Hello! I have decided to extend the waiting period for each chapter by a day, so that there is two days between each chapter. Recently I've barely been able to update on time so this should allow me to relax a little. So here is chapter two!
Chapter 3: A Rusty Coin
"There is no fear without some hope, and no hope without some fear."
— Baruch Spinoza
I woke up that morning to the sound of Yang snoring. She had only woken me up once last night so I was feeling pretty well rested. I sat up and looked around to see that only about 4 other people were awake besides me, we exchanged glances and we each shrugged. I could tell we all didn't want to wake up the others so we were at a loss for what to do. I slowly got up and tip toed carefully around the people sleeping till I reached the door. I quietly stepped outside and stretched, breathing in the cool morning air as I stretched a bit and slowly finished waking up. After about 5 minutes I looked back into the ball room to see that no one else had woken up besides the 4 others that were also awake. I got an idea and made my way back to Ruby and Yang. I managed to wake Ruby up without waking any other people, but Yang was still snoring and even after 10 minutes of trying there was no way I was going to be able to wake her up. I motioned for Ruby and the 4 other people to follow me outside, once we were all out I checked to see if anyone else was awake, thankful to see that no one else was.
"What do you want?"
"Ya, it's cold out here."
"Well," I began, "I figured that since we were all up before everyone else that we should all get dressed and get first pick at breakfast." Ruby and the 4 others nodded in agreement. We all got dressed, (at which I looked in my bag to find a set of clothing that was the same as yesterdays) and headed to the cafeteria without waking anyone else, though I have no idea how. Ruby and I sat together while the 4 others dispersed to go wait for their friends. The 2 of us ate in silence for a while. I assumed that Ruby was still tired, given that I had just woke her up a while ago. We finished eating and I was about to try and start a conversation when I saw that she had fallen asleep with her head on the table. I was confused on how she was able to fall asleep after eating about 10 cookies that looked to be loaded with sugar. After a while of sitting and messing around with my scroll, more people began to enter the cafeteria. By the time Yang finally came in to join us Ruby was awake and munching on another cookie.
"So, how did you two sleep?" Smiling and doing her best to look innocent though she wasn't succeeding. Ruby glared at her but said nothing, so I gave my response.
"I was actually able to sleep pretty well, you only managed to wake me up once with your snoring." All I achieved by saying this was a death glare from Ruby, so I decided to change the subject as we headed to our lockers to grab our gear.
"So are you two ready for the initiation?" After all, Ruby had been seeming rather happy since she got her hands on Crescent Rose.
"Yup, no more awkward small talk or getting-to-know-you stuff. Today I get to let my sweetheart do the talking" Ruby explained as she hugged her weapon.
"What about you, Yang?"
"Oh, I'm more than ready." I saw Ren walking by with Nora, skipping behind him. Soon I was going to get shot into the air. Not fun. I remembered my aura and talked to Yang and Ruby about it. Yang was able to unlock my aura for me before the loudspeaker turned on.
"Would all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff for initiation. Again, all first-year students read to Beacon Cliff immediately."
"Alright guys," I began, "let's do this!" We picked up "Ladykiller" (aka Jaune) on the way to the cliff and then prepared for our first mission at Beacon. I was excited for it, but dreading it at the same time. We got out onto the cliff and Ozpin began his speech about teams, during which I didn't really listen. I had heard it multiple times during my multiple run-throughs of the RWBY series. I was a little more concerned about the fact that I was at the end of the line. I didn't have a tile to stand on because I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be here. That meant I was an extra person. After a while Ozpin finished his speech about the initiation and people started getting launched into the air via the tile they were standing on. About halfway through the line Ozpin managed a few things on his scroll and one of the tiles that had already launched moved itself back into place. Ozpin motioned me the tile and I stepped on to it, crouching down and getting ready to be launched. At this point the last person had launched, leaving me to be next. I looked into the air, heard my tile click a few times, and got launched out into the forest.
Once I was in the air I knew I was thoroughly screwed. I had absolutely no landing strategy and I immediately started panicking. Once I started descending to the forest I started thinking quickly. I was falling toward a tree, so if I wasn't impaled on impact then it would semi-cushion my fall. I turned around so my back was facing down and curled into a ball, hoping that my backpack would take most of the damage. I focused on my aura and prepared for impact. Unfortunately my plan didn't really go how I thought I would. As soon as I got into the tree a branch hit my elbow, causing me to spin around and fall face first into the tree. I did my best to try and grab a branch but most of the branches I hit broke and I continued to fall through the tree until I hit the ground on my stomach with enough force to knock the wind out of me and cause my vision to start fading out. I didn't black out, though, and after a few seconds my vision came back into focus and I started taking in short ragged breaths. I sat for a few minutes and slowly got up, I pulled out my scroll and opened it up.
