Chapter Three

'Sun rises in the East and sets in the West.' I looked up through the forest canopy to get a general direction of where to go. 'That means North is... that way.' Vale is on the equator, just about, so the sun takes a mostly straight path overhead. It was just a matter of seeing where the light was coming from, recognising that that was East, then drawing a mental ninety-degree angle. That's North. The further you go from the equator it can get a little bit difficult, as the sun moves at an angle to you, so you have to keep that in mind when estimating North.

On the other hand, further from the equator moss generally grows on the North or South of trees, depending on which side of the equator you're on, so that makes it easier as well. Basic survival techniques that you learn in Signal.

North established, I started walking. My arms had decided to take a small break because of the stunt that I just pulled, but they should be ready to go again in a few seconds. I was still confused about what had just happened. Your semblance is a part of what makes you you. It was established the moment you unlocked you Aura, maybe even the moment you were born, and as long as your soul persisted in your body and you had Aura to fuel it, it would not fail you.

'Yet another thing to worry about later,' I mused to myself, 'No use in thinking on it now, I just need to adapt. If I can't use my semblance as a backup when something glitches, I'll just have to be even more careful.' This week was steadily just getting worse and worse.

'Aaah, there we go.' Feeling had just returned to my left arm, so I pulled my pistol out. Just for safety. I hadn't been able to check the recoil on it, but it had decently sized dust rounds so I expected it to be powerful enough to do the job. A little bit longer and I felt my right hand again as well. That was good.

A rustling nearby caught my attention and my pistol was up in a second. The glowing red eyes set in a white mask had me easily squeezing the trigger before I even realised it. Three loud bangs resounded from the barrel in quick succession, one of them flying high before I compensated for the recoil. I whipped around, looking for another, and placed two shots into a second beowolf trying to sneak up from behind.

Annoying creatures. One of the most common types of Grimm, assuming the form of an upright wolf standing slightly taller than most men and women, as well as the signature black skin and fur, white mask, and aforementioned blood red eyes that all Grimm had. Each Grimm's mask is unique to that species, and the beowolf's mask was distinctly canine. Just as a Nevermore's mask resembles the face of a giant raven.

Unfortunately, there is one thing to be said about beowolves: for all their weakness when compared to most other Grimm, they never hunt alone. Almost never in pairs, either. Just like the animals they resemble so much, beowolves hunt in groups. Which meant I wasn't too surprised when more of them came rushing out of the surrounding trees.

Jumping back, I emptied my pistol with another seven shots, three beowolves down. The others barrelled forwards. I didn't have time to reload, so I holstered the pistol and reached behind me. The glaive came out, extending even as I stabbed it into a beowolf's neck. The head flew from the body when I ripped the blade out, spinning to the side. With a swing, an arm was removed from another one. They were trying to flank me. I couldn't let that happen.

I jumped above the beowolf whose arm I had just removed and kicked down on its skull, breaking it. The momentum launched me forwards and I planted the blade in the neck of the one behind it. A twist of my torso and hips had me landing on its head facing the direction I had jumped from, and I tore the glaive out of its neck while launching myself backwards. I flipped once in the air before I landed, spinning the glaive as I rose.

My knee gave out.

"Shit!" I barely had a moment to react, throwing the glaive at the nearest Grimm. My sword cleared its sheath to rip into the next one, the force behind the blow cutting cleanly through its chest. "Come on, come on, come on!" A hobble forwards got me close enough to grab the glaive again, but another beowolf had gotten to my left-hand side before I could. I ducked the swipe at my head and responded with a swipe of my own, ripping open the bright red flesh hidden under its black skin and fur.

My right leg extended fully into a lunge, and my sword stabbed deeply into its chest. I gripped the creature with my left hand and tore the blade out, killing it as well. There were more beowolves around me. My leg had to repair soon, but I couldn't wait for it. I jumped between the legs of one that had gotten between me and the glaive, rolling to come up with the glaive in my left hand and sword in my right. I stood fully, using the glaive as a crutch, and turned to face the horde.

Some people may have used this opportunity to taunt them, a show of bravado to raise their own spirits. I knew that taunting the Grimm was useless. Their hunger for human death never waxed or waned, and my own morale was solid. Maybe I would live, maybe I would die. I was living off of borrowed time, anyway.

The first beowolf to approach me got a sword through the face, the second lost its head as I spun and swiped through the neck, but the third flung me away when I blocked its arm with the glaive. I rolled back with the landing, getting to my feet as well as I could.

A loud gunshot drew my attention, on the other side of the Grimm. There weren't that many left. Maybe seven or eight, but they were getting dangerous. I wasn't mobile enough to prevent flanking like this.

