"This is so cool!" Jaune bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, staring at his hands and wiggling his fingers. His face was lit up with open awe, and the small scratch near his eyebrow had closed over within seconds. He was on top of the world.
Blake felt like crap. It just figured he had enough aura that she'd needed to expend almost a quarter of her own to unlock it. The speed of the drain had left her so dizzy and nauseous she'd nearly keeled over. He had apologized, and then proceeded to play around with his new aura. The sheer energy he was displaying made her want to shove him into a thorn bush.
"It is not cool," Weiss sneered at him. "It's mankind's inner light, not a toy."
Cardin snorted. "Hear that Jaune? She thinks you've got inner light."
"That is not what I said!"
Somewhere in the trees to their right, a twig snapped. Blake whirled around to look, fighting the urge to pin her ears back against her head. Listening intently while muffling all sound with a layer of fabric felt incredibly stupid.
"There's still room on team Jaune, if you're interested..."
Weiss made a half-disgruntled, half-disgusted noise.
"Be quiet," Blake hissed.
"What? I'm not interested, what's wrong with telling him—"
"I mean all of you! I think I hear something." They shut up, and it occurred to Blake that she actually preferred this tense, fraught silence.
Then, just as she was about to relax and say it was nothing, she heard something rustling—closer, this time. She drew Gambol Shroud and pointed it in the direction of the noise. "There," she breathed. Weiss dropped Pyrrha's spear on the ground and drew her rapier.
"I don't hear anything," Cardin said, far too loudly.
"Shut up!" Weiss hissed at him—making, if anything, even more noise. Jaune opened his mouth, maybe to say as much, and Blake clapped a hand over it.
Too late. The rustling grew louder, as though the monster sensed that it had been noticed. Worse, there were more noises behind them, to their left and right.
"We're surrounded."
"I still don't hear—" Cardin began, his tone dripping skepticism. An Alpha Beowolf exploded out of the bushes to his left and tackled him to the ground. He yelped—Blake sort of wished she could have recorded the noise—and started flailing around with his mace.
After that, all was chaos. A few Beowolves charged straight into the clearing, cutting their group into two—with Cardin and Weiss on one side, and Blake and Jaune on the other. More emerged from behind them, and Blake instinctively retreated to keep her maybe-future-teammate at her back. He made a pathetic eeping noise and backed away from the Grimm nearest him, jostling her.
"What are you doing?" she hissed under her breath.
"Uh... tactical retreat?"
Somewhere on the other side of the clearing, there was a blast of fire and a string of curses coming from Cardin. "What are you doing?" Weiss demanded. "You can't just attack out of turn like that!"
"Jaune," Blake gritted out. "We need to cut a path through these Grimm." He made a noise somewhere between an "uh-huh" and a piteous whine. "Just... put your shield in front of you and run through them." His aura was strong, if the way unlocking it had devastated her own reserves was any indicator, so he'd probably be fine.
"I guess I can do that," he said, sounding only marginally more confident.
"On the count of three. One, two—"
Weiss yelped, and there was a nasty thud as she smashed sideways into a tree. Blake looked up, frantically trying to figure out how the hell one of the Beowolves had gotten around her guard like that. There was only Cardin, who was swinging his mace wildly at a Grimm in front of him.
For a few panicked heartbeats, the girl didn't move from where she'd sprawled on the ground. Then, slowly, she picked herself back up. Blake was expecting a pained expression, but she looked ready to cut someone.
"You feeble-minded troll!" she shouted, pointing her rapier at Cardin. "What part of, 'Don't attack out of turn,' sounded to you like, 'Please hit me in the back of the head?!'"
"Behind you!" Jaune called out, as another Beowolf rushed to take advantage of Weiss' lapse in focus. She turned around just in time to parry the strike, then snarled and whipped her sword out in a wide arc. A column of flame immolated the Beowolf in an instant.
Blake was so busy staring at the spectacle she almost didn't hear the whistling of displaced air behind her. Ducking and twisting to the side, she had just enough time to stare in fascinated horror at the claws descending towards her face before Jaune leaped in front of her. The attack clanged off his shield, pushed him backwards, and sent him tripping over his own badly-planted feet. She went down with him, wincing as his elbow caught her in the gut.
As she lay on her back with Jaune partly on top of her, his shield digging painfully in to her upper arm, she realized with sudden and intense embarrassment that there were, all told, only six Beowolves and the Alpha, not counting the one Weiss had set on fire. She and Adam could have probably have taken them by themselves.
"Get off," she snarled, as Jaune flailed uselessly on top of her. The Beowolf he'd intercepted was gearing up for a second strike, and his shield was worse than useless where it was right then. He managed to roll to the side, and she realized what the problem was—the straps of his armor had gotten loose and snagged on his left sleeve.
Abandoning all attempts at grace and subtlety, Blake grabbed his wrist and yanked it free. She ignored his protests and physically lifted both his arm and his shield up to cover them. The Beowolf came down on it like a ton of bricks, and she didn't have the leverage to show him how to turn the blow instead of just tanking it. It didn't seem to matter, though—brute strength, at least, he could mostly handle.
