Welcome to Chapter Two. Quick word, I will only put up an A/N when I feel it is necessary to say something. We will be taking this fanfic a little slow to make sure we write the best possible story, and because our summer schedules are going to get real hectic real soon. Any way, enjoy chapter two, and always fav, follow, and review! Oh, and I just figured out how to add line breaks!

Chapter 2: Not So Humble Beginnings Pt. 2

Axel Beltz

I sat in the shade of a nearby tree as Thorben and Rust were at each other's throats. They may say it's all in the name of diplomacy, but hey man; I just call it like I see it. Thorben looked practically the same as he did when we were kids, except he's practically twice the size of when I first met him. His scruffy light brown hair is more unkempt that usual, and I'm sure that his forest green eyes were boring holes into Rust. He wore a golden tank top with a deep green cutoff cloak. He had two gilded ringlets around his biceps, and fingerless combat gloves. His pants were the higher-quality version of mine, complete with thicker, more extravagant plating and shaded in green and gold colors. Out of all the things he was wearing, the thing that stood out the most was actually his plain leather combat boots. Being kingly sure makes you stick out like a sore thumb when you wear something simple.

On the other hand, Rust looked almost the opposite. His slicked back gray hair was partially hidden under a hood. He had burning orange eyes that seemed out of place among his worn attire. His vested hoodie looked like it might have been a vibrant orange at one point, but has long since faded with use to a brownish-red color. Couple that with his torn jeans, old sneakers, and overstuffed backpack, and he looked like a downright hobo.

It was a comical scene really, until I heard something to my right that scared me more that Thorben's mother's Thursday casserole. "H-hello. My name is Amethyst. Is that guy over there your partner?" She said gesturing towards Thorben.

I froze, unsure how to deal with this situation. This is one of those trick questions isn't it? Women always have trick questions, right!? Just agree. Women like agreement. "Y-yes," I stammered out at last. Amethyst looked at Thorben and smiled, "He seems like a very kind person. You're lucky to have a partner like him." She looked back at me, and I felt about ready to puke, pass out, run, or all three.

All these feelings were immediately eliminated when I heard perhaps the dumbest thing in my entire life, besides Thorben's dad pretending he is the Pillsbury doughboy. "You wanna fight me tough guy?!" I knew Rust was screwed up in the head, but I didn't think he was worse than me. Thorben eyes flash with pride. "I accept your challenge, but I don't believe you are worthy to face me. Axel, will you be our mediator and start the battle for us please?"

I sighed in relief at no longer having to talk to Amethyst, and Thorben walked to the other side of the clearing. When I saw that both sides were ready, I cleared my throat and said, "3, 2, 1, begin!"

Rust begins the fight; leaping into the air as he switched his dust canisters to blue. Doing a (In my eyes) pitifully executed backflip, he lands and punches the ground. Ice spikes shoot towards Thorben, who is calmly standing where he began. In response to the multiple razor sharp ice spikes flying towards him at extreme speeds, Thorben plants his shield and easily stops all of the ice spikes. Pulling out a small rag and wiping ice shards off the shield he looks up and chuckles. "Hehe, is that all you can do Rust? Seems like I was right about you."

Thorben charged forward and attempted to side swipe Rust with his oversized shield. In this time, Rust had changed his dust canisters to red and quickly emitted extremely powerful bursts of fire at the front of the shield launching him back. Rust rebounded off the nearest tree and switched to the offensive as he free falled towards Thorben. Looking up, Thorben turned his shield to the side and launched upward, the edged side of his shield closing in on Rust's face.

Moments away from making Rust required complete facial reconstruction, Thorben spins and slams the emboss of his shield into Rust's side. Rust flew to the side and slammed into a tree, a cracking sound making it quite obvious that several ribs were cracked. Still determined to win, Rust charged his opponent with the intent to kill, flipping over his shield he slams both gloves charged with red dust onto Thorben's back, leaving two huge scorch marks and causing Thorben to fall forward onto the ground. I laughed at Rust's first hit. "Hey Rust, did you finally decide to be smart enough not to aim for the ridiculously huge shield?"

Thorben rose, towering over Rust. I swear I could hear Rust's heart beat faster as he took a step back. Thorben's bear Faunus instincts took over as he cocked back a fist and punched Rust as hard as he can, causing him to gasp for air as he flew past us all and crashing through the tree directly behind me.

I decided to call the match before Thorben killed Rust with his own arm. "Okay, Okay! The match is over and it's fairly obvious who the winner is! Now can we get on with the initiation, because I'm fairly certain that by the time we get to the temple every damn relic will be gone!"

Thorben looked over at Rust, who was slowly rising from the wreckage of the tree and incoherently mumbling about how he could have won. He gave a short harrumph, satisfied that he had made his point, and turned to head into the forest. He was interrupted by a shout from Rust's direction. "Hey!" I froze when I noticed it was Amethyst doing the shouting. Thank God it wasn't directed at me.