I noticed a flash of yellow through the group, some of which had turned to face the newcomer. The others charged me, and, just as I was preparing to engage them, my leg responded again. 'Fuck yes!' With both legs working, I hurled the glaive through the middle Grimm and dashed forward. I leapt into a flying kick with both legs at another, stabbing down into its head as it went down. One of its fellows attempted to claw me so I hacked that arm off, and used its body as a shield from the other. I stabbed into it a few times, its body beginning to evaporate into red flakes. Kicking it into the last Grimm, I ran forward and jumped off the dissolving body to land on it, looking into the crimson eyes as I stabbed through its skull.

The body crumpled, and I hopped off. There was a small cloud of red rising from the rapidly decomposing corpses, covering the area before they dissolved as well.

"Tawn?" The voice was familiar, if not the sheer incredulity that filled it, "Is that you?" Yang Xiao-Long. A classmate for the past few years. We weren't close, but you don't stay in the same class for a while without at least knowing the names of everyone in it. Of course, Yang was the social butterfly of the year, so she tried to get to know everyone. We were amicable. Contrasting her exuberance, I tried to stay to myself mostly, barring a friend or two who had decided to go elsewhere, either to another academy or not getting accepted at all.

"Hi Yang," A small smile twitched on my lips, just enough to be friendly, "Thanks for the save." I turned and faced her, and I could see the moment she noticed my eye. Her eyes widened, her lips opening slightly in shock.

"What... happened to you?" A slight quiver in her voice as she got nearer. I picked the glaive up off of the ground and sheathed it and the sword, then walked closer.

"There was an accident as I came into Vale from Patch," My voice was as flat as I could make it and horrified recognition came onto her face.

"That was you? They said you were nearly dead when they got to you!"

"I... Yeah. It was pretty serious. I should probably still be in the hospital. The cybernetics haven't fully calibrated yet." She raised her eyebrow.

"Cybernetics? Plural? And why the hell aren't you in hospital?"

I grimaced, I didn't realise she would catch that. I wasn't really trying to hide it, though.

"Ozpin came to my room the day after I woke up, said that even though I'd miss the first day of the initiation I could still attend the test if I wanted. Otherwise, I'd have to wait a year." I paused briefly, "It may not have been the smartest idea. But I took it anyway.

"And cybernetics... I lost more than just an eye in the accident. I'm still getting used to it."

She looked like she wanted to say something, but stopped and decided on something else. "So... partners?" Her mood flipped quickly and she smiled.

"Sure, partners." I tried to smile back at her, at least. I wasn't sure if it worked too well, but I started walking anyway. "North is this way, let's get going."

Walking through a forest takes time. Whether it's avoiding the numerous roots and underbrush, ducking or avoiding trees and their branches, or just jumping from every sound that might be a Grimm in general. Every now and then we would hear something in the distance, but it was generally too far away to consider looking into it.

I think the worst part was dealing with the glitches in my legs every now and then for stepping on something new. The moment my foot set down in a way it hadn't before, the entire leg would freeze for a few seconds. To be honest, though, I was almost convinced that it was a reaction to how badly the glitch from earlier was and that my Aura was trying to prevent it by overreacting to every possible new issue before it became a problem. I was actually quite glad for that if it was indeed the case. It certainly scared Yang enough the first time I had to catch myself against a tree. I used the glaive as a crutch after the second time and took the opportunity to reload the pistol while we were walking as well.

Of course, we were walking through a Grimm infested forest, so we were bound to come across more sooner or later. Eventually, we heard the thudding footsteps of a pair of Ursa Minor, and I motioned for Yang to follow me. We climbed up a tree quietly and waited for them to lumber underneath us. They were a larger species of Grimm, slightly more rare than Beowolves, but still exceedingly common. They were named due to their shared appearance with bears, albeit keeping the common Grimm features like white bony outgrowths acting as both natural weapons and armour, white mask, and red eyes.

A quick nod to Yang, and we silently dropped down. Or, mostly silently at least. The moment Yang hit the Ursa she released a shout and punched into it, shattering its skull before jumping off. I, on the other hand, silently stabbed through its head and down into its torso, then simply rode the body down until I could step off the head.

"We should be nearing the ruins soon," I mused to Yang, "Hopefully it's not too much longer. I'm not sure how much more of this I can handle, I'm getting pretty tired." I didn't have a scroll to check my aura levels, but I had a pretty good connection to it. It had been feeling rather fuzzy lately and I really needed some time to meditate, but I could feel that I was lower than half. Considering that my aura was normally slightly below average anyway, I wasn't in the mood to find out how long it took before it ran out completely.

"Heh, don't worry, I'll save you if anything happens!"

"I'm not particularly fond of being a damsel in distress, you know."

"Either way, I get to be your knight in shining armour," Yang was grinning, "You can be all, 'Oooh, help me, Yang, you are my only hope!' And I'll be like, 'Have no fear, fair maiden! I shall protect you!' Then you can swoon and fall into my arms as we ride into the sunset!"