"Up," she ordered. He scrambled to get his feet under him, so she expedited the process by hauling him up by the hood. Then she scanned the line of Beowolves separating the two groups, picked out one that seemed a bit unsure on its left hind leg—old injury, maybe?—and charged. She circled around as she faced it, forcing it to keep adjusting towards its weak side. It snarled at her, then lunged. Ducking under the blow was almost trivial. The one beside it tried to flank her, so she weaved between the two and slashed at the tendons at the back of the weaker Grimm's good knee. It toppled like a felled tree. One down. Two if you count Weiss'.
"Blake!" Jaune howled.
She whirled around, then realized that he'd been cornered by another of the monsters. "Just knock it off balance and push past it!" she shouted back. He stared at her with wide, guileless blue eyes. Oh, for fu—
Pain lanced from her shoulder to her elbow as the other Beowolf she'd engaged forcefully reminded her of its presence. It faded quickly, but she could feel her aura shattering—it had already been weakened by unlocking Jaune's, and this was the last straw. No more stupid mistakes.
Blake launched Gambol Shroud at the feet of her attacker, aiming to keep it off-balance. It tried to step on the ribbon, but jumped back with a yelp when she fired the pistol at its underbelly. Once it was distracted, she risked a glance at Jaune. He was on the ground with his sword held in both hands, at hilt and point, and had shoved it into the mouth of one of the Beowolves to keep it from biting him.
Another glance revealed Cardin smashing the Alpha overhanded, right on the crown of the head where its armor was thickest. Idiot. Weiss was too busy with another two of the creatures to correct him—Blake wasn't sure why she wasn't using her semblance like she had earlier, but she was obviously suffering from the lack of mobility. Three directions—four if she counted the Beowolf she'd been engaging.
Blake rushed over to Jaune. A kick to the side of the head broke the Beowolf's concentration long enough for her to wrap her ribbon around its throat and drag it away from him. He got shakily to his feet, and the widening of his eyes told her what she'd already guessed—the Beowolf she'd been fighting before was behind her.
She tried to use her semblance, then threw herself to the ground instead when it didn't respond. Dirt and leaves filled her mouth, but both were a lot better than blood. A quick roll returned her to her feet, this time next to Jaune. Both Beowolves were advancing on them, growling deep in their chests.
Jaune laughed nervously, raising his shield. Blake, who had never trained with a shield in her life, was still fairly sure that his stance was off. Very off.
"Plant your feet," she hissed under her breath. His parents must have donated a lot of money to the school. That might be a common thread between her three teammates, actually. He ground his heels into the dirt. Not what she'd meant, but there wasn't time to correct him.
The Beowolf that had been chewing on Jaune's sword came first. Blood was slavering from between its jaws, probably its own if she were to guess. It went for Jaune, reaching up to swipe at him. She ducked under its arm and sank her blade into its side, just below the ribcage. Jaune flailed at it with his sword, managing to chip its bone mask and accomplishing very little else.
"Jaune!" she shouted at him. "Forget the sword, just hit them with the shield."
"What? But that's—" The other Beowolf darted out from behind its brother and lunged for him. He hit it with the shield. Solid metal collided with the monster's teeth with a hollow clang and it reared back, dark ichor flowing from its damaged snout.
Blake finished off the one she'd stabbed by twisting the blade, angling it up until it grazed what she thought was probably the monster's lungs. It crumpled and began to dissolve. She was just turning to help Jaune when the boy grabbed his shield in both hands and rammed the edge end into his opponent's chest. It coughed more ichor, fell to the ground, and died.
"I... did it?" He was breathing hard, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, but a huge grin was just starting to spread across his face. Blake grabbed him by the shoulder and wheeled him around to point him at the others, who were both still fighting.
"Focus!"
"Huh? Oh, right!"
The other four monsters were split between Cardin and Weiss, with the Alpha focusing on the former and its pack surrounding the latter. One of them looked up as Blake and Jaune approached, its red eyes gleaming with eagerness and hunger. The Alpha didn't so much as glance at them. Instead, it landed a devastating blow on Cardin's shoulder, one that probably would've bisected him if it weren't for his aura and armor. As it was, he was knocked sprawling.
Jaune jumped over him, holding his shield out in front of him and brandishing his sword. Blake opened her mouth to warn him to plant his damn feet already, but before she had the chance the Alpha crashed into him. He stumbled, tripped over Cardin, and flailed for a moment as he tried to keep from falling on his backside. The Grimm growled, coming in for an overhead slash when his shield dipped too low to protect his head.
"Shield up, Jaune!" Blake shouted at him. She bit her lip, glancing at Weiss—who was too busy dodging around all three of the other Beowolves to get in a single hit against any of them—and then at Jaune, still flailing around to keep from falling over. It was one of the lesser Beowolves that made her decision for her by slashing at Weiss' face. She ducked, but still took a glancing blow that opened a long gash across her forehead. All of a sudden, her not using her semblance made a lot more sense—and it might have been Cardin that broke her aura.
Even as Jaune's shield rang like a bell somewhere behind her, she was already almost upon the first of the three pack members. It sensed her coming and whirled around. Long white fangs flashed in the dappled light of the forest, and she caught a glimpse of a blood red tongue as it lunged for her. Blake slid sideways, coming within inches of the monster's outstretched claws, then drew Gambol Shroud's sharpened sheath across its wrist. It stumbled, tried to catch itself, then reeled when its injured arm buckled underneath it. She brought her blade down on the back of its neck, and it stopped moving.