Amethyst continued, "The least you could do for destroying his ribs, internal organs, and pride is to help him out, ya know. At least until we can get him to Beacon's medical staff." Thorben gazed long and hard at Amethyst, contemplating what to say, and I was perfectly fine with letting him do the talking. Girls scare me man.

He looked over at Rust, and noticed the now healthy dose of respect in his eyes. Thorben sighed, and shook his head before saying, "Fine. You can come along with us until we complete initiation. I'd feel bad if I was the reason another student failed."

With that, Rust looked to Amethyst, who had Rust arm over her shoulder to help support him, and gave her a pained, albeit sincere grin. Amethyst smiled right back as Rust said, "Thanks for the support. I guess this makes us partners huh?"

"You betcha. Now c'mon, we've got an initiation to ace!" Amethyst replied. Thorben finally cracked a smile at the newly formed duo. "Let's go. It's nearly nighttime, and I'm fairly certain this isn't the place you wanna be when it gets dark. According to the map that Axel, ahem, borrowed from Professor Ozpin, the temple is only about a mile from this clearing."

With that, Thorben turned and headed off into the forest, going northeast. I turned around and looked at Rust and Amethyst, carefully avoiding eye contact, and then followed after Thorben. The other two were not far behind, as evident by the extreme amounts of sound they made.

Besides Rust and Amethyst's struggles to keep up, the trip was mostly silent. I decided to blow off some steam and tried to ease the tension. "Hey guys, have you ever tried eating a clock?" I paused for dramatic effect. "It's very time consuming." Thorben abruptly came to a halt and turned to face me, one eyebrow cocked at me and a half-smirk on his face.

Amethyst immediately burst out laughing. It felt nice to have someone appreciate my jokes, but I would have given anything for it to be almost ANYONE ELSE. Rust just gave a quiet chuckle and shook his head at my absolutely amazing pun. I'm surprised there weren't Nevermore falling out of the sky laughing.

About this time we reached the temple. As I ingeniously deduced, we were incredibly late, and the only two pieces left were the white knights. Thorben said sarcastically, "This is the most difficult choice of my entire life. I just can't decide which piece to pick. I could either pick a white knight, or a white knight."

Rust called out, and winced while doing so, "Pick the white one!" He actually got a chuckle out of Thorben. I have no idea how that guy doesn't hold grudges. I mean, I have a grudge on my 2nd grade teacher for spelling my name Belts instead of Beltz.

Amethyst set Rust down gently, and proceeded to grab the piece on the left. She took the other one and tossed it to me. I was so surprised that I threw the piece in the air and made up some BS excuse to explain it. "It's a trap!" I yelled, stumbling backwards. I am a total fricking geni-. My thoughts were interrupted by me suddenly tumbling back into a large cave.

Thorben yelled from outside, "Axel! You okay in there? I caught the chess piece for you!" I was about to reply when I was cut off by a very loud hissing noise. I turned and exclaimed, "Uh, rude!" And then I saw the massive mother-loving Deathstalker. I squealed like a 6th girl at a One Direction concert and ran my ass out of that cave.

The Deathstalker slowly rumbled out of its nest, and set its eyes on the four of us. "Shit!" I yelled as I ran and skidded to a halt beside Rust and Amethyst. "Ok um… GO!?" I shouted as I charged the Deathstalker. Thorben sighed and charged after me. Amethyst slowly dragged Rust behind a tree, so he won't be at risk of dying. I jumped and landed on the Deathstalker, repeatedly stabbing it to no avail.

"Do something Thorben!" I shouted as I was thrown from the monster-sized Grimm's back. He yelled in response, "I can't save your ass all the time string-bean!" Thorben rolled as the Deathstalker's stinger struck his previous position. He spun clockwise, and slammed the edge of his shield into the Deathstalker's eyes. Temporarily blinded, the Deathstalker lashed out in all directions, slamming against Thorben's shield and barely missing me on several occasions.

Amethyst began shooting its tail trying to throw it off course, while Thorben and I had crept around for a crippling blow. All at once, Thorben smashed his shield down on the Deathstalker's stinger pinning it, while Amethyst fired at the Deathstalker's pincers and front legs, keeping it from moving. I charged forward and began slicing at the Deathstalker's stinger, hoping to sever it from the body. After many slashes to its tail, it finally drops limply to the ground.

Thorben and I wipe our brows and look at each other smirking. In that small gap of time the Deathstalker had managed to move and trap Amethyst. "A little help over here!" Rust shouted as he limped forward toward the Deathstalker. Thorben and I look over and see the current situation; Amethyst had been trapped in a small indention in the cliff wall. The Deathstalker stopped any chances of escaped as it slowly moved closer toward her, and death seemed imminent. "No!" Rust screamed as he lunged towards the Deathstalker unarmed. We all gasped at the sight in front of us. As Rust came in contact with the beast, its exoskeleton and body within it crumbled to dust.

