area should be more than suite to your level of combat experience."
"Wait, so we get the weakest Grimm!?" Cardin asked, obviously put out by this announcement even if he couldn't be seen by either teams at the moment.
"Yes, you do," Goodwitch answered without any sugarcoating, "and I think after your encounter with the Ursa-Major, Mr. Winchester, you would happy for this change."
Jaune couldn't help the wide grin that spread across his face. Oh how he wished he could see the look on Cardin's face right now and hear his grumbling!
"To aid you in this task," Goodwitch continued, "we will be giving everyone ear-pieces so that you may more easily communicate on the battlefield." A nod caused two older students holding boxes to walk out and begin to hand out the sets. As Ruby got her's she felt the very light weight of the piece; made of clear plastic that looped around the lob and a head phone that went into the ear itself.
"Make sure that all of your pieces are set to the same frequency as your teammates," the Huntress added as the lasted of the ear-sets were handed out, "I also wish for you to know that your Professors will also be fighting alongside you, though we may not be there to help so please remember everything you have learned so far. Good day and good luck."
As Goodwitch entered the forest, flanked by her two assistants, team RWBY and JNPR looked at each other.
"Sounds pretty…well, grim, doesn't it?" Yang said.
"If Goodwitch thinks that we can handle it, I'm sure we can," Weiss pointed out.
"Yes, but we might get optimal results if we work together," Ren said.
"Yay! Teamwork!" Nora shouted excitedly.
"N-no complaints from me," Jaune said with a very uneasy laugh.
"What do you think, Ruby?" Pyrrha asked.
The red clad girl shrugged. "Sounds good to me," she said and then smiled, "we should also set our frequencies the same as well!"
"Of course!" Jaune said, his uneasiness departing somewhat at the thought of doing this with friends.
After playing around with the very small buttons on the ear piece so that they were all the same, both teams departed into the forest, assured of their safety with the quality and quantity of their company.
-/-/- -/-/- -/-/-
"Well, that's the last of them from our end," Ruby announced as she severed the head of the last Beowolf with a recoiling slash. Weiss stuck Myrtenaster into the ground beside the one she defeated, and many, many others that surrounded them, as she bent over panting. The red hooded girl sent her partner an encouraging smile before pressing the button on her piece. "How are you holding up Yang?"
"Um… Yang can't really answer you right now…" came the voice of Blake and just then Ruby winced in pain as she heard her sister.
"YOU BASTARDS ARE ALL GOING TO PAY!" The fiery blonde shouted as she emptied a few rounds of Ember Celica.
Ruby just sighed. "How much did they take off this time?" she had to ask.
"Well it seems that one, maybe more, of Ursa had the audacity to cut of three strains of her hair…" Blake explained with a deep sigh.
A smile came to Ruby's lips. "Well, I have to say that I feel sorry of them, even if they are Grimm," she said, then winced after yet another shout, "and my ears…"
"At least you don't have four of them…" Blake muttered.
"Um…don't know exactly what that means," the voice of Jaune interrupted, causing Ruby and, she was sure, Blake to jump, "but, we kind of have a situation here! We've got three King Taijakes…Taijerks…three of the really, really big, two headed snake things! We've been able to hold our own and we should be able to take one down, but we could use the cover and help for taking down the others!"
"Right," Ruby said as she sheathed Crescent Rose, "send your coordinates out and we'll be right there!"
"Done!" Jaune declared, "Now please hurry!"
Just as his line went dead, Ruby heard a beeping sound from her scroll and quickly opened it. She saw that they were near the cliffs and asked Blake, "Did he send you the coordinates as well?"
"Yeah, he did," Blake responded, and then added, "do you think he…?"
"Blake, even if he did, that's not what we should be concern about right now," Ruby ordered, "calm Yang down as best you can and head over to the location as quickly as you two are able!"
"Roger," Blake said before her own line went down.
"JNPR's in trouble I take it," Weiss said as she walked over to her partner.
"Yeah, try to keep up!" Was all Ruby said before she suddenly disappeared in a burst of rose petals and then reappeared some meters into the bush.
"How am I supposed to do that when you keep disappearing!?" Weiss shouted as she summoned a speed up glyph and chased after her leader. However she realized that Ruby left a trail of rose petals that led to wherever she was going to appear next, so following her wasn't quite as hard as the heiress had feared.