Weiss had looked around at almost the same time the monster had. As Blake met her eyes, she was trying to wipe the blood out of them with her sleeve—and probably staining her jacket beyond salvaging in the process. Her rapier was held in front of her, and when one of the remaining Beowolves approached her she twisted her wrist to land the point of it in the monster's eye. It went down in a heap.
"...Thank you," she said, very grudgingly. Blake nodded, stepping up beside her and facing the last Beowolf. It growled, low in its throat, then charged. She and Weiss moved at the same time, and Blake had to abort her own attack before she knocked her new "partner" over. The Grimm died choking on the blade of her rapier.
There was only the Alpha left, now. Blake turned to face the rest of the fight, and winced at the sight of Jaune backed up against a tree with the monster raining heavy blows down on his upraised shield. It clanged with every strike, and he was making a lot of undignified yelping and whimpering noises. Cardin was... she hesitated to call it helping. He was doing much the same thing to the Grimm that it was doing to Jaune—namely, hitting it really hard and not accomplishing a whole lot. Unlike Jaune, though, the Beowolf wasn't likely to break and run or keel over from exhaustion anytime soon.
Blake rushed over to help break the stalemate, with Weiss only steps behind her. Jaune's face lit up when he saw them coming. Unfortunately, before they got within fifteen feet of him, the Beowolf changed tactics. It twisted around in mid-strike and bulled into Cardin. He went flying, hit the ground, and skidded to a halt at Blake's feet. She pulled up short to avoid kicking him in the head—though she wouldn't exactly be wallowing in guilt if she did.
Cardin groaned, twitching feebly. Weiss made a derisive noise in the back of her throat and hauled him up by the back of his shirt-collar. Choking, he struggled for a moment before eventually finding his feet. Across from them, Jaune edged around the Grimm with his shield held in front of him—too high, blocking his vision—and came to a stop on Blake's left.
"Right," he panted. "Let's do this."
"Aw, come on!" Ruby wasn't whining. She wasn't. It was just... was it seriously going to be this hard to find one measly blond? At this point she'd be happy with either one—if they found Jaune, Pyrrha would have her javelin back, and if they found Yang, Ruby might feel a little less like a social trainwreck. Maybe.
Pyrrha drummed her fingers against her hip and frowned. "Do you think... maybe they went the other way?"
"The temple is this way," Ren said. "At least, it's in this general direction. So..."
"Probably the way they went," Sky finished.
"Um..." Ruby frowned. There was something wrong with that logic. "Jaune doesn't really have the best sense of direction."
"He has a partner though, right?"
"We think so." Sky stood ramrod straight when Pyrrha turned to look at him. She smiled politely. "My javelin wasn't there, and I doubt he'd be able to pull it out himself."
Ren stumbled mid-step. "Pull it out?"
"I... um..." Pyrrha flushed. "I realized he didn't have a landing strategy, so..."
"That isn't actually an explanation," he observed.
Pyrrha mumbled something. Ren sent her a level stare, and she caved almost immediately. "I pinned him to a tree," she admitted.
"What?!" Sky yelped, then tripped over a root and went sprawling.
"It was all I could think of!"
"Just to clarify," Ren said, brow furrowing, "you pinned him by his clothing, right?"
"Yes? What else would I—oh."
Ruby winced. "Okay, let's just... not think too hard about that." Jaune was her friend, she didn't like the idea of him getting turned into a shish kebab.
Ren cleared his throat. "Moving on?" he suggested. Ruby was already starting to like his way of just wading through any and all awkwardness without comment.
They walked in silence for a while after that, which was... nice? Sort of? Ruby got the impression that Ren didn't mind it, at least, but she and Sky were both starting to get fidgety. When she blanked on conversation topics—again—she decided to call out, "Jaune? Yang? Anyone?"
"Who's Yang?" Sky asked.
"My sister," Ruby explained. "We... probably would've noticed if she was close."
"Um, why?"
"Yelling. Fire. Explosions."
"Ah," Ren said, somehow packing an entire soliloquy's worth of sympathy and understanding into a single word.
Pyrrha put a hand on Ruby's shoulder and smiled. "I'm sure we'll find her."
Ruby laughed. "I'm not worried or anything, she's really strong! Just... y'know, it'd be nice to be on the same team." It would also have been nice to be partners, but Ruby was mostly just glad she got someone like Pyrrha rather than... someone she may or may not have blown up.
Ren's expression suddenly pulled into a frown. Considering he usually looked so serene, it made her a little nervous. "Not that it hasn't been awesome working with you guys! And I mean, I might've been kind of freaked out by the idea of getting a random partner back at the cliffs but this has been way better than I was expecting..."
The frown deepened, and his eyes narrowed. "A creature of Grimm is nearby," he said quietly. Ruby cut off her rambling, feeling... mostly just relieved that he hadn't been looking at her. Stern Ren was kind of scary.
"What is it?" Sky whispered. His voice had gone up almost an octave.
Ren closed his eyes, then turned his head to the left. "I'm not sure, but it's heading this way."
Next to her, Pyrrha raised her shield arm. Ruby's eyes went wide. "Oh my gosh, you don't have your—"
"I'll be alright." Her partner smiled, and was she actually still relaxed?! Ruby would've already been running in panicked circles if she'd been without Crescent Rose, in the middle of initiation, with a Grimm bearing down on her and her team of still mostly strangers.
Sky, on the other hand, was breathing a lot faster than was probably healthy. "Um," Ruby said, reaching her hand out to pat him on the back or something and then realizing she wasn't totally sure whether it would be okay to touch him or not. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," he squeaked.
