Hello, everyone. This is a story about a team, but not the team you are used to. Team PLKA (yes, Team Polka) is formed entirely of OCs, and will be four of the five characters you will see in this fanfiction. If you don't count the Grimm, of course.
Despite having Jaune, the canon has a serious disparity of characters about to flunk out of Beacon, which is a trope that I have noticed in at least one of the shows/fiction series that I have seen/read (despite not being able to remember any at this point in time, so I hope I'm not making that up). It seemed odd to me, but that got me thinking: what would Beacon Academy do to a team that is on the verge of failing?
Well, I figured that the team would likely have to do some bizarrely impossible task, like preserve a Grimm beyond its death or collect a few long lost artifacts. As this story is rated T, you can probably guess which of those I decided to use.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with RWBY or Rooster Teeth in any capacity (though I'd very much like to be).
Also: I'm going to try to put out at least one chapter of this every two weeks, but I make no promises that I can hold to that standard. My laptop is on the edge of death, and I probably won't be able to replace it for another month or two.
I hope you enjoy!
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The Bleeding Forest. It was always an oddity, even in a world like Remnant, as it was composed entirely of Heartless Trees, which have bark the color of ashes and black leaves that are sharp enough to cut through skin. But the trees in the Bleeding Forest have yet another oddity: a sweet smelling crimson sap that has been shown to have iron, copper, and zinc in it. Where they get these metals from is a mystery, but researchers theorize that it might have something to do with the oddly high number of Grimm that dwell within.
Despite the strangeness of the Bleeding Forest, it was often a rather quiet, peaceful place. On this day, however, the peace was broken by an airship's circulating propellers, the insignia of two crossed axes resting over a circle and a pair of leafy plants marking it as belonging to Beacon Academy. As it approached the forest, it descended, the air pushed down by its propellers flattening the grass and flinging leaves, dirt, and small rocks away from it. Four people, all of them teenagers, jumped off of it once it got low enough, landing against the ground with thuds that were mostly muted by the sound of the airship that began ascending and turning once they had landed. The four watched it leave, waiting until it could no longer be heard before they turned to face each other.
The first to speak was a young woman, her shoulder-length black hair holding three interlocking white lines dyed into the left side. Her eyes were grey, and her clothes were an affair in black and white: a white high-collared overcoat that falls to just over her knees and white leather boots that rise to just under her knees, matched with a black blouse and a black knee-length skirt. Her emblem, proudly displayed on the grey cloth wrapped around her right arm, was of a white cross was a black X beneath it. Her weapon, a flamberge worn on her back, was nearly as large as she was tall, resting just an inch beneath her full height of 5'3". "Equipment check," she said, her voice firm. Pulling a folded paper out of her pocket, she added, "Map: check. Kaimana?"
"Rations," the tallest of the group said, unslinging the bulging backpack he wore and presenting it to the group. "Check." He wore a greatcoat as well, but his was light blue instead of white, and he wore no shirt beneath it, revealing his muscular chest; the left sleeve was also missing, granting his cybernetic arm a greater range of movement and preventing it from snagging on any cloth. His trousers were a dark shade of blue, and he tucked them into his brown boots. His skin and eyes were rich shades of brown, his eyes a much lighter shade than his skin, and his short hair was black. His own emblem was worn on the right breast of his jacket, and was a silver gear on a field of dark blue.
The first woman nodded in satisfaction, then turned to the next young man in the group. "Phoenix?" she asked, making him swallow nervously.
"Right," he said, pulling his own backpack off and opening it. "Compass, check. Cookware, check. Canteens, check." His robes were a vibrant red, and crossed with interlocking chains of black flame, the hood raised over his head to hide his long blonde hair and green eyes. His black boots and orange gloves were the only parts of him not covered by the robe, other than his face, and each bore his emblem, a black musical note surrounded by red flame. Carried in a small leather sling on his hip was a violin and its bow. "Why'd you give me all the C items, Angelica?"
"All the miscellaneous went to you," the first woman said with a shrug. Turning to the last member of the group, she asked, "Lata?"
