Ash looks around smiling at the other student as he flies through the air with them until he hears the pained squeaking of a bird. "Birdie no!" He looks at Ruby, who has black feather trailing behind her; shoot Crescent Rose in its compact form in front of her to slow her descent before unfolding the blade and wrapping it around a branch, stopping her fall. Ash looks back up and sees a few tall branches in front of him. "Let's hope this landing strategy works." He mumbles and as he takes out his sword. He unlocks the blade segments and whips it around one of the larger branches. The blades stick the wood and the chain holds him back from flying any further. He pulls the blade trigger before the whiplash hits him and the chain blade retracts and pulls him towards the branch.
He grabs onto the branch with his sword and looks at the surrounding area from his vantage point. He turns to the sound of someone's voice and sees Onyx put his arms together, making the shields on his arms come together, forming a large circular shield and holds it in front of him to cushion his landing. The next one to fall near Ash is Weiss, who twirls her rapier and creates a circular purple glyph below her, using it as a landing pad to jump further into the woods.
Another boy with black hair with a pink streak, wearing a green shirt and white pants flies down after her. He pulls out green guns with long curved blades at the end of the barrel and stabs one of the blades into a tree, using gravity and his speed to spiral down its trunk to the ground. A loud blast rings behind Ash and he turns around and watches as Yang flies through the air, firing her gauntlets behind her, using the recoil of the guns to propel her forward. She cheers as she flips through the air, weaving in between high branches before using the trees to slow her speed and falling into the forest below her.
Ash takes a minute to marvel the forest around him from his vantage point. He smiles to himself and nods in approval. "Alright, enough sightseeing, I gotta find a partner." He starts slowly makes his way down the tree when a flash of light from the bottom of the tree catches his eye. He jumps down, using the branches to brace himself, and when he hits the bottom, he finds a glass chess piece, a king, embedded in the roots of the base of the tree. 'I wonder what this is. Maybe someone left it here by mistake? Either way, I should return it to whoever owns this.' Ash thinks as he uses his sword and carefully cuts away at the roots and pulls out the chess piece. The chess piece is light blue in color, but the glass looked faded and dirty as if it had been left under the tree for a while. Ash dusts the piece of as best as he can and puts it in his side jacket pocket, zipping it shut before taking off running into the woods to find his new partner.
Pyrrha holds her shield, Akoúo out in front of her as she flies through three trees before doing a forward roll on a branch of the fourth and changes her spear Miló into its rifle form and looks around her from its scope. She turns around and sees Jaune slowly flipping through the air, crying out for help. Pyrrha acts and flips Miló in her hand, turning it into its spear form, the blade sharpening through the butt of the gun. She rears her arm back and lifts her other hand in a 'thumbs up' position, using her thumb to aim her shot and throws her spear forward, the weapon firing a shot from the back end to giving it more speed. She watches as her weapon flies toward Jaune, hearing a faint think of wood and a cry of, "Thank you!" coming from Jaune. "I'm sorry!" Pyrrha waves back to him.
Ruby lands on the forest floor and runs forward, calling it out for her sister. "Yang! Yang!" Her mind works furiously as she searches for her sister. 'Oh, what if I don't find her in time? What if she found someone else?' She starts thinking about other people she can partner up with. 'Well there's always Jaune, he seems nice and he's funny. But I don't think he would do well in a fight. Hm, Oh what about Ash? He could do well in a fight. Then again, he said his fighting style might be too dangerous to be around, so maybe he isn't the best person to fight with.' Ruby shakes her head in frustration. 'Ok, who else do I know in this school, there's Yang, Jaune, Ash and…' Ruby's train of thought stops as she skids to a halt when someone walks in front of her. The person in question turns to her and Ruby slowly looks up to see Weiss, who makes eye contact with her, and looks down at the younger girl. The two stares at each other and Ruby gives the other girl a short smile, but Weiss turns on her heel and walks away. "Wait, where are you going!?" Ruby calls out extending her arm, but when Weiss disappears in the bushes, she lowers it and looks down dejectedly. "We're supposed to be teammates," she mumbles quietly.