"I think you're having a bit too much fun with this," I was amused, but hell if I let her know that.

A few minutes later, we finally broke through the trees into a large clearing. At the centre of it laid a round ruin that definitely looked a few centuries old, if not more. Standing on pedestals that ran the inside circumference of the structure were gold and black chess pieces. There were a few missing from a full chess set, and even then there was only one pair of pawns of each colour. Considering one piece per partnership, that meant that there could be twenty partnerships, which is forty people. Assuming the standard four-man teams, there could potentially be ten teams that passed this test. Even then, seeing as only a rook and a bishop had been taken so far, I didn't see too many people actually passing. Although I hadn't noticed a hell of a lot of people at the launch pads either, so I doubted all the pieces would be used in the first place.

If I considered the pieces from a more symbolic perspective, the only ones that would match me were the knights. Maybe before the crash, I would have chosen a queen, out of pride in my own skills if nothing else, but now... There was much that I could improve on, and I didn't feel like I was quite good enough to be that arrogant.

"How about a cute little pony?" Yang was standing in front of the golden knight, and I honestly don't think she thought about the pieces too much. 'Oh well, the knight matched what I was thinking anyway.'

"Sure, go ahead."

She grabbed it and put it in a pocket.

"That was easy enough," I said.

"Now just back to the cliffs and we're done!"

'Gods, how can she be so damn exuberant?' Not that I was complaining, but still.

"Yeah, let's go."

We were halfway back to the trees before we heard a shout.

"Yang!" She spun around and smiled widely, running back.

"Ruby!" I didn't know much about Ruby, only that she existed. Yang seemed attached though, and that became a literal expression when she jumped on her sister and hugged her. I was pretty sure that she was something like two years younger than us, which begged the question of why she was there in the first place.

Accompanying Ruby was a white-haired girl in a white skirt, with a rapier by her side. Now that I thought of it, Ruby was wearing a skirt as well. Seemed like a pretty neat match, to me. They were both really short, too.

"Yang, you wanna let them grab a relic so we can get out of here? Not looking forward to the Grimm stumbling into us."

"Hey! I'm making sure my sister is okay," I may have touched a nerve there, but hell, we were just sitting still here.

"Be my guest, but we've all got a test to finish." She glared at me lightly, but gave up with a sigh and let Ruby go.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Hey, we'll wait for them, but we can't waste time," I looked at her from the corner of my eye, "And trust me, as a younger sibling it isn't always fun to have your older sibling fussing over you."

"Right, your brother was in his last year when we started at Signal, wasn't he?"

I just nodded, and we lapsed into a short silence. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a giant crashing sound, and I looked at Yang for a second. She met my eyes and raised an eyebrow, and I nodded in response.

"Ruby, come on!" Yang shouted at her sister, and her sister yelled back.

"We're coming!" A second later, Ruby and her partner were running next to us, her partner stumbling a bit but Ruby casually matching our speed. "Here we are!" She wasn't even breathing difficultly.

"Yang, your sister is scarily fast. I'm just saying."

"Hey, I'm right here!" And cute, like a puppy.

"Introductions, then, I guess. I'm Tawn Jasper, nice to meet you, Ruby."

"You were second in Yang's year!" Huh, I didn't think she'd know. Nice to be recognised, at least.

"Yes, I was," I confirmed.

"Oh, this is Weiss, she's my partner," The girl in question raised her eyebrow and interrupted her.

"Weiss Schnee, and I can introduce myself."

I raised my own eyebrow at her tone, and Yang bristled to the side but said nothing.

"Nice to meet you, like I said, I'm Tawn Jasper."

Up ahead we could see the source of the noise: four other students fighting a Nevermore, and not doing too well, either. It brought back memories, not good ones, and those memories made me angry. The little group consisted of two boys and two girls. The two guys were a big guy in heavy plate, while the smaller one was a blonde guy who I had noticed earlier trying to ask Ozpin a question. He had a shield on his right arm and a sword in the left hand. Of the girls, one was a black haired girl with a bow on her head and two pistols, and the other was someone that I definitely recognised.

Pyrrha Nikos, winner of the Mistral Regional Tournament... I wasn't sure how many times, but it was more than two. She was also on some cereal or other, but I couldn't have been bothered about that. It was a bit interesting that she'd come to Vale, though. She maintained her iconic gladiator look, with bronze coloured greaves, a corset, a single guard on her left forearm, and a circlet.

The situation didn't look too good, to be honest. The Nevermore was raining its steel-hard feathers down on the group, and only Nikos and the black-haired girl could shoot back. Just as we arrived though, the blonde guy seemed to come up with an idea. Whatever it was, it was probably better for them than sitting around trying to dodge or block feathery spears. He handed his shield to the bigger guy, although he didn't look too happy about it, and called out to the black haired girl.