"Radio, check," the woman said, rolling her dark brown eyes as she patted the radio clipped onto her thick belt. It wasn't the only thing on her belt, however; four brown leather pouches were also clipped to it. Her own jacket, a dark green, was short, not even covering her stomach; she let her light brown blouse do that, instead. She also wore a pair of dark brown bell-bottom pants, a pair of brown boots, and her light green chullo hid all but one lock of her red hair and displayed her emblem, a quartet of dark green vines stretched over a blue cross. "Can we move on now?", she asked, crossing her arms as best as she could with the pair of slender shields she wore strapped to them.
"Not until you check the radio's battery," Angelica said.
Lata let out a deep sigh, pulling the radio off of her belt, flipping a switch, and clicking the button on its side, expecting a brief burst of static that never came. She blinked, surprised, and checked the switch, noting that she had turned the radio off. She flipped it again, then clicked in the button again, but there was still no static. "Well, its dead," Lata said, clipping it back onto her belt.
"Fantastic," Angelica said, her voice practically dripping with sarcasm and barely controlled anger. "It's not like this is our last chance to pull our grades up or anything. No, this is just perfect! We don't have a way to call in a way home even if we can finish!" Angelica's voice kept rising as she spoke, and she was practically screaming by the end.
"It probably died after the last dozen times you made me check it," Lata said, her own voice filling with anger. "In a way, this is your fault."
"Did you forget to turn it off after the check, again?" Angelica asked, just barely managing to control herself.
"Guys, you might want to be a bit quieter," Phoenix said meekly, nervously fingering his bow.
"He's right," Kaimana said gruffly. "Calm down."
"No, I will not!" Lata shouted, glaring at each member of her team in turn. "I'm the only one of us with a decent grade, yet I'm being tied to you slackers and forced to do this extracuricular nonsense!"
"Lata, we are a team," Angelica growled. "If you don't like that, maybe you should have helped us instead of complaining so much!"
Kaimana turned his gaze to the trees as Lata's eyes widened and she took a deep breath. "Incoming!" he shouted, watching several large, black-furred Grimm charge at them. He raised his cybernetic arm, the hand flipping up on a hinge to expose a nearly inch-wide tube; a small sphere launched from it with a shrill bang, colliding with one of the wolf-like Beowolves and ripping it nearly in half. The Grimm began dissolving nearly immediately, but its fellows charged on heedless of its fellow being killed.
The Beowolf Grimm were a very typical type of Grimm, one of the most commonly seen. They were most easily described as humanoid wolves, though that would fail to take into account the white plates of bone-like armor that were as much a part of their bodies as their eerily black fur. They typically formed a pack around an alpha, which was not always another Beowolf; when it was, though, that Beowolf was almost always the biggest and strongest of the bunch, and was extremely likely to be old enough that its armor plating had begun to form spikes.
The Grimm assaulting Team PLKA were not all Beowolves, however; there were also a few Creeps. Creeps were an odd sort of Grimm, their reptilian shaped heads being covered in black scales and the bone-like armor that was present on all Grimm, their bipedal forms lacking arms or wings of any sort. They were hunched over like birds, and their lack of wings didn't stop them from practically flying across the ground, propelled by their short, avian legs.
Kaimana's attack was all that was needed to rally the team, the four of them quickly flinging themselves into the fight. Kaimana flicked his arm to swing his hand back into place, then slammed his cybernetic fist into the head of one of the Beowolves, smashing right through and killing it instantly.
Phoenix let out a war cry, his eyes burning with rage as he drew his violin's bow, wielding it like a sword as a Beowolf charged at him. The Grimm swung its clawed paw at Phoenix, but he ducked, taking its arm off with a single slice of his bow. Another swift swing took off the Beowolf's head, and he turned to face the next one, which was already taking a swing at him.
Lata fell into a defensive crouch, pointing the points of her shields at the horde of Grimm and clenching her fists around a pair of levers. The sub-machine guns that had long ago been worked into her shields fired, slowing and in some cases crippling the Grimm. When a Creep managed to get too close to her, she chopped her arm at it, her shield slicing cleanly through its legs and leaving it unable to move.