Ren did what Ruby had been psyching herself up to do and laid a hand on his partner's shoulder. Sky seemed to... dim in a way that was hard to describe, and then immediately relaxed.
"Whoa," he breathed.
"It's my semblance." Ren removed his hand, and the strange pall that had fallen over Sky lifted. "It calms people's emotions, and I can use it to hide them from Grimm if I need to."
"Cool!" Ruby wanted to elaborate—that wasn't just cool, it was possibly one of the best things ever and did he think people would notice if he did that during, say, a class presentation or something?—but a low rumbling noise distracted her.
"Is that...?" Sky didn't finish the question, but Ren nodded anyway. "Oh. Oh, no."
"Bigger doesn't necessarily mean more dangerous," Pyrrha said helpfully. "Sometimes larger opponents are slower and have a hard time striking agile foes."
"I bet flies say the same thing about humans with flyswatters."
"Probably!" Ruby grinned. "But flies don't get to use guns!"
Russel's screams of terror echoed through the forest, sending birds exploding from the treetops above them and scattering into the clear blue sky.
"Nora!" Dove roared. "Put me down!" Nora laughed. Or maybe it would be better to say that she kept laughing, because she hadn't really stopped since she'd first jumped on the snake.
Yang considered telling Dove that he'd probably be safer and more comfortable if he was actually holding on to the Grimm, but it seemed like a bad idea to get distracted. All her focus was currently on not falling off, and not dropping Russel. Both were easier said than done, really.
"Nora!"
The snake darted between a pair of trees nearly as thick around as Ruby was tall, and Yang had to let herself slip so that she was hanging upside-down under the monster, staring up at its scaled underbelly. Then it swerved sideways, making her swing sideways and clock her head on one of the trunks anyway. She felt her semblance stir in the pit of her stomach and tamped it down. It seemed like it would be bad form to catch fire while she was still holding onto Russel. He lost his breath in a huff when he collided with the tree, and the screaming stopped for a moment.
"This isn't funny! Just get us down so that we can—" Dove cut off with a yelp. Yang twisted around from where she was still hanging off the black head of the King Taijitu, then got a face full of pine needles. She gagged and spat, wincing at the taste of sap. The snake had doubled back a little and deliberately rammed through the branches of one of the trees. Somewhere below her, Russel started screaming again.
As the monster doubled back around itself, Yang used the momentum to swing her new partner back up toward its back. She didn't quite manage to get him high enough to grab onto the ridges on its eyes that she was holding on to, but she did let go of his hand for a moment so that she could grab his vest instead. The pitch and volume of his screams increased, and it occurred to her that maybe she should've warned him first.
"I got you!" she shouted. Seconds later, the snake finished whirling around and passed within inches of itself, the black head's cheek grazing against its paler counterpart. Dove and Russel smashed into one another, clung together for a moment, and then were ripped apart by the snake's momentum.
"That's the prob—ah!" Russel slashed out with one of his daggers, slicing a branch off a nearby tree an instant before it would have hit him in the gut.
"This. Is. Awesome!" Nora cheered. Yang couldn't help it—she burst out laughing.
"NORA!"
Yang had to heave herself upwards, anchoring herself more on the monster's side than under it, so that she could avoid being smashed against the ground as it lowered its head. She couldn't quite manage the same for Russel, who ended up dragged belly-up across the forest floor for a dozen feet or so before he recovered enough to grab desperately for her arm. When the snake reared up again, he wrapped both hands around her bicep and was lifted into the air with her. She grunted, heaved, and got him sort of on top of the Grimm. Close enough, at least, that he could hold on to the back of her jacket.
"It's like riding a motorcycle!" she called back. When she craned her neck to look over her shoulder, she found him gaping at her, too stunned even to scream. Then he started laughing too—probably hysterically, but she gave him a quick high-five that nearly sent both of them tumbling off the side of the giant snake.
"NORA! PUT. ME. DO—"
One moment, all she could see below them were dead leaves racing by, faster even than the road did when she was on her bike. The next, there was only empty air and, far far below them, water. Yang stared—and then, as gravity began to take hold, she screamed. Dove swore. Russel shrieked. And Nora? Nora cackled.
The next thing Yang knew there was water in her clothes, dragging her down, and it was so bone-achingly cold that her mind went blank. Rational thought came back online in bits and pieces—and by the time she realized that she was underwater and should probably fix that, she couldn't feel her fingers anymore.
She flailed her arms, trying to swim, then stopped. Which way was up? She'd been spinning end over end when she'd hit the water. Twisting around, she squinted through the water until she found it. Light.
Kicking upward in that direction, she eventually broke the surface with a choked gasp and a litany of curses. Seconds later, something slammed into her and she was back under, struggling in the dark with no idea which way the surface was. Then, something coiled around her waist. Two pairs of red eyes loomed out of the black water, casting an eerie glow over her—and the black and white scales all around her.
Fighting the King Taijitu underwater had not been the plan. Yang tried to fire Ember Celica, then yelped when the pressure of the shot hit her. Her aura protected her from any damage, but a few precious bubbles slipped out and floated toward the surface. The bullets went a pitiful few feet before losing momentum and sinking toward the river's bottom.
