A/N: Hey, C. Exodia here! I hope you enjoy this new chapter! As always, I will gladly take any praise or criticism you would like to give. I enjoy getting content out to you, and maybe soon I will have a bit more of a schedule to make my chapter uploads more predictable.

Anyways, again, I hope you enjoy.

Pyrrha looked out of the plane. She sighed. Here we go again.

The view was stunning. The plane did not have far to go, but the sight of Beacon looming below was disorienting. Every view that Pyrrha had had of Beacon was indicative of its magnificence. As they rose up, up, up, from the helipad at the entrance of Beacon… it looked small. The clock tower was but a thin spire, the details and gears not visible to the naked eye. The small buildings all blurred together.

I'm still not used to flight. I don't think I'll ever get used to it. I belong on the ground.

She looked to her new friends, each having a different expression.

Jaune's was of stone cold determination and concentration, his hands fumbling over his weapon's hilt. His presence to the left of her made her feel rather unsettled; they were new friends, but the rather warm boy from earlier seemed to be gone.

The boy seemed to be permitting conversation to occur to his left. Two interesting characters- one being another boy sitting stoically and another a redheaded girl blabbing incessantly to both Jaune and the other boy.

Ruby's was of unadulterated, unrestricted glee. She was vibrating in her seat. The vibrant conversation going on between the small girl and her sister on the other side- try as she could, she could not focus upon it- gave a contrasting aura on her right to the calmer, stoic one to her left.

She tried to focus on anything she could. Thankfully, Ruby quipped over to her.

"Hey, Pyrrha, how do you plan to land?" Pyrrha was… perplexed by the question.

"What do you mean… land?" Pyrrha did not understand why she was asked how she would land. We would be set off… right?

"We're jumping out, silly!" Ruby pointed out the window separating the two. Forever Fall seemed to creep nearer and nearer. Its lush, dark red trees seem to stretch for miles, dotting the flat land and jagged cliffs alike. Water rushed down a few of those cliffs, creating a large pool of water in one section of the forest. As they loomed overhead, entering the confines of the overgrowth, Pyrrha noticed a lone winding railway track stretching through the forest itself.

The sheer depth of the forest soon became known to Pyrrha. It stretched way beyond the depths of her sight. Massive cliffs seemed to penetrate from the ground far in the distance, further burdening her sight and preventing her from seeing any end. A rough wind rocked the plane, beckoning a few cries of fear and a sickness to Pyrrha's stomach.

"If you'll excuse me." Pyrrha unbuckled her seat, ran into the restroom on the plane, and threw up in the sink. She then looked up at herself, cleaning off her face and the sink to the best of her ability, and splashed some cold water in her eyes and rubbing them.

"This is… what is to be expected… of a student at Beacon." She gives a slight chuckle, then winced. Everyone else looked so prepared… so ready. And here I am, trying to get a grip. Guess I gotta… get out there.

The redhead splashed more water on her face and shook her head. Drying off her face, she smiled in the mirror a bit.

"Well, I'm here. Best make the best of the situation I have anyways."

Pyrrha walked back to her seat but left her straps undone. Her breaths were heavy and fast, but she tried her best to keep her calm.

She then noticed Yang look over. "You okay, girl?"

Pyrrha gave her a thumbs up and tried to steady her breathing. After a few moments, she was able to bring herself to feeling better.

"Yeah, I was just getting ready for this." Well, it's not lying.

Yang just shrugged and relaxed back in her seat.

An hour later...

"Students, unbuckle your seats and prepare for Initiation to begin." Ozpin's voice echoed through the room as he opened the cockpit door. "Your Initiation this year is… rather unorthodox." He stops to sip his beverage, seemingly unperturbed despite all of the agitation the ship has gone through. "Nevertheless, I am not unprepared. Your initiation will start when you leave the plane and enter the forest. The first person you make eye contact with once you land will be your partner. You will proceed through the forest, combatting Grimm, murders of belligerent crows, and swarms of rapier wasps."

Ozpin takes another sip of his drink, and continues. "Your goal will be to obtain relics in the shapes of chess pieces centered in a clearing in Forever Fall. Following the tracks could lead you to success, but to traverse through the forest may give you this same outcome. You will be graded on your performance, and I wish you all a resounding good luck… and Welcome to Beacon." He opens the door to let students out, and Yang immediately runs out, shouting a resounding "Woo hoo!" that petered out as the plane flew past her.

More students begin to flood out of the plane as it whirs overhead. Various landing strategies are being put into play, as Pyrrha can see: Some are slowing their fall with weaponry; others are redirecting their flight path, and yet others are just simply crashing to the ground intentionally.

Pyrrha sees Jaune hurtle himself out of the plane, a white bubble seeming to form around him as he jumps.

She tries to formulate her own landing strategies, looking for any place out below that could be used to her advantage.

"