Angelica's hand rested on her sword's hilt until one of the Grimm, a massive Beowolf, got close to her. She spun on her heel, drawing her sword as she went, and brought it down on the Beowolf, pulling one of the flamberge's two triggers. A powerful gale of wind fired out from the rear-facing barrel hidden in the guard, adding enough momentum to her swing to cleave straight through the the Beowolf's armored shoulder and the bulk of its body. Angelica barely kept her blade from slamming into the ground, but kept the werewithal to leap away from the second Grimm to attack her.
The team cleaved their way through the tide of Grimm, advancing inches at a time towards the Bleeding Forest, when a massive roar grabbed their attention. A vast black shape rose from the forest, its black feathers swallowing the sunlight as it roared again, its beak opening wider than one would think it should be able to. It flapped its massive wings towards the team of huntsmen-in-training, and its feathers flew from its wings, each screaming with the force they had been flung.
"Nevermore!" Angelica shouted, worry in her voice as the Grimm's gigantic feathers were launched at them. "Use the forest as cover!" she added, jumping backwards from her fight with a Beowolf and then springboarding off the top of a Creep's head to propel herself towards the forest. She swung her blade in a wide arc as she jumped, cutting through a Beowolf that would have blocked her path.
Phoenix cut down a Beowolf that was getting too close to him, then drew his violin, holding it by the neck and pointing it at the ground. He jumped, then pulled the trigger hidden in the violin's neck, firing the gun that protruded from it and giving him enough extra momentum to extend his leap. He easily cleared the Grimm closest to him and jumped again, making sure to aim his shots at any Grimm that were beneath him.
Kaimana's plan was different; instead of going over the Grimm, he'd just go through. A pair of metal plates extended from his cybernetic arm, and he raised it in front of him like a shield as he charged. When he was less that a meter away from the horde, Kaimana drew his Aura through the Dust lining the grooves and channels in the plates, spilling flame from his makeshift shield as he hammered the Beowolf to the side.
Lata jumped, narrowly avoiding a Beowolf's claws, then hammered a kick into its head as she extended her hand to the tree line. A green nimbus of light surrounded her hand as she activated her Semblance, flowing its energy into one of the seeds that was stored in her shield; the seed grew alarmingly fast into a vine that quickly closed the distance to the trees, wrapping around one of the ash-grey trunks as the tip grew into a massive bulb. The vine was not typical ivy, nor was it even native to Vale; it was known as Dragon's Stomach to the people of Mistral, and it possessed an odd elasticity and a very sticky sap that it typically used to pull prey into its carnivorous bulb. Lata tugged on her end of the vine, and the plant did the rest, pulling her across the open field and toward the forest.
As the four of them advanced towards the forest, the Nevermore's launched feathers met them; most of the feathers missed completely, and what few came close were avoided by the huntsmen-in-training. Team PLKA ran and dodged their way into the forest, and then scattered, each of them heading off in a different direction.
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Lata swore under her breath as she looked down from her position atop one of the Heartless Trees, trying to keep her panting breaths from being too loud lest they draw the attention of the pair of Beowolves beneath her. She had been running and fighting for nearly four hours since Team PLKA had separated, and she had yet to find any of the others.
Worst of all, however, was that she had not found enough time to prepare her medication, an herbal elixir of her own invention. She suffered from an offshoot of Borderline Personality Disorder, one that magnified her emotions practically tenfold and made keeping calm a practice in futility; that was the only symptom of her disorder, however, which was considered a small miracle by the various doctors that had tried to find a treatment or cure for her over the course of her life, as the sheer intensity of her specific disorder combined with the usual symptoms would have guaranteed her a place in a mental institution, at the very least.
Once Lata had caught her breath, she pulled a small canister out of one of the pouches she wore, shook it vigorously, then slowly opened it, all the while keeping an eye on the Grimm beneath her. When Lata drank the concoction stored within, her lips puckered and her frown turned into a grimace, and she lowered the canister with a small sound of disgust, tucking it back into the pouch she pulled it from.