More gunfire sounded from somewhere above her, but the noise seemed impossibly distant and none of the shots traveled far once they hit the water. The Taijitu raised its heads, ignoring Yang entirely to focus on whoever was firing at it. She kicked out desperately, trying to loosen its grip or force it to bring her out of the water or just fucking look at her, damn it!
Chest burning, she barely registered the splash of someone diving into the water until Russel was within arm's reach, his hair floating around him like a halo of seaweed. One of his daggers was held in his teeth. He reached out a hand towards her, and she grabbed it with both of her own. That, it seemed, was about as far as his plan went.
The Taijitu coiled around, fangs gaping wide as Russel braced his legs on the snake's body and heaved. She wanted to cry out—that hurt, and the rest of her didn't even budge. Another few bubbles drifted upward, and an instinctive inhale got water in her nose. Yang let go of Russel with one hand and used it to cover her face as her lungs heaved. Everything was blurry—was that the water, or was she passing out?
Russel slipped out of her grasp as the snake's white head slammed into him. He held onto it by its mask, then grabbed the dagger in his mouth and flicked the chamber. An angry stream of bubbles spewed from its blade, and the Grimm reared back. Yang reached out, but he was too far away. The water seemed to darken, details bleeding into one another as the bone-deep cold gave way to searing heat.
An innocuous plink, as something dropped into the water. Yang had enough time to look up and watch something pink slowly sink to right about the Taijitu's eye level. Right about when she realized there was a heart emblazoned on the side of it, it detonated.
Both the snake's heads caved in, sending twin clouds of ichor into the water. Yang felt her ears pop, and her aura shattered. The rest of her air billowed up towards the surface, and then water was in her lungs.
Breaking the surface the second time was a shock. She coughed and spat up water, then finally managed to pull in some air. Still spluttering, she craned her neck to see what was dragging her. Russel was behind her, his arms hooked under her armpits, kicking out for the shore.
Yang let Russel drag her back onto dry land. Her legs weren't really cooperating, so she ended up on her hands and knees, still hacking up a lung. A few feet away, Dove was on his back with Nora kneeling next to him.
"Is—" she broke off, coughed. "Is he okay?" Dove managed a weak thumbs-up, then let his arm fall back to the ground.
"I found him on the lake-bed," Nora explained, uncharacteristically serious.
Russel grunted and flopped to the ground next to them. They lapsed into silence, broken only by Yang and Dove's coughing.
"So," Yang said, when she had enough of her breath back. "D'you think we passed?"
Four on one. Blake began spinning Gambol Shroud over her head, watching as the Alpha's wary red eyes followed it. Normally she'd say these odds were pretty much a guaranteed victory, but...
"Yah!" Jaune shouted, rushing forward with his shield brandished in front of him—too high!—and his sword arm swinging. The Beowolf dipped into a crouch, closed its jaws around one of his legs, and flung him into the forest. He skidded to a halt nearly twenty feet away, unharmed thanks to his aura.
Cardin, who Blake would bet had been about half a second away from trying the exact same thing minus the shield, instead chose to start circling around the Grimm. Weiss wasn't moving at all—she was panting and leaning on her rapier like it was a crutch.
Right, Blake thought. Here's hoping I can solo it. Without aura. Great.
She shot Gambol Shroud, wrapping it around one of the monster's hind legs. Without her aura to enhance her strength she couldn't pull it off-balance, so instead she waited until it got bored of Cardin's constant circling and lunged at him. It didn't so much as stumble when she pulled on the ribbon, but she was sent flying towards it. A twist in midair, and she was crouching on the Grimm's back with her blade in her hand. She grabbed onto its bone armor, trying to steady herself—then toppled forward over the monster's head when it stopped dead in the middle of its charge.
Cardin was in the middle of swinging at the monster as she tumbled off of it. The shaft of his mace caught her in the gut, knocking the wind out of her. The Beowolf swiped at it while he was still reeling, and it flew end over end before burying itself in the ground somewhere off to their left.
"You're in my way!" he roared at her. Blake wanted to respond, preferably with something scathing, but she couldn't actually speak, yet.
"And you are in mine," Weiss snapped. Blake risked a glance her way, realized her sword was glowing, and decided she wanted to be somewhere else. She staggered upright and dodged another lazy swipe from the Alpha. Cardin, too, backed away rapidly.
Jaune hadn't gotten the message. He came charging back from where the Alpha had thrown him, just in time to smash shield-first into the monster when Weiss was lunging forward. She threw her strike wide to avoid hitting him, and an unfortunate section of forest burst into flames.
"You blundering moron, what—" The Grimm's claws flashed down at her, opening a nasty gash on her right arm when she threw it up to shield herself.
"Weiss!" Jaune yelped. "Are you okay?!" He turned to face her, reached out.
"Shield up!" Blake shouted at him. He complied, then ate dirt when the Alpha smashed into him.
"This is ridiculous!" Weiss slashed at the air with her rapier, her right arm hanging limp. "It's one Alpha, would you all just get it together and—"
"Us?!" Blake jabbed a finger at Jaune. "You almost set him on fire!"
"He ran in front of me!"
"Guys..."
Cardin actually growled in frustration, his face beet red. "And who was it who decided to do a somersault right into my fucking attack!?"
"Not again... Guys!"
Weiss sneered at him. "You do know you're supposed to be aiming at the Grimm, right?"
"Look, princess—"
"Guys!"
They all whirled to glare at Jaune. "What?!" Weiss snapped at him.
