"Wake up."
"Come on."
Only dimly aware of the world around me as I started to come back into consciousness, part of me had started to mumble a response to the voices I could hear around me. However, after a moment or two, even before I had opened my eyes, I realized the indistinct voices I could hear weren't speaking to me due to lack of response. Slowly opening my eyes in confusion as to the source of these voices, it took me a moment to realize where exactly I was: that ballroom I'd fallen asleep in last night.
Slowly sitting up before standing, I still felt somewhat uneasy just being among this many people, as this hall currently held more people than my HOMETOWN. My eyes darting from side to side, part of me rather surprised to be around this many people close to my own age, most of the people back home either being children or considerably older than me. The question remained, uncomfortably clear as my alertness of mind returned: what now?
What was I supposed to do today? I had received precious few details on arrival of what was going to happen, but I still had no real idea of how that was actually supposed to happen. Where was I supposed to go now? Where was I supposed to store my equipment? Where was breakfast?
Why did the headmaster only give me a vague personal lesson instead of an actual idea of what to do? Who knows.
That last question made me acutely aware of how hungry I was at the moment, my stomach rumbling in protest, as the last food I had eaten had been on the airship on the way here, and that had just been a light snack.
As I pondered this, I picked up my bag and quickly walked over to a nearby bathroom to change out of my sleeping attire and into something more necessary for the day, I donned a light grey shirt, seemingly identical to the one I had worn on the way here, putting on my coat over it. Though, I still had to shake my head a little at the scorch marks that were still there: I was going to have to fix that at some point.
Taking a moment to change into my black pants I aptly called my 'work' pants, owing to the number of pockets I had to hold things that caught my interest here and there, I now stepped out of the room as I finished putting on my boots. "All right, step one down: dressed. Now, where's breakfast?"
After following a rather spastic, orange-haired girl who seemed to be bounding back and forth to either side of her friend, who seemed to be doing a very good job keeping his composure despite this, I ended up eating a quiet breakfast, trying to figure what I would be doing today. It was a rather strange meal, eaten in complete silence, almost feeling like I had a noise-blocking bubble around me, conversations from nearby merely fading into muffled noise. Maybe I wasn't quite awake yet.
Ozpin had mentioned some form of initiation today, but I neither knew when that was, or what the man had in mind. In my head, I had the mental image of some kind of training arena activity that would sort the students into teams based on their performance, whether they stacked all the skilled students into groups, or balanced out the top and bottom of the list, I wasn't sure, but I was certain that there would be some manner of logical selection leading to what would be the ideal team for each member.
With this idea in mind, I managed to find a locker, the number of which was scrawled onto the back of my copy of my registration papers by the rather irate professor who'd had to look it up for me, leading to my quick inputting of anything I wouldn't need on a combat operation. Since the idea of sorting based on combat performance was firmly pressed into my mind, I didn't need to worry about forming an ideal team composition in my own head. This was especially relieving as the only person I'd spoken to for any length of time was that 'Azure' girl, who I wasn't all that sure about, seeming to be the overly bubbly sort that would turn out to be an airhead.
"Nonsense." I thought to myself upon considering this line of thought. "If she got in here, then she has to have exceptional merit." though 'exceptional merit' didn't have to mean above-average intelligence, considering some of the people I'd met who would fit that description.
Pondering this to myself, I almost didn't hear the PA as it announced for all new students to come out to the cliff.' The cliff'? That seems like a rather vague term for the school, considering it had quite a large cliff-line on one side of the campus. Then again, the cliff I had seen on my way in led to the sea. So where exactly were we going?
Deciding to just follow the other students at this point to see where we were going, I started to follow behind a white-haired girl whom a moment ago had been flailing her arms about for a reason I hadn't noticed. However, she seemed to know where she was going, so I gave it no further thought for the moment.
It didn't take long before I was led to the cliff they must have been talking about: one that was overlooking the nearby forested area.
It was still quite vague for a test that required you to be there.