"Crap." Apparently, my harsh landing took just about all of my aura in order to keep me safe. So for the rest of the initiation I would have to go without and aura. I began running to the abandoned temple, hoping I wasn't too far behind the others. After a while I had to slow down to a jog. After all, I wasn't exactly in the best shape. As I went along, I started noticing webs that were appearing more often in the trees. It soon got to the point that the webs were thick and were blocking some of the paths through the trees. A small web suddenly slammed into the ground next to me. I whirled around to find a giant spider the size of a van slowly moving toward me. The only problem with this spider was that it had a tail. One that curved up over its body similar to a scorpions, except that it shot webs. After diving out of the way of the next web I quickly stood back up and looked around, realizing that I didn't have much of a choice but to fight because the spider was blocking the only exit. Everywhere else was covered with thick webs. I actually smiled, happy to be given the opportunity to finally use my weapon. I called out the voice command that would grant me my weapon for battle.
"Battle axe!" My backpack whirred to life as it shot a handle up over my right shoulder. I grabbed the handle and pulled it over my shoulder, and as I held the handle with both hands my backpack proceeded to change into a full-out battle axe, leaving behind the two inch deep screen and keyboard on my back. I jumped to the side, barely landing on my feet as another web was launched at me. Because I had never been in a fight like this before, I did the stupid thing and charged. I swung my battle axe at the head of the spider Grimm only to have it bounce harmlessly off. I stepped back quickly but was unable to get out of the way of the next web that stuck my feet to the ground. The spider Grimm shot webs up my legs, keeping me from moving. I struggled feebly against the webs on my legs as the spider Grimm crawled toward me. I froze in fear, not knowing what to do. Soon the spider Grimm was inches from my face and I prepared for death.
"Great," I thought, "I get one good day at beacon and then I get offed by a giant spider!" Suddenly the spider Grimm let out a loud screech and I squeezed my eyes shut. Ready for the spider Grimm to eat me alive. But it never came. After a few seconds I opened my eyes to see that a King Taijitu had snuck up behind the spider Grimm and was currently strangling it. While the two were fighting I managed to work off the webs on my legs and ran past the two fighting Grimm. Managing to get away without either of them noticing. I continued to run until I was positive that I had gotten away, reverting back to a jog and looking into the sky. I saw a trail of smoke in the air a long ways away from me so I figured that Weiss had just set the forest on fire. That meant that Ruby and Weiss were officially a team. Though I didn't particularly like Weiss, it was nice knowing that I had less a chance of screwing up the teams. With luck I would be able to go through the initiation without making eye contact with someone who didn't have a partner. I figured that if I got to the ruins the same time that the team that would be RWBY did, then I would be able to finish without a partner. I had no intentions on changing teams. So I placed my battle axe on back which reverted itself back to its backpack form and picked up my pace, hoping that I wouldn't run into any more Grimm along the way. After a good while of running I passed my two ursa that had been killed, one of which was brutally beaten to death. I recognized this as Yang's work and continued to run. Soon I began hearing yelling in the distance, at least a mile away. I continued at my pace, hoping I could get there before running out of energy and praying that I wasn't going to be too late. I'd rather not have to reach the cliff on my own, with or without the Death Stalker and Nevermore. I finally burst through the trees into a large clearing with the ruins, I heard a lot of crashing coming from the other side of the clearing and turned to look. Pyrrha was running into the clearing as a Death Stalker crashed through the trees behind her. I ran down to the group sitting at the ruins which consisted of Yang, Blake, Ren, Nora, and Ruby. Yang had just burst into flames and I managed to pick up what she was saying, or rather yelling, in a fit of rage.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! COULD EVERYONE JUST CHILL OUT FOR TWO SECONDS BEFORE SOMETHING CRAZY HAPPENS AGAIN!?" After this everyone there kept quiet as I jogged up to the group. I also kept my mouth shut. Though we made two seconds, Ruby immediately pointed out after that Wiess had failed to jump from the Nevermore that they had ridden in order to get to the ruins. After which Wiess proceeded to fall. At this, Jaune tried to be heroic by jumping out of a tree in order to catch Weiss, but only managed to have her land on his back after going into a freefall. I looked back over to the Death Stalker to find that Pyrrha was being slammed by one of its claws, pushing her to onto the ground in front of us. Definitely not encouraging.
"Great, the gangs all here. Now we can die together." I shook my head at Yang's comment to which Ruby replied.