Weiss walks through the bushes, pushing the occasional branch out of the way when she hears someone above her. She looks up and finds Jaune held up by his hood with a familiar red spear against the tree. He tugs at the spear to dislodge himself, but to no avail. "Urgh, come on, come on!" He stops and looks down at Weiss and waves at her embarrassingly. Weiss simply turns back around and walks away, leaving Jaune groaning dejectedly.
Weiss walks back to Ruby and grabs her by the hood of her cloak. "By no means does this make us friends." She deadpanned to the girl. Jaune sees Weiss leaving with Ruby and calls out to them. "Wait! Come back!? Who's going to help me get down from here!?" The girls vanish in the bushes and Jaune lets out a sigh deflated when someone calls out to him. "Jaune." He looks down and finds Pyrrha smiling up at him, "Do you have any more spots on your team?" He crosses his arms and looks away. "Very funny…" He eventually looks back down and ends ups smiling with her.
Out in another part of the forest, Onyx trudges through the foliage with his new partner, Rain trailing behind him. The two had met right when they landed, with Rain having to coax Onyx out of a tall tree. The end result was Rain having to break down the tree with her gauntlets and letting Onyx crash land with his shield. Onyx had also found the same silver chess piece as Ash in the tree branches and kept it as safe as possible, hoping to find a use for it. He and Rain barely spoke, the two of them completely focused on finding the temple and getting their relics. Onyx eventually looks back at the girl with interest and speaks up. "So, what else does your weapon do? Or is it simply a pair of gauntlets."
She looks back at him with cold eyes and swipes her wrist against the side of her belt behind her. The sides of her gauntlet whirl to life and long straight blade extend over her hand. A small cover moves away on the top of her hand and opens up to reveal a teardrop-shaped vial of water with dust crystals floating inside implanted in the center of her hand. A portion of the back of the gauntlet pulls back and falls over her wrist and clicks together under her arm. Onyx looks in awe as she calmly turns to the dark forest and slashes her arm to the side, firing a glowing blade of water from the front of her gauntlet. The water blade soars through the air in between the trees before hitting a stray Beowulf in the side of the head, decapitating and killing it instantly.
Rain swipes her arm forward against her belt again, making the blade retract and the gauntlet collapse to its base form. She turns to Onyx, who looks at her with a dumbfounded expression and puts her hand on her hip with a smug grin. "So, what else can your shields do? Or can they only come together?" Onyx regains his composure, puts his hands in his pockets and continues walking without Rain, "Find me a strong opponent and I'll show you they're not just simple shields." Rain chuckles and follows him into the woods. "Whatever you say, big guy."
Ash continues to make his way through the forest, using his sword to slash apart any tall plants and low hanging branches in his way. He stops running and plants his sword in the ground to take a quick breather and looks back behind him, looking at the swath of destruction he left behind him. He winces at the thought of the reprimanding he would get for destroying a large amount of the forest. 'I know Ozpin said, "Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path." But I think I went a little overboard on the destruction.' Ash hears something move the leaves near him, making him quickly grab and raise his sword at the trees. "Alright, who's there? Show yourself! Come on!" A faint voice calls out from above him. "Ash Valdis, who are you?" Ash turns around and finds the girl with the hood he met the other day looking down at him from a tree. She reaches for her side and whips out an assault rifle, holding it close to her and takes aim at Ash, but doesn't fire.
Ash tightens his grip on his sword and analyzes the girl and her weapon. She still wore her black cloak and hood over her clothes so he couldn't see anything under it. The assault rifle she carried was black in color had bright red markings that resembled flower petals running along the top side of the barrel. It had a long scope that looked like it was designed for sniping and an extra foregrip for her other hand on the underside of the barrel. The main grip and the short stock at the opposite end of the gun had an emblem of a red blooming flower with white stars on each of its petals, branded on either side. A few strands of her pink hair poke out from under her hood and her eyes were now a dulled red, looking like she was dead set on her goals.