There were a number of strange-looking metal plates on the ground, looking rather out of place in the grassy cliff-line. Gathered there were the rest of the students I had been brought here with, all of whom now in proper combat attire rather than bedclothes, so I was able to get a better glimpse of how they might fight just from their gear.
However, there didn't seem to be any time to chat, as Professor Ozpin was standing in front of our group, his presence, looking as if ready to get started immediately, caused me to quickly find an open platform, standing on it with the dull thunk of rubber on metal, before I snuck a glance along the line, confirming it was what we were supposed to do before Professor Ozpin started to speak, in a tone that made it sound like he'd given this speech many a time before "Today, your abilities will be tested in the Emerald Forest."
Ah, that'll be it. I knew it would be some kind of test to assess where we were as combatants, but I'd expected a more controlled environment. This is better, really, as true learning is done in the field, but I was somewhat surprised they were getting at that so quickly.
"Each of you will be given teammates. Today." Came an additional statement from the rather irate professor who'd earlier had to tell me my locker assignment.
I'd known this already, though if they were telling us this right now, they would, in all likelihood, be telling us the criteria for selection. Then again, as Ozpin was now stressing the importance of choosing good teammates, it probably wasn't merely based on the results of our initial testing.
I may have shot myself in the foot by not being the social butterfly he seems to have expected me to be last night.
"The first person you make eye contact with will be your partner for the next four years." came his next statement. This fact hit me like a wave.
Seriously? They've got to be kidding! Such an arbitrary method?! For selecting your partner for your whole time here!? That's so ridiculous I don't even know where to start!
I wasn't the only one to get a shock from this, able to hear a high-pitched "What!?" from the other end of the line, though I couldn't quite see who'd said it. Either way, Ozpin then began to give us the actual description of the test without even taking notice of any complaint.
"At the end of the forest you will find an abandoned temple containing several relics. Each pair will select a relic and return to the top of the cliff..." it was a rather simple objective, despite his earlier stressing of the dangers of the path.
That wasn't exactly new to me, every day out with my mentor had practically been a brush with death. However, this was the first time I would be doing such with a peer, rather than a mentor, dread began to well up in my gut that I hadn't felt before, because I hadn't considered that at any point up until now: I might actually DIE here if I'm not careful.
Then again, that was exactly what he had been warning me about last night.
Which, again, makes arbitrary selection of the one you'll be trusting to have your back for four years all the more absurd!
However, there didn't seem to be any room for actual questions, even after he literally asked "Any questions?", before he simply ignored Jaune's attempt to inquire. I hadn't considered the idea of this 'landing strategy' myself, having never been launched from the top of a cliff before. Yes, I'd jumped from trees before, but that had always been without having to fall a few hundred feet before-hand.
However, I was left with no further time to think about it, as my platform then rapidly ejected me from the cliff, sending me up into the air high above the tree-line. As the wind pushed against me during my rapid flight, I got an idea quickly "First, I have to see if this works." I thought to myself, engaging my semblance to pull in air from nearby like a vacuum, the air around me distorting slightly as it moved under me, sudden lack of air in front of me forming a very low pressure zone ahead, actually helping to push me forward faster.
Okay, going fast, and now...
Releasing the pent-up air from below me, I found myself being pushed skyward slightly, reducing my downward momentum by quite a bit, though now I was once again falling, slightly slower than before as gravity worked to correct the error I had inflicted.
Well, that works.
Doing so again, I took notice that I moved slightly faster forward when I did this, shooting quickly through the trees, pelting like a rocket through the gaps in the branches and pushing again, downward and ahead this time, once I was mere feet from the ground, pushing myself into a flip before landing on my feet.
"Well, that was certainly something." I commented to myself, before I had to now take a moment to catch my breath, then continuing onwards.
"All right, landing solved. Now for part two." I commented to myself, now looking around the woods. "If I must have a partner, I'll need someone that won't hold me back, and that I won't get in the way of." however, as I barely knew anyone at the school, I had no real idea who that might be.