"I have a plan!" He said, flashing a grin—just as the Alpha slashed him across the back.
Blake managed to catch him when he pitched forward, sort of. The two of them rocked back and would've fallen over if her back hadn't hit a tree. Her head cracked against the trunk. Jaune, annoyingly enough, didn't have a scratch on him.
Cardin sniggered, which might have been the most useless reaction she'd ever seen to an ally nearly being bisected by a Beowolf. Blake glared at him, while Weiss huffed and gestured impatiently at Jaune.
"Well?" she demanded.
He shook his head, as though he were trying to get water out of his ears. "Uh, yeah. Plan."
"Jaune!"
The boy jerked to attention, his spine ramrod straight and his shield, for once, in a somewhat passable position. "Cardin!" he called out. "Can you distract it for a minute?"
"I'm not a distraction!" his partner flicked his mace out to point at Jaune, then waved it around. "You be the distraction."
Weiss shoved him at the Beowolf. He stumbled, yelped, then swung his mace to intercept an oncoming attack.
"Did you seriously just—" Jaune started.
"Plan. Now."
"Okay, uh... Blake, can you circle around it and toss me your weapon?"
She nodded.
"And Weiss can set it on fire, right?"
"I doubt that would kill it." She pursed her lips, then flicked the chamber on her rapier. "I can freeze its legs. That would leave it open to more attacks, if you think you or Cardin could do anything useful." Her tone suggested that she seriously doubted that.
Jaune looked up, then clapped his hands together. "Right. Go team!"
Weiss gave him a look, but darted off to find a better angle. Blake followed, circlig around Cardin and turning to lock eyes with Jaune. He held up his hands like he was about to catch a football. A gunshot sent Gambol Shroud in an arc past the Beowolf, eventually landing in Jaune's waiting hands. He fumbled for a moment, then got a grip.
"Ready!" he called out. "Pull!"
Blake heaved, then stumbled when she lost an impromptu game of tug-of-war with an aura-empowered Jaune. The Beowolf hooked an ankle on the extended ribbon and was thrown forward onto all fours. Its balance was only disrupted for a second, but before it could get up again a flash of white heralded great spires of ice that pinned three of its four legs to the ground. It howled, lashing its tail and pawing at its restraints with its one free arm.
Cardin raised his mace, the red crystal embedded in its tip glowing like an ember. Blake realized with a sudden rising horror that he was aiming for the exact same spot that he'd been trying and failing to penetrate the whole fight.
"Go for the throat!" she shouted. He swung the weapon like it was a baseball bat, catching the monster right around where the corner of its jaw met the rest of its skull. There was a sickening crunch, and then the mace's head exploded, sending bits of Beowolf skull flying like shrapnel in every direction. Jaune jumped in front of Weiss, his shield raised—too high, again!—and Blake ducked, wincing when she felt a few bits of bone scratch her upraised arm. When she risked looking up the Alpha was slumped in its icy prison, it's headless body smoking.
That... wasn't what she'd told him to do, but she supposed it worked.
Pyrrha had been right about one thing—the Grimm didn't so much charge into the clearing as it ambled. Ruby might've called it waddling, actually. Its face poked out from the bushes after a lot of rustling. Two tiny red eyes stared out from behind its bone mask, and just under that was a blunt-looking nose that reminded her a bit of guinea pigs. All in all, not the most intimidating thing she'd ever seen.
Ruby reevaluated that opinion when the rest of it came into view. It was covered in bone spines longer than she was tall, all bristling angrily. When it blinked, she realized that there were white scales on its eyelids. It stared balefully at them for a moment, then started shuffling around until it had turned its back to them.
"Um," she said, shifting nervously from foot to foot. "What—"
There was a low hiss, and some of the raised spines on the Grimm's back shot forward like bullets from a gun. Ruby yelped and got ready to run, but before she could Pyrrha had already jumped in front of her with her shield raised. A metallic clang sounded as one of the quills slammed into it dead-center and stuck there, quivering.
Ruby looked towards Sky and Ren, and found that the former was on his belly with his hands over his head, shaking like a leaf. His partner crouched next to him, pink eyes zeroed in on the Grimm.
It swung its tail back and forth, then turned ponderously back around and began lumbering towards them. Ruby glanced to her left—where Pyrrha stood, still half weaponless—then to her right—where Ren was helping Sky to get his shaking legs under him.
"Pyrrha!" she called out. "Cover Sky and Ren for a sec, I have an idea!" Then she let the world blur around her. This thing was slow, whatever it was. So, she'd be fast. Really fast.
She came out of her dash just in time to slash the blade of her scythe across the Grimm's eyes. It squealed and swiped at her with clawed paws shaped like spades, but the attacks looked like they were moving through molasses. Another attack, redirecting her momentum to drive the point of her weapon into its back. It fired more quills, but she had already dispersed into a whirlwind of petals.
Ruby grinned. Now this, she could handle. All she had to do was juke around it and hit it until it died. She circled around, then tried to hop over its shoulders—only for it to suddenly rear up onto its hind legs. A wall of bone spines smashed into her and sent her rolling into the dirt. She spat out a mouthful of leaves, then felt someone grab her forearm and pull her upright. When she shook the hair out of her eyes, Pyrrha was peering worriedly at her, keeping her shield between them and the Grimm.
"Are you alright?" Wincing—because darn it that had been really cool up until the end—Ruby nodded.