She took a deep breath, licking her lips and wishing she had something to wash the taste of herbal medicine out of her mouth, then dropped from the tree, decapitating the two Beowolves beneath it with a pair of quick slices from her shields as she fell.
"Lata," a rough voice said from behind her, and Lata spun around to see Kaimana, the tall man's eyes darting around to see if anything was after them.
"Kai," Lata said softly, relief clear in her voice. "It's great to see a friendly face again."
Kaimana's only response was a grunt, but Lata had grown somewhat used to that over their time as teammates. Kaimana jerked his head over his shoulder, then turned, which Lata took as a gesture to follow him.
"Do you know where Phoenix and Angie are?" Lata asked, worry quickly seeping back into her voice. When Kaimana shook his head in response, Lata let out a sigh, but she began walking behind him all the same once he started moving. "Then where are we going?"
"Cave," Kaimana said. "Angelica can find us with her Semblance. Make a shelter, fortify it; base of operations."
"Good thinking, Kai," Lata said. Her emotions, still in turmoil, were slowly starting to settle as her medication began to kick in.
The two of them walked a short distance to a cave, which Kaimana had already scouted out and found to be free of Grimm. It was larger than Lata had expected, being more than a simple hole in some hill; it went nearly forty feet deep into a rather large cliffside, and had a number of small branches, one of which also opened out onto the cliffside, albeit a full twenty feet above ground level. The main entrance to the cave was rather exposed, as it jutted out into a clearing that had primarily rocky ground where little could grow, but the hole in the cliffside faced one of the thickest parts of the forest. More than a few of the branches had quite a bit of rubble in them, most likely from a cave-in.
"Great find, Kai," Lata said, nodding her head.
"You took your medicine?" Kaimana asked, making Lata wince.
"Yeah," Lata said, her voice quiet. "I should apologize to Angie, shouldn't I?"
Kaimana's only response was a grunt as he strode into the cave, unslinging his backpack and dropping it onto a slab of stone that looked to Lata like it had been recently moved.
"You've been redecorating?" Lata asked, a slight teasing quality entering her voice as Kaimana sat down on the ground, folding his legs beneath him. When Kaimana held out his hand expectantly, Lata blinked in confusion. "What?"
"Radio," Kaimana said, resting his cybernetic arm against a rock that was rose to just above his waist while he was sitting. "I can recharge it."
"Oh, right," Lata said, pulling the radio from her belt and handing it to Kaimana. Lata frowned, then said, "That won't hurt your ability to fight, will it?" At Kaimana's nod, she added, "Then we should probably wait for the others to get here before we do that."
Kaimana looked at her for a moment, then nodded, tossing the radio back to her and standing back up as she fumble to catch it. Kaimana nodded at Lata, then set to moving the rubble from one of the small branches that jutted off from the cave out to the clearing in front of it. After a few minutes, his work began to reveal itself to be a crude wall; once Lata caught onto this, she rooted through one of her pouches for a small cloth packet of seeds, drawing it out and pulling on its drawstrings to open it once she had found it.
Lata carefully set the seeds from the packet along the cracks in the rubble wall as Kaimana built it, occasionally helping him lug more rocks out and place them when she had gotten caught up to where he was. By the time the wall was finished, they had all but emptied two of the cave's branches of rubble and realized that the cave had not been naturally formed, as the rough Dust crystal protruding from one of the branch's rear walls and the pair of ancient skeletons that had been beneath the rubble in the other branch attested to. When they saw the crystallized Dust, Kaimana carefully plucked it from the wall with his cybernetic arm; it was bright green, marking it as Air type Dust, and was barely bigger than Lata's pinky finger. They spent little time on it, and Lata's only remark was "Phoenix will be happy to see this."
Once the wall was completed, it stood nearly five feet tall and had fallen apart once already. Lata stood behind the wall and raised her hands to it, both of them glowing green, as she closed her eyes, concentrating on the seeds that she had delicately placed on it. Her Semblance flowed from her into the seeds, causing them to grow into small, sticky vines protuding long thorns that were slick with the plant's poison; these vines were native to Vacuo, a kingdom that Lata hoped to never have to visit if all of its plants were that vicious.