"Just as long as I don't run into that-" I started to think aloud, taking a glance to the left, I didn't notice anything straight ahead of me before running headlong into a figure currently standing by the tree in front of me.
However, it wasn't, as I expected from my luck, the blue-haired Azure, but rather, a Beowulf. As it turned to face me, growling angrily, I was now keenly aware of several bushes rustling nearby, several more stepping out of them, each of them growling angrily at me, the sound seeming to issue from every direction. "Oh, joy." I muttered. "All right then…" I found myself continuing with a gasp of exasperation while drawing my weapon and allowing it to expand into its combat form "…which of you is first?"
This rhetorical question was immediately answered as the one I ran into rushed toward me, only to be met by a quick swing of my pickaxe, lodging the pointed end into the creature long enough for me to shoot the creature, the momentum from the shot pushing me back and drawing the weapon out of the creature before it fell, before I jumped into the branch of a nearby tree, taking several pot-shots at the creatures before jumping to the next branch. I had to be careful right now: they still had the advantage of numbers for the moment.
Firing until my magazine ran empty, I continued moving along the branches, until on one jump, I continued until I found my path impeded by the sudden presence of a blue blur, physics then immediately rectified the situation by knocking both of us out of the air.
"Oww." I mutter, getting up quickly and rubbing a sore spot, before now checking to see who I ran into anyway, readying to swing my weapon into an attacking grimm, I saw -Azure?
"Oh, hey there Jett!" she commented cheerily, before turning her head slightly "Oh, looks like you made some friends, too." seeing the grimm continuing to pursue me. I was about to ask about 'too', before a crash from nearby told me all I needed to know "Oh, wonderful." I muttered. I didn't want to know just now what it was, and so I gestured for her to follow back on her original path "I suggest we continue."
However, before I had jumped back to continue, she was already gone down the path "I guess I didn't need to tell her that part." before moving to follow, glad, at least, that I didn't always have to state the obvious. Taking myself back up to tree level, the two of us continued until reaching a small clearing, loud crashing behind us telling us whatever it was, it was still pursuing us, becoming closer with each new crash. Getting out of the trees and moving through this area, dotted with rocky outcrops and a large cliff-line to my immediate right, we headed toward the ruined building in the distance. I took this moment to reload my weapon, before turning back to face what was pursuing us. "All right, let's see what you brought along."
It took only a moment for it to make its presence known: a boarbatusk the size of a small house, followed by the remaining group of beowulfs that had followed me this far.
"That is one big pig." an unfamiliar male voice then started from nearby, turning my head to see two of the people that Azure had gone back to talk to after I had first met her: a white-haired guy who addressed the situation with a calm smirk, and a girl with light-red hair, bordering on pink, who had to be the tallest girl I had seen in my life, looking at the situation with growing concern.
"Hey, Diamond, Eunry, you guys found each other? Good! Could you do us a favour and help us fight our unwelcome guests?" Azure asked as nonchalantly as if asking to borrow someone's pencil before a test.
"Yeah, sure thing, Azure. Been looking to fight something all day, never ran into anything except Eunry." Diamond answered with the same level of calm, drawing a pair of asymmetric bladed weapons, quickly snapping the two together into a single weapon, loading it quickly and taking aim at the oncoming enemies.
"I personally didn't mind a quiet morning…" Eunry added, currently holding what looked like a staff her own height, ending in a large, smooth steel ball, before calmly kicking the base of it, flipping it over and catching the weapon, to allow the gun-end of the staff to point toward her new targets, gripping the handle that held the trigger to the weapon, allowing the ball to rest at her shoulder. "…but I suppose we can give them a go."
That would explain why the end was smooth, wouldn't want to rest your shoulder against a spike or anything like that.
Taking aim myself as Azure drew her own weapon, looking like a harpoon with a barrel running along its spine, "Let 'em have it!" she declared, the four of us opening fire on the approaching grimm, the hail of shots seeming only to glance off of the angry boarbatusk as it charged. It wasn't winding up to roll yet, but that wouldn't be far off if I remembered these things right. "Hit it again!" Azure called.