After a long awkward silence, I whispered, "Holy Dust..."

"Yea…" Thorben added.

Amethyst was staring intensely at Rust the whole time. He picked up on it fairly quickly, "Like what you see?" He said with what I hope to Dust was not what he believed to be a "sexy" smirk. It was at this moment that the gravity of situation caused me to puke my guts out. Amethyst went bright red, much to my surprise, as I believed she'd turn a bright purple before anything else.

Thorben finally had the common sense to ask the question we'd all been thinking. "What the HELL was that?!" Rust's smirk immediately shifted to a sad state, and I couldn't suppress a gleeful chuckle at his pain, even though I was still heaving a little bit.

Fortunately for Rust and unfortunately for me, Amethyst, who was still a little pink (Ok, a lot pink, but that's just her natural color), decided to save him and ruin my entertainment. "Look, Thorben, now isn't the best of times to have this discussion. I say we get the chess pieces and get out of here, because he still needs medical attention, we are horrendously late, and it is definitely still not safe. He can tell us what happened when he feels comfortable, so don't pressure him."

Rust looked at her with gratitude, and gave her a small, "Thanks." It sickened me. My worst enemy and my greatest fear on one team. It was going to be a looooooooooong four years at Beacon. Thorben merely grunted agreement, and we began our trek back to Beacon.

We arrived at nightfall, and made small talk during the trip. Rust was the only one who didn't really partake in the conversation, since the pain in his cracked ribs had acted up. We learned that Amethyst had come from the Kingdom of Vacuo, and she had been the youngest of 7 siblings. She nervously laughed off a lot of issues she brought up about her not having the abilities of her siblings, often saying things like, "It's fine," or, "I'm here now aren't I."

In return, Thorben shared that he and I lived in the snowy forests of Atlas with his parents, and that they found me and took me in as a young child when they made one of their rare trips to Vale, my former home. I glared at him for sharing private information, and he returned with a look that said, 'Care to answer for yourself?' I hope the message my gaze returned was, 'To hell with that and to you.'

When we entered the infirmary, Rust was mostly able to stand on his own. He still had to have help getting around, and was finally talking a bit now that he had grown accustomed with the pain.

The nurse asked, "What happened to him? What injury did he sustain?" Thorben replied, "Murdered a tree with his body." The nurse gave him a blank stare. Amethyst quickly interjected, "Thorben here punched my partner through a tree, and in the process cracked several ribs.

The nurse nodded knowingly, "Of course. I'll have him patched up and ready to go in couple days. Be sure to drop by and say hello. They say friends help with the healing process." The nurse tried to give Rust a fist bump, which he gazed at confused, until he realized her underlying meaning and started blushing.

We all shared a good laugh at that one before going to grab some shut eye.

Professor Ozpin finished watching the video tape of the four students, while his prodigal team, RWBY, sat around him.

"So, what did you girls think? Have you decided on who you would like to mentor this year? I do hope you enjoy this new program."

Ruby immediately popped up and answered, "They look great! It almost reminds me of us when we first met, and now look at us! Besides CFVY, we are the best team on campus! It'll be so much fun! Oh, and I want the girl…" she added almost as an afterthought.

Weiss quickly challenged her, "No fair! Why do you get the girl? All three of those boys look like complete snobs. Especially the big one! He seems like an absolutely disgusting monster! Besides, knowing you, she'll never know what it means to be ladylike! I think I should have the girl!"

While Weiss and Ruby argued on who would have Amethyst as their pupil, Blake calmly stood up, looked at Professor Ozpin and said, "I would prefer to have the boy in black study under me, if at all possible." Professor Ozpin nodded and said, "That's one off the board, only three left."

Yang jumped in, looking all fired up, "I'll take fire boy. His punches are a little weak, but under me, he'll learn a thing or two." She stated with a cocky smirk and a wink.

"Very well then, I'll see to it that you are accommodated." Professor Ozpin replied.

By this time, Weiss had finally decided she had had enough, and gave in. "Fine! Take the stupid girl! My pupil will be way better than yours!" with that she turned to Professor Ozpin, "Who is left available sir? I would prefer the boy who was able to command fire and ice."

Ozpin answered, "Already taken I'm afraid." Weiss looked at him in shock. "What about the boy who is terrified of girls? He would be manageable.

"Again, already spoken for."

Ruby picked this moment to jump in, "I'm getting the girl in purple!" With that, she raced off to her dorm.

Weiss groaned, "Well than, who's left?"

Ozpin said, "It appears the only student left is the large man in green and gold." Weiss sank to her knees in disbelief. She had been hoping to get someone, ANYONE, other than the massive hunter, preferably someone she could easily intimidate.

With a rueful smile, Weiss said, "Well sir, I believe I have found my pupil."

Ozpin chuckled, "Indeed you have."