Lata panted, nearly collapsing from the exertion of using her Semblance to affect that many plants at once. She stumbled back into the cave and sat down, drawing a small canteen of water out of Kaimana's backpack and drinking deeply from it. Lata let out a long sigh once she was done drinking, then raised her head to see Kaimana standing over her.
"Rest," Kaimana said, taking off his coat and tossing it to her. "I'll stand watch."
"Is it that late?" Lata asked as Kaimana turned around, his canine tail whipping back and forth now that it was no longer covered by his coat. She took off her hat as she looked out at the setting sun, revealing the black-furred bat ears coming up through her red hair. "Geez, I didn't realize we'd been working that long."
"Sleep," Kaimana said, sitting down at the entrance to the cave.
"Thanks, Kai," Lata said, folding her teammate's coat into a thick square. Once she had removed her shields, she lay her head down on the makeshift pillow and quickly fell asleep.
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Phoenix was sitting on a tree's highest branch, staring at the violin he held in his hands as the sun set behind him. "Should I play us one last song, Robin?" he asked himself, his voice barely audible. He switched his gaze to the forest ahead of him; he'd chosen the tallest tree he could find, so he had a great view of the ashen trees and their black leaves. His eyes found what looked like a small building in the forest, and he furrowed his brow as he stood, sliding his violin into the holster on his belt with one hand and keeping his balance by placing the other on the tree. "What is that?" he asked himself, squinting at the blocky shape in the distance.
"Phoenix!" Angelica's voice came in a hiss beneath Phoenix, startling him enough to nearly knock him from the tree. He looked down and saw her standing on a lower branch, her coat and boots helping her blend in with the tree's bark.
"Angelica?" Phoenix asked. He cast one last look at what he was quickly growing sure was a building, then jumped down, landing with a soft thump on the ground. He rose, and saw that Angelica had done the same, a tired smile on her face.
"Took me long enough to get to you," Angelica said, rubbing at one eye. "How long were you running for? Six hours?"
Phoenix blinked at her, then shook his head. "Felt more like seven," he said, wincing as his pain flowed through his legs now that he was standing. "How did you find me?"
"My Semblance, remember?" Angelica asked, making Phoenix blink in surprise. "Don't tell me you forgot?"
Phoenix tilted his head, then blushed as he remembered. "Oh, right. Your Semblance lets you see Dust as light."
"Yeah, and your robes glow like a bonfire," Angelica said. "Do you know where the others are?"
"No," Phoenix said, looking off in the direction he'd seen the building. "I did see something that might help us finish this assignment, though. There's a building or something a few miles that way," Phoenix said, pointing.
"Cool, I'll make a note of it," Angelica said, drawing the map and a pen out of her pockets. She looked over the map intensely for a few moments before putting a small dot on it with her pen and drawing a small line a bit southeast of it, putting a small question mark next to the line. "Got it."
"So, what should we do?" Phoenix asked, causing Angelica to give him a look that made him cower slightly. "Wh-what?"
Angelica sighed, then put her hand on Phoenix's shoulder. "You're the team's leader, Phoenix," Angelica said softly. "This whole thing we're doing out here is meant to sort out our team's problems, right? Then you've got to get used to calling the shots if we're gonna stay at Beacon."
"I... I'm sorry," Phoenix said, his voice quiet, as he cast his eyes to the ground. "I'll get better, I swear."
"Then, what should we do?" Angelica asked, repeating Phoenix's question from earlier.
"I... I think we should hole up for the night," Phoenix said after a moment. "Wait for dawn to come so we can be a bit better rested when we look for them."
"Good call," Angelica said, a small smile on her face. "It's what I was thinking."
Phoenix straightened up slightly, giving Angelica a timid smile. "Any ideas on where?"