It only took moments for the two to appear on the scene, just in time to watch Nora shot one of her grenades and Pyrrha taking control of the projectile with her semblance and throw it into the gaping maw of a black head King Taijitu as Ren jumped out of the way; having been holding said maw open. The grenade went into the mouth and the head promptly exploded in a hail of blood, bones, slime and pink dust. Both girls saw that while two head were now down, four still remained…
"Well this is just perfect…" Weiss muttered.
"When is it ever, Princess?" Ruby asked as she took in the situation.
It seemed that, at least for the moment, each member of JNPR had assigned themselves a head to deal with. Nora swung Magnhild away in time to bash a white head away from her; Ren kicked a black head into the air and then unloaded a couple clips into its chin, Pyrrha was able to stab her spear into one of the other white head's nostrils before having to jump back from a lung and summon Milo back to her with a 'whoosh' and Jaune had raised his shield up just in time to block a head bash from the other black head.
"Whoa, I can't believe they've lasted this long!" Yang said as she and Blake finally reached their teammates.
"Yeah, but they need our help…" Ruby said, and then suddenly got an idea. "Weiss, do you think that you can freeze the necks?"
"Of course I can you dunce!" Weiss huffed, offended. "Though why the necks and not the heads?"
"Well, it would be good for you to get as close to the heads as possible," Ruby continued, "but if we really want to beat these thing it would be best to cut off their heads while they're not moving, right?"
"I get it," Yang said with a grin as she reloaded her gauntlets, "my sister's so clever!"
"Yes, yes, we all know how wonderful she is," Weiss muttered, "but it is a good plan."
"Right! So, Blake, Yang, you pick a head and help them beat it to the ground. I'll be running around helping the other two while Weiss waits for a head to get down low enough and then freeze it there! You guys then have to cut it off or bash it in or whatever you can do before it breaks out."
"As if anything breaks out of my ice," Weiss declared before she launched the entire team forward with a glyph.
Yang literally jumped into the fray, shooting out a fire covered blast at Jaune's black head to knock it away from the other blonde. The knight looked to the fire user and nodded his thanks as he stabbed his sword into the body of the snake. Blake shot herself forward half a meter with her shadows to reach Ren in time and stick Gambol Shroud into the left eye of his own black head. Seeing that Pyrrha was doing a good enough dodging and counter attacking that the hoplite could probably handle herself for now, Ruby shot herself over to Nora and also began a flurry of blows against the main body of the King Taijitu they were fighting.
It didn't take long for Blake to trick the black head she and Ren were fighting with a well-placed shadow making it slam its own head into the ground. Almost right away there was blast of blue dust and the head found that it couldn't move anymore. Ren then stabbed both of the blades from Storm flower into the head of the King Taijitu and inserted his aura into the black head, causing the brain to fry and turn to mush, making the block portion of the snake go limp. Meanwhile, Pyrrha rolled to the side to avoid the first lunge of the white head, her body colliding a bit with its body. The head tried to go at the hoplite once more, its mouth open wide but Pyrrha jumped up high and avoided the bite, and instead the snake sunk its fangs into its own body. Some more blue dust came to lock the white head into this awkward position as Pyrrha threw Milo straight through the beast's head, coming out covered in blood and brain bits as it came back to the hoplite that was very quick to clean it.
Nodding at the support she was giving, Weiss surveyed the reaming white and black heads. Pyrrha had been very quick to run over to Jaune and Yang, stabbing her spear through a bit of its flesh, while Ren ran over to help Nora and Ruby and Blake moved to help her own partner. Knowing that it would only be a matter of moments before the battle was over, Weiss staid at her vantage point slightly above her comrades in a tree. The heiress say Jaune and his group slam the head into the ground but just as Weiss was about to send another volley of ice dust, she looked over at Ruby's group and saw that Nora once again bashed the head away from her with some dust adding power to it…but that just made the head go straight for red hooded girl. Without thinking, Weiss made a motion with her hand and a large glyph appeared that stopped the head and held it there. Ruby looked over to where the girl in white was and frowned before the three quickly converged and Ruby herself was able turn Crescent Rose into more of a pike and slice the head clean off. The three then made their way over to the last head, which was now back up.
Weiss just sighed as she jumped from the tree and skated over to the group. Though, as she expected, all it took was a combined beating from Yang and Nora to slam the head down and Jaune and Ruby to slice at the same time to defeat the last head. As the heiress reached the group, Yang looked to her and smiled slightly.