"This isn't working," Ren said. He had both his guns in his hands, and even as she watched he fired off a volley of bullets straight into the monster's face. It closed its eyes, the armored lids clicking as they slid closed. Otherwise, it didn't seem to mind being shot at. "It's too heavily armored."
"Perhaps its underbelly would be less difficult to pierce?" Pyrrha suggested. "Though I have no idea how we would get it to—"
"No!" Sky burst out. All three of them turned to look at him—as did the Grimm, which made him turn an interesting shade of green that reminded Ruby of Jaune. "Er, I mean the underbellies of these things are pretty tough, too."
"You know what it is?" Ren demanded. Then, "Look out!"
The Grimm was turning around again, and they dove for cover. Ruby blurred behind a sturdy-looking tree, Pyrrha raised her shield to cover Sky, who seemed frozen in place, and Ren ran around the creature so that he was facing its less dangerous front.
Three staccato thuds marked where quills had embedded themselves in Ruby's tree, and the second she heard the firing stop she was already scattering, shooting forward to reform next to Ren.
"Sky, you need to move," he shouted, jolting his partner out of whatever trance he'd been in.
"Razorpine!" the boy blurted.
Ruby stared. "Um, what?"
"That's what it is." He yelped, ducking behind Pyrrha when the Grimm—the Razorpine, apparently—took a few shuffling steps their way. "It's heavily armored pretty much everywhere, even the eyes, but its ears are weak points. Kind of. They do still have a shell around them, and that's armored, but if we broke that off we'd have an opening."
"New plan!" Ruby shifted her baby until she was sighting down the scope of the rifle. "Pyrrha? Cover me. I'm gonna see if I can do that." Belatedly, she glanced towards Ren and Sky. "You guys distract it, and if you get a chance then stab it in the ear."
They scattered, and Ruby forced herself to close one eye, take a deep breath, and focus. Another volley of quills came their way, but she ignored them entirely in favor of squinting at the side of the Grimm's head. Where was its ear, anyway?
Pyrrha's shield rang out again as a spine hit it. Ruby flinched, but kept sighting down the scope. She had to trust her partner to handle defense. Her eyes roved over black fur interspersed with white spikes, finally settling on a little flap of fur on the side of its head that she was around ninety percent sure was the ear.
"I see it!" she reported, then shot. The Grimm shook its head, roaring in protest, but was distracted by Ren slamming a palm into its face. Ruby wasn't totally sure what he was doing—probably one of those fancy aura-manipulation tricks that Uncle Qrow was always bragging about—but the attack put the monster off-balance. It turned to face him, though, bringing her target out of reach.
"Sky—" Ruby started, but he was already pointing his own weapon—it turned into a rifle too?! That was so awesome!
"Over here!" he shouted, firing at what Ruby figured was probably one of the ears. He didn't actually hit it, but when it looked at him she could see the ear she'd just fired on. Another slow breath, a squeeze of the trigger, and the flap of fur and bone was gone.
"Got it!"
Ren, who had been skirting around the Grimm to make sure it was always facing him and couldn't shoot him, slid to the side to grab one of the spines that had sunk into the ground. He hefted it in one hand, then darted forward and slammed it into the monster's vulnerable ear. A long, low, horrible scream shook the forest—and then, silence fell.
The Grimm collapsed and started flaking away. Ruby took a third deep breath—this time less because she needed to focus and more because she was feeling kind of light-headed.
"We did it?" Sky whispered.
"We did it!" Ruby crowed, turning and giving Pyrrha a high-five. Her partner didn't quite figure out what she was doing in time, and they ended up mostly just bumping wrists.
...Yep. Fighting Grimm was still way easier than dealing with people.
Yang had been pretty sure that she, Russel, Dove, and Nora would be the last in the ballroom. After all, they'd reached their objective, then gone on a completely unnecessary (but awesome!) side quest that led to them falling off a cliff and ending up half a mile downstream of where they'd landed. Even with all that, and a quick trip to one of the locker rooms to shower and dry off, they still walked in at around the same time as one of the other teams.
She narrowed her eyes as they passed through the doorway. "Wait, vomit boy?"
The blond of the group looked up, then cringed. Next to him, another boy Yang hadn't met burst out laughing. It wasn't the friendly kind, either.
"Did you guys have to clean up too?" Nora asked. This despite the fact that they very obviously hadn't. One of the girls, the shouty one that Ruby had blown up, had bandages around her forearm, but her sleeve was torn and bloody—which meant she probably hadn't been able to change. Try as she might, Yang couldn't quite manage to feel sorry for her. Watching her glare at Nora, though? That was entertaining. Arguably worth the whole falling-off-a-cliff-and-almost-drowning thing, just so that they could happen to bump into each other on the way in. Not that riding a King Taijitu wasn't already totally worth it, but still.
"We're sitting down," the girl—Weiss? That sounded right—snapped. She stalked past them, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she went. Behind her, her fourth and final teammate—Blake, the one Ruby had bonded with over books yesterday—shot Yang a look that was half pleading, half resigned. She winced in sympathy. Poor book girl, and poor vomit boy.
Still, she had an awkward little sister to find. Ruby's partner wasn't going to interrogate his or herself, now were they? Sure, it definitely wasn't Weiss—thank god—but it also wouldn't be either of the other two people she'd seemed to have bonded with before initiation.