"No!" I interrupted, taking stock of the situation as the grimm continued to advance.
"What? Why not? You want to die?" she then asked, confused, clearly dumbfounded by my response.
"No, but our rounds aren't doing much right now to it, we need to hit the beowulfs at range before we focus on the boarbatusk!" I then instructed, proving my point by managing to pick off one of the approaching creatures with a well-placed and, quite honestly, lucky headshot from this range, causing it to drop dead shortly after.
"Sounds like a plan." Diamond affirmed, the group now opening fire on the remaining beowulfs while there was still some range between the two groups, quickly managing to decimate the smaller grimm before they reached the group.
However, that still left the problem of the boarbatusk, which had come to a close enough range that it began to spin up to charge at the group of us. "Don't move until the last possible moment." I suggested, though the group scattered immediately to give it less of an immediate target. However, as it seemed fixated on me at the moment for some reason, this was still the case, as it pelted directly toward me. Spotting my opportunity, a quick dive out of the way left it charging into a nearby cliff wall.
While it was stunned a moment, flat on the ground, I looked at the three of them. "Anyone got a plan?" I found myself asking the group of them in the moment or two we currently had to come up with something.
"Hit it really hard?" Azure suggested with a light smile, before adding "With something really big." seeing that I was taking a moment to try to figure out whether or not she was joking.
As the massive creature started to get up and turn around, Eunry then nodded slightly "Simple, but it would probably work, if we could expose its underside. The upper armour was shrugging off our shots like nothing."
"What would we hit it with?" Diamond asked at this point. It was a fair question: there wasn't much of anything nearby to strike the creature with, and I knew nothing at the moment about any of their semblances, leaving me in a rather bad position to help with planning anything, especially as the creature was now facing us and getting ready to charge again.
"Diversion!" I could hear myself call out, getting ready to move to evade its charge again while it was spinning up.
"Better idea." Azure suddenly spoke from behind me, a strange-looking bubble hovering over her hand, before I saw her lob it into the path of the charging boarbatusk. With the ground in front of it quickly getting soaked, the spinning creature now found itself sliding onto its side and causing the length of the creature to now slide toward us, though rather slower than before, and out of control, making it rather easier to evade, as it was no longer TRYING to hit us.
Having another moment, I could practically feel the spark form as I got an idea. "I know what we can hit it with!" now pointing over the edge of a nearby cliff-line. "We need to flip it over!" I found myself calling to the others.
"Can do!" Diamond responded, moving over to the cliff edge as the creature got up, though it still had a straight line to him right now along the edge of the cliff: what was he doing?
While it had been originally turning to face me again, several repeated shot impacts from the side drew its attention, causing it to turn toward Diamond now, and, as it prepared to charge again, Azure then turned to me and called out "Whatever you're doing, get to it! You'll only have a second or two before it's in position!"
As much as I wanted to ask how that would even be possible, I decided for the moment to go with it, as she clearly knew more about her friend than I did. "Make another bubble of water! Bigger this time!" I instructed as I reloaded my weapon, the snowflake clear on the side of the magazine.
"On it!" she responded, forming a large bubble of water in midair near the cliff, before I began opening fire on it, rapid impacts of ice rounds beginning to quickly form a large, spiky block.
While this was happening, the creature rolled forward, Diamond's aura turning pure white just as the creature made contact, slamming into him at full force, it looked, however, as if it had run into a wall again, Diamond not moving an inch, a smirk etched onto his face "Batter up!" he called out.
As he said this, Eunry, having kept close to him, now charged the boarbatusk from the side, holding her mace-staff with the heavy end out, swinging her weapon into its exposed side, and sending it quickly off the edge of the cliff as I got to the ice block. The instant I set my hand to it, it began to quickly re-form its shape as if it were still water, ultimately forming a deadly point like a giant bullet.