"Hey, thanks for the bit of the extra challenge, but that wasn't quite part of the plan," the blonde said.
"Yeah, I mean thanks for saving me…again, and helping everyone out," Ruby said, as she rubbed the back of her head, "but next time…could you please follow…you know…what I say?"
"Sure…" was all Weiss said as she looked to the ground.
There was a moment of awkward silence before Pyrrha said; "Well, thank you, Weiss, and everyone else for the help. I don't think could have lasted for much longer the way things were going..."
"S-sure!" Ruby said a smile coming back to her face. "All in a day's work for team RWBY!"
"But's its strange," Blake said, ignoring her leader's optimism, "I didn't think that King Taijitus fought like this, usually they're more solitary."
"That's true," Ren said, "and they didn't appear until we reached the cave…none of us even sensed them until then."
"Wait, what cave?" Yang asked.
"That one!" Nora called out as she was already on top of one of the King Taijitu's corpse and pointed dramatically.
Both teams looked at each other before they also climbed the body. Once they reached the top, they looked down to see a strange cave at the base of the cliff. Strange in that it did not look naturally made. In fact, it didn't even look man made, with the arch looking as if it was…too perfect. The ratio was made everything seemed natural and there were absolutely no edges or rough stops or chips. Yet there also were no paintings or drawings on the arch itself or beside it; as if someone had set out to make the perfect arch in measurements and only in measurements.
"…I'm kind of getting a weird vibe from that thing," Weiss commented.
"Yeah, we did too," Jaune admitted, "and then those snakes appeared…as if they were guarding something that was inside…"
"Think we should check it out?" Yang asked, looking to everyone.
"I doubt the Grimm was actually guarding anything," Ruby said with a frown, "I mean, that's not what Grimm do. However… with this vibe going on, maybe this is where all the trouble is originating from."
"R-right," Jaune said with a nod, "if there's something inside that's causing the Grimm to go haywire…than we a hunters and huntresses should do something!"
"Finally getting a spine I see," Weiss muttered.
"I'll get a torch ready!" Jaune continued, not hearing Weiss as he ran back down to grab what he needs.
"Um…you know we have fire dust…" Yang called down but felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see a smiling Pyrrha shake her head.
"He really likes making them…" the hoplite said with a chuckle.
It took about ten minutes for Jaune to get the torch done and soon both teams were making their way into the tunnel. Just like the outside, everything was perfectly smooth but with no indication that humans had made it at all. The teams walked in silence, the air seeming too heavy for conversation. No one know exactly how long they had been walking before the torch suddenly went out.
"Damn it Jaune! Did you drop it again!?" Yang shouted.
"No! I swear I didn't," Jaune quickly shouted back. "It just went out!"
"Well light it up again!" Yang grumbled.
"Afraid of the dark?" Blake asked smoothly.
"Of course I'm not!" Yang counted and then, after reaching out a hand to make sure that it was Blake right next to her, whispered, "And your one to speak miss night vision!"
"Actually…even I can't see anything…" Blake whispered back.
Yang blinked a couple times, though it made no difference if her eyes were open her shut, and looked around, suddenly realizing that this was no ordinary darkness. It was as if it was sucking up any and all light that there possibly could be, including from themselves. However, the teams were not in the darkness for long as faint blue light appeared. Every turned to stare at it.
"What is that?" Ruby asked.
"Probably the way out," Ren surmised and saw Nora begin to walk towards it almost right away.
"I hope your right…" Jaune said as he soon followed the hammer wielder and everyone else did the same.
However, as they drew closer to the light, they soon realized that it was not an exit. Indeed, as they got near, none of them could say what exactly was causing the bright blue and white light. It seemed to just hang there…beckoning the teams closer to it. Soon, the light grew no bigger and the teenagers circled around it.
"Is…this what's causing the Grimm increase?" Jaune asked.
"I shouldn't think so," Pyrrha commented but frown, "I mean…this is light, and the creatures of Grimm are darkness. There's no way that light could create more darkness."
"Well…what should we do?" Blake asked as everyone looked at each other. That is everyone… except Nora who just continued to stare at the light.
"How about we touch it?" Nora asked and now everyone looked at her horrified; Ren even more so.
"Nora no-" the monk began to shout but was cut off as the Valkyrie touched the light which just then expanded and blinded everyone before they felt a falling sensation. None of them knew, though, if they had hit ground before their worlds once again returned to darkness.