For a brief moment she looked like she would disagree, but then she nodded and ran straight at the guy who was now crouched holding the shield above his head. She jumped onto the shield and the big guy stood up and flung her upwards just as the Nevermore came flying over for another pass. As she flew into the air, it became obvious that she wouldn't make the height, but then a darkened clone of her appeared below her and she jumped off of it, curving through the air to land on the Nevermore's back, almost blending into the feathers with her mostly black outfit and hair.

It definitely wasn't happy to have her up there and thrashed around, but she ignored its protests and tried to hack into the wings with the swords that her guns had mechashifted into.

Seeing how well the blonde guy's plan had worked, and noticing Nikos' shield, I told Yang about the idea.

"Hey, when I say go, you do what the black haired girl did, and jump off of Nikos' shield, then bring that thing down so we can kill it." Yang nodded determinedly and I shouted over at Nikos, "Nikos!" Her gaze snapped over, and I gestured at the big guy with the shield, then her, then mimicked throwing something on a shield, then pointed at Yang. It didn't even take her a moment to run through the scenario, and she nodded firmly.

"Wait for it," I told Yang, the Nevermore was a bit too far away, "Now!" She sprinted forward, reaching Nikos in a few moments, and jumped solidly onto her small shield. More of a buckler, really, but it did the job as Yang was launched upwards similarly to the black haired girl. Unfortunately, even with Aura, the difference in strength is noticeable between a man and a woman, so Yang didn't fly as high as the other girl did. Which wasn't really a problem, because the moment she got a few meters above Nikos she started firing her gauntlet-shotguns, like I'd hoped. The huge recoil that they had gave her a little extra boost to get up to the Nevermore.

"They'll bring it down, get ready!" I shouted to everyone, and not a moment too soon. Yang had broken one of its wings with a few well-placed punches, and the black-haired girl finally managed to stab into the creature's eye. The Grimm was coming down.

As it got closer we all avoided shooting at it so as not to hit the two girls, but the moment it crashed through the trees and the girls jumped off, we rained hell on it. Or rather, we rained hell on it until a streak of red bolted passed me, running through magical looking green sigils, then jumping on a white sigil to suddenly tear through the Nevermore's neck and end it in a second. As the head fell away, Ruby was revealed standing behind it, lifting a huge scythe onto her shoulder. In the wake of her sprint, red petals fell to the forest floor, blending in with those rising from the Nevermore's corpse as it decomposed.

I looked behind me, seeing Weiss with her rapier up and glowing green, and things line up in my mind. After Yang and the black-haired girl had brought the Nevermore down, Weiss had made sigils in the air that boosted Ruby's speed so that she could run fast enough and gather the momentum that had helped her do so much damage. Pretty impressive, to be honest.

"Nice one," I nodded at her, and she huffed slightly. I could practically hear her inner voice saying, 'Obviously.' But I ignored that and ran to go see where Yang was. I found her not too far away, leaning against a tree with a smile on her face.

"You okay?" I asked her as I got closer, and she shrugged away from the tree.

"Yeah," She looked at me, "Just, proud of my sister, you know?" I nodded at that.

"Yeah, I get it. She's quite impressive, I had wondered a bit about why she was here, but she's obviously ready."

We walked back to where everyone else was gathered, and I asked the blonde guy, "Hey, do you guys have your relics yet?" He shook his head, so I quickly mentioned, "They're over there. If can get one quickly then we can all leave together. Safety in numbers, you know?"

He looked up a bit nervously at the big guy, but nodded slightly, "Yeah, we, we should do that. I'm Jaune, by the way."

"Tawn," I looked up at the other guy, who spoke up for the first time.

"Cardin, Cardin Winchester. Jauney-boy, let's go get that relic."

While they walked away, I moved on to where Yang was busy fawning over her sister, Schnee was talking to Nikos, and the black haired girl was hanging off to the side.

"Hey, I'm Tawn," I spoke to the black haired girl, "The relics are that way, if you guys are interested." My words had gotten Nikos' attention as well, and I pointed it out for them.

"Thank you," Nikos said, "I'm Pyrrha Nikos, but... you obviously know that already." She didn't seem too happy about that.

"Eh, you're pretty famous, you know? It would be more of a feat to not know who you were." She nodded hesitantly in response. "But yeah, you guys might want to go get one of those relics before any more Grimm turn up."

Pyrrha nodded and started walking away, the black haired girl shadowing her quietly.

"Ugh," Schnee grunted, and when I looked at her she was glaring at me in disgust, "Every time." I didn't even have time to ask her what she was talking about before she stomped off towards Ruby.

A minute or two later and everyone had their relics, and we started our way back to the cliffs.