Angelica shook her head, then paused. "That building you saw might be good enough if it's free of Grimm," Angelica said, her eyes shining bright white with her Semblance as she looked in that direction. Her Semblance, which her teacher's at Signal had called Litany, let her see Dust as a substance that emitted light; the color of the light varied depending on the type of Dust, and the strength of the light depended on just how much of it there was. Angelica put a hand between her eyes and Phoenix, as the Dust sewn into his robe shone with a powerful brilliance to her Litany. "I'm not seeing any Dust in that direction quite yet," Angelica said after a moment of examination, the light fading from her eyes. "But we are a ways away. I might be out of range or something."
"Alright, let's go,' Phoenix said, breaking off in that direction at a fast jog despite the pain in his legs. Angelica followed him easily, her shorter stride keeping up with the taller man due to his slight limp.
It took them around fifteen minutes to cover the distance between them and the building Phoenix had seen. It's exterior had once been painted white, but time, decay, and presumably violence had turned it grey and coated it in brown splotches. The building was a watchtower, and stood guard at the front of a whole city that had been engulfed by the forest; much of the city had been decayed by time and turned into rotting wood and crumbling stone, but here and there walls stood in testament to the city that had once stood.
"Wow," Angelica said, swallowing nervously as her eyes glowed white with her Semblance. "What happened here?" she asked as she pulled the map out of her pocket.
"How long has this been here?" Phoenix asked quietly, his eyes darting around.
"This wasn't on the map," Angelica said, drawing a pair of lines on the map and writing 'CITY?' next to them. "Professor Oobleck will want to hear about this."
"The tower looks mostly intact," Phoenix said, turning his eyes to the four-story pillar that had first attracted his attention. "Do you think we should use it as our base?"
"Sounds good," Angelica said, putting the map away. "We should scout it out first, though. Make sure there isn't a Creep or something hiding in a closet."
Phoenix felt his anger stir at the mention of a Grimm, and he drew his violin's bow, looking over the bladed edge to see if it was still sharp enough. "Let's go," Phoenix all but growled out, startling Angelica a bit as he moved quickly and quietly to the tower's entrance.
The rotten remains of a wooden door lay on the ground in front of and partially inside of a large hole in the tower, the rusted hinges on one side revealing that it had originally been a doorway before someone or something had bashed through it. The interior of the tower was in better shape than most of the buildings that Angelica and Phoenix had seen so far, still standing strong despite a pair of chunks of stone missing from the topmost level.
"The door looks like it was blown outwards," Angelica muttered to herself, measuring the wood with her eyes as she examined the stonework around it. After a moment, she shook her head, then hurried to catch up to Phoenix, who was checking every nook and cranny for potential Grimm. The first floor was clear, as were the second and third, but they couldn't get to the fourth floor or the open-air guard post that rested atop it; the stone stairs looked to have been melted by something hot enough to treat them like they were made of wax.
"Well, we know it's clear," Phoenix said once they had finished their search. They had decided to rest on the second floor, as the first was too exposed and the third contained an abundance of rotting wood and moldy cloth.
"I'll take first watch," Angelica said, making Phoenix sigh in relief. "You get some sleep. I'll wake you in four hours."
"Thanks, Angelica," Phoenix said, taking off his backpack to use as a rather uncomfortable pillow. He rested his head against it, falling asleep nearly instantly as Angelica sat down, folding her legs beneath her as she settled in for a very long, very boring shift of guard duty.
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Soul Eater! That's the anime I was trying to think of at the top of the page!
How'd I do? I hope you enjoyed it. I might have been a bit forward about some of the characters, like I feel like I was when I introduced Lata's disorder, but all in all, I think this went well.
Oh, and for those of you who care: this is probably going to be the shortest chapter of this story. I plan on each chapter encompassing an entire day, and, well, Team PLKA is going to have a very busy week (or so). They have three objectives, of course, and will face a villian, the fifth and final character that this story will possess.
Feel free to leave a comment telling me what you thought, and potential ways I could improve the story or better explain a certain aspect, but please try to leave comments with a bit of use to them; comments that just say "that was cool" are about the same to me as comments that just say "that sucked and you suck".
I mean to keep good on what I said at the top, that bit about trying to put out a chapter every couple of weeks. And hey, now that Volume 3 just started I'll have plenty of inspiration to keep this going!