"Not if I can help it." Ruby charged at the Death Stalker. I ran after Ruby Knowing exactly what was about to happen. Once Ruby launched herself at the Death Stalker, the Death Stalker just bashed Ruby with its claw, sending Ruby flying back. I called out the voice command for my battle axe and continued to run to Ruby, though I was quite a ways off. Ruby proceeded to stand up, announcing to the group that she was "totally fine". The Nevermore that was flying toward our group launched its harpoon-sized feathers as Ruby was running back my direction. I managed to reach Ruby and pull my battle axe up just in time to be able to make one of the Nevermore's feathers glance off the flat side of one of the blades, causing it to land in the ground rather than in Ruby's cape. After this I ran back to the group with Ruby, hoping to avoid a battle with these two Grimm.
"Alright guys," I called out to the group, "we have no reason to fight these two Grimm. We need to grab our artifacts and run to the cliff as fast as possible"
"Run and live. That is an idea I can get behind." Glad to hear that Jaune was in on the idea I proceeded to grab an artifact, though I stopped in the center of the relics. If I chose one I would probably end up on a team. I turned in a circle, knowing I had to make a quick decision. I noticed that at the back of the circle there was a pedestal missing. I moved up to where it should have been and knelt down, finding a small handle in the ground. I pulled up on the handle and a small canister slid out from the ground. I opened it to find and king chess piece, made from dark blue crystal. I grabbed the chess piece and stuffed it into my pocket. Running after the others as they made their way to the cliff. As we approached the ruins at the cliff the Nevermore from earlier landed at our destination, keeping us from moving on. I cursed silently, looking out at the ruins. It was the same as in the series; only one path led to our destination. And if that was true and this was going to be the same then...
"Son of a-" The Death Stalker burst out of the trees behind us, forcing us all to run out onto the bridge. It put us right in between the Death Stalker and Nevermore. Nora proceeded to dodge a hail of the Nevermore's feathers then pulled out her weapon in its grenade launcher form. She shot a few rounds at the Nevermore, causing it to fly off. As we all ran across the bridge, the Death Stalker stopped at the start of bridge, unable to chase us while the Nevermore turned around and flew into the bridge, destroying the middle of it and separating our group into two. At this point I stopped paying attention to details and didn't look to see who was with me on the side with the Death Stalker or who was on the other side of the bridge. I brought out my battle axe and got ready to fight. Right before I charged Nora slammed the Death Stalker's head with her weapon (now in its hammer form) and jumped back, dodging the Death Stalker's tail which was now embedded into the bridge. I charged and swung at the Death Stalker's tail, but it managed to free itself just as I struck, causing me to hit the bridge that was already weakened by the Death Stalker's strike. This caused the bridge to start to collapse so everyone that was with me charged the Death Stalker. Phyrra and Jaune blocked the Death Stalker's claws while Ren jumped onto its tail, unloading his weapons it. Nora launched a few shots with her grenade launcher, stunning the Death Stalker long enough for Phyrra to throw her spear into one of its eyes. This caused the Death Stalker to throw off Ren, leaving me to charge it. I jumped off its head and swung at the Death Stalker's tail, cutting it off at the point that Ren had already heavily damaged. This caused the stinger to lodge itself into the Death Stalker's armor, allowing Nora to slam the stinger all the way into its head. We all jumped off the bridge as it finished collapsing and as the Death Stalker fell down with it, I looked back to see how Ruby, Blake, Wiess and Yang were dealing with the Nevermore. As I looked, Ruby was already running up the cliff side with her scythe blade around the Nevermore's neck, decapitating it as soon as she reached the top.
After our great battle we all made our way to the top of the cliff (except for Ruby who was already there). From there, we had to get back to the school to get our teams. Ozpin had us turn in our chess pieces in order to see what teams we were each on. But when I went to give him my chess piece, he just told me to hang on to it and that I might "find it useful". Whatever that meant, I had no idea. We stood in the room that we had our ceremony in and listened to each team get announced with their members and team name. I smiled as I watched team JNPR and team RWBY get announced, glad to be here and see it in person. It the occurred to me that Ozpin had sent a message to each team telling them where their dorm room was. But I hadn't been assigned a team. I was about to walk off when a voice came over the loudspeaker.
"Will Nick Arcane please report to Professor Ozpin's office" I grimaced and walked off, making my way to Ozpin's office. Figuring that he had realized that I didn't belong here and was probably about to kick me out of his school. It didn't help that he probably saw how terrible fighter I was during the initiation. I reached Ozpin's office and grabbed the door handle. Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself for what was probably about to happen, and walked inside.
This chapter we definatly more fun to write. I'm still looking for ideas on who to put into a romance with Nick, so please comment! Thanks for sticking with the story so far!