As the creature hit the ground off the side of the cliff, the slightest push by my semblance to destabilize the rocky cliff was all I needed. The small section of cliff breaking off with a loud snap, I managed to get atop the sharpened block before it fell off of the cliff. I needed to be on it for this to work.
Falling with the block, I began drawing the air in front to me while I fell, just as I had when I was landing, the low pressure zone causing the block to fall even faster, now pelting downward toward my target at ludicrous speed.
Wind was whipping past, attempting to fill the gap I was leaving in the air as I continued to rocket toward my target, concentrating on the exposed black surface below me, barely able to see it despite its size at the moment, the wind and ice making sight difficult, but something told me I was on the right track, some confidence I didn't recognize telling me I was about to pull this off, and as the ground grew closer and closer, I carefully picked my time to jump.
Now.
This was when I pushed off, using the collected air pressure and giving the block one last spurt of acceleration as it ultimately slammed into the exposed underside of the creature, having landed on its back. An ice-bullet the size of a car piercing the creature immediately as I landed from a few feet in the air, turning to see the creature immobile, watching it a moment to confirm before turning to look up the cliff at the others, giving a thumbs-up from my extended arm "We got it!"
Managing to make my way back up the cliff, protruding boulders providing a workable route, I finally managed to catch my breath as we stopped a moment once we got to the temple. "Well, day one, right?" I asked with a slight laugh, Azure beaming at the three of us. It seemed the jovial mood wasn't just something I'd been feeling.
"That. Was. Awesome!" she shouted excitedly, as I half-expected her to jump up into the air in some manner of cheer.
Now moving to stand, I accepted the offered hand I saw came from Diamond, who then commented "That was pretty good."
"Okay, okay, we're awesome. Now that that's established." Eunry then chimed into the conversation, her jovial tone betraying her attempt to appear composed. "How about we get what we came for?" giving a gesture to the structure.
"Good point: if we go back without a relic, won't have been much point to all that." Diamond agreed, now looking around the pedestals inside the temple, we noticed a veritable array of chess pieces, no pedestal without one.
"Looks like we were the first ones here." I observed, striding over giving a glance across them.
"The pieces are all arranged in pairs." Eunry added "It makes sense, considering I heard the teams are of four, not two."
"So the teams would be whoever brings back the same pieces?" Azure asked for confirmation, seeing Eunry nod before stepping along the line and picking up first one, then two of the black knights. Handing one to Diamond, she then gave me the other. "What?" she then asked me, looking over my expression of apparent surprise. "I thought it was obvious!"
"Not necessarily. They might have secretly numbered the pieces, and match up the opposite colours from each pair." I suggested. "Though, that would be far more trouble than I think it would be worth. I could still see them doing that, though."
"Yeah, I think we'll go with her idea." Diamond commented, as my suggestion sounded rather absurd.
"All right, I guess that'll work." I replied with a nod, before turning on my heel "Now come on, let's see if we can't back to the top of the cliff without running into anything else."
As we started away from the clearing, I thought aloud "I hope the other groups have an easier time at this."
Although, I could have sworn that bird above us had someone holding onto it. Must have just been seeing things.
After returning to the top of the cliff and turning in our relics, my new group and I found ourselves back at the academy, now listening to Professor Ozpin speak to the first-years assembled. As Eunry had expected, when he declared the first team, the pairs that had selected matching pieces were paired together, going down the list for a bit before finally getting to them, "Jett Stremm, Azure Klejnot, Diamond Sturm, and Eunry Tranquis, you retrieved the black knight pieces, from this day forward, you will be known as Team JADE, to be led by Jett Stremm."
I was actually taken somewhat aback at this, having been expecting the composed, grounded Diamond to have been put in charge. A glance at his expression was enough to tell me that he was partially thinking the same thing, though the sudden presence of Azure in front of me told me what was coming "Good job, buddy!" she chimed brightly, causing me to retract slightly, not used to that sort of attention still.
I guess this is my team now. Wonderful.