Ash keeps his sword up, in case she tried to attack him. "I'm just a boy aspiring to be a hunter. I can tell you more later, you are my partner now right?" The girl's eyes widen as she realizes that fact and her eyes regain some of their color. "Yeah, I guess so." Ash holds his hands up as if he was surrendering. "Look I don't want to fight you, OK. Let's just find the temple and pass initiation first. I'll answer any questions you have about me afterward, sound good?" She nods, satisfied with the terms and jumps down from the tree. She holsters her gun at the side and extends her hand to the boy. "I never got to tell you my name. I'm Erica, Erica Thurium. It's nice to finally meet you, Ash Valdis." Ash looks at her wearily, surprised at her change of attitude, but put his weapon on his arm and takes her hand anyway. "Same to you, Erica." The two shake hands and Ash feels a sense of completion, having found his partner when a loud roar startles the two out of their trance. The look around frantically, reaching for their weapons and they spot two glowing red eyes watching them from the forest.
Back on Beacon cliff, Ozpin blankly stares looks out into the Emerald forest while Glynda watches the progress of the initiates with hidden cameras through her tablet. "The last pair of Ashton Valdis and Erica Thurium has been formed." Ozpin merely hums in approval as Glynda switches through the cameras before stopping at Jaune and Pyrrha. "I wonder Professor Ozpin, why did you let this year's roster of initiates become this different from the previous years. We have three students who haven't met the age requirement and three more who you let in despite their off-putting transcripts, like that Jaune Arc fellow. He may have good transcripts but I don't think he's ready for this level of combat." Ozpin takes a sip of his coffee but doesn't answer Glynda's questions. Instead, he looks down at a special meter on the upper left of his own tablet and smiles when he sees three out of four bars lit up blue.
Glynda sees Ozpin's smile and looks at her tablet when a loud roar makes the two professors look into the distance, where birds are flying away from a faraway area. Glynda toggles through cameras with her tablet to find what the monster is while Ozpin continues to stare into the horizon.
Ash and Erica separate from each other as a large gorilla-like Grimm know as a Beringel, comes barreling out of the woods and lands in the spot they stood in. It stands on its hind legs and roars loudly to the sky, sending out a shockwave that shakes the leaves off of nearby trees and makes Ash and Erica cover their eyes. The beast falls on all fours stares the teens down before lunging at them. The two jump to either side of the Grimm as it smashes down on where they once stood, but it reaches out and is able to grab Ash by the heel. The boy swings his sword at the Beringel's in an attempt to dislodge himself, but roars and smashes him down against the ground, holding up the boy upside down over its head.
Erica looks in horror when she sees the state Ash is in. His aura was able to take most of the attack but the force of the blow knocked him out. Erica yells as she draws her assault rifle and starts firing at the Beringel's other arm to distract it from Ash. "Put him down!" The Beringel holds its arm up to protect itself from her shots, which have little effect, looks on it. Annoyed by the girl, the large Grimm rears its arm back and throws Ash's limp body over the tree line and into the distance. Erica watches helplessly as her partner flies out of sight and the Beringel roars loudly, focusing its attention on the girl. Her eyes burn with anger as she turns and stares the Grimm down. "You're going to pay for that," she says in a menacing tone. Erica twists her gun's foregrip to the side of the barrel and pulls it back towards her, cocking the gun. Her weapon goes through a drastic transformation as an extra barrel flips out from under the gun and attaches itself to the main barrel and the stock opens up from the top and reveals extra dust-infused sniper rounds of different colors. Holding her new sniper rifle, Erica takes aim at the left eye of the Beringel and fires off a single loud shot that reverberates through the forest.
Yang looks into the distance from the forest temple, having heard the gunshot. "Blake, did you hear that?! Someone needs our help!" The black-haired girl doesn't respond to the partner as looks to the sky with a blank expression. Yang looks at her partner with a raised eyebrow. "Blake, what are you looking at?" The other girl simply points up and Yang follows her finger to see Ruby flailing her arms as she falls from the sky. "Yaaannggg!"