"Ruby!" she called out as they approached. Her sister turned toward her, then made a shushing gesture. Yang just laughed. "Relax, everyone else is talking." She ruffled her hair as she approached, then slung an arm around her shoulders.
"Stop it!" Ruby whined. "You're so embarrassing!"
"Blame dad. So, who's your partner?"
"That would be me." One of the three that had been standing near Ruby, a tall redheaded girl, offered a hand. "Pyrrha Nikos."
"Oh!" Yang grinned. "The tournament fighter, right?" Pyrrha nodded. "Sweet!"
Another of her sister's potential teammates introduced himself as Ren, and his partner as Sky. She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, silently assessing—and then, "Ren!"
Nora came out of nowhere and jumped on him, nearly knocking him to the ground. He didn't so much as flinch. Then she let go and turned her full attention on Sky. "So, we can trade now, right?"
"As I've said," Dove grumbled, "That's against the rules."
Ren nodded apologetically. "I believe our professors were monitoring us during initiation. We'd have to ask them."
"Are you going to?" Ruby blurted. Then she winced and backed up a step. "I mean, that's fine! I just, um..." The rest of whatever she was saying was almost completely unintelligible.
Ren cocked his head curiously. "Pardon?"
"I thought it would be cool to be teammates?"
Yang tensed, but the boy only smiled. "I believe it's out of our hands, now," he said simply. "But if we are teammates, then I look forward to working with you." He turned to Nora. "And we're still going to be together, regardless of how teams are arranged."
"Yeah!" Ruby gave a thumbs-up. "Especially 'cause if the teams work out like it kind of looks like they will, Yang and me will be on different teams too. So we'll be sister teams, or... er, lifelong friend teams?"
Nora lit up. "Yeah! Ooh, and we could get dorm rooms next to each other and knock down one of the walls—"
Dove shot a pleading look at Yang and Russ. They glanced at each other, and both broke out in grins. Dove put his head in his hands.
"So, what kind of Grimm did you guys fight?" Ruby broke in, bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. "We found this porcupine thing, it even shot its quills just like a real one!"
"Actually," Sky broke in, "Porcupines don't shoot their quills. They just raise them to make themselves look bigger."
"Okay, but what's important is that it was super tough and we killed it! And Pyrrha didn't even have her javelin, but she was still all—" Ruby started bouncing around, making enthusiastic noises.
Pyrrha's brow furrowed. "Actually, that reminds me. I need to find Jaune and get it back."
"He just got back," Yang told her. "But you could always ask him after they assign teams."
"Especially since you guys never asked us what we fought," Russel added. Ruby turned to stare at them, eyes sparkling.
"Well," Yang said, drawing out the word and savoring the anticipation on her sister's face. "We found a King Taijitu. But I don't know if you could really say we fought it." Russel cracked up. Dove muffled a groan into one hand.
"What did you do?" Ren asked, directing the question very specifically at Nora.
"We rode it!" she answered happily.
"What?!" Ruby, Sky, and Pyrrha all burst out. Ren pinched the bridge of his nose, then opened his mouth to say something before he was cut off.
"Students," Professor Ozpin said. The hall fell dead silent in an instant. Yang wasn't sure if that was impressive, or just creepy. Maybe both. "If I could have your attention for a few moments, you will be assigned your teams and can proceed to your new dormitories." A screen behind him lit up, changing to show a panel of four faces—one of them her own.
"Dove Bronzewing, Russel Thrush, Nora Valkyrie, and Yang Xiao Long." He paused for a moment while they scrambled onto the stage. "The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces, and will be continuing your studies as team Brine." Brine? Seriously?
"Led by... Dove Bronzewing." Yang turned to look at her new leader. He seemed... less excited and more resigned. She grinned and winked at him.
Yang zoned out a bit as the Headmaster called up more students, stopping only to shoo each team off the stage once their turn was over. Then, the name Jaune Arc caught her attention. Vomit boy tripped over his shoelaces as he climbed the steps onto the stage. His partner sniggered.
"You retrieved the black bishop pieces," Ozpin told them. "Henceforth, you will be team Alabaster—" The screen lit up with the letters ABSW, with one of their portraits under each letter— "lead by Jaune Arc." All three of his teammates turned to stare at him with varying levels of anger, jealousy, and horror. He bore it all with a forced grin that made him look more nauseous than confident. Yang felt a bit like she'd just watched the headmaster of Beacon kick a puppy.
"And, last but not least..." Jaune, obviously grateful for his part to be over, stumbled off the stage. His teammates followed—or in two out of three cases, stomped—behind him. The screen lit up with another set of four names, and Yang beamed with pride when she saw her little sister.
"The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces," Ozpin said, as soon as the four of them had gotten onstage, "and will be known as team Raspberry—lead by Ruby Rose."
Yang looked up so fast she felt her neck crick. Ruby gaped at the headmaster until her partner grinned and nudged her lightly in the side. She glanced to her right, to where the boys stood. Ren smiled and nodded encouragingly. Sky flashed a thumbs-up.
Three new friends. Yang had been telling her that from the start, hadn't she? And now it had actually happened—the two of them were on completely different teams, and so far it looked like Ruby's teammates were going to be with her all the way. She was a leader, she had a partner she hadn't even met before initiation, and she was smiling. Ruby was finally going to be able to break out of her shell, make new friends. This would be good for her. Maybe for both of them.
That didn't mean it didn't hurt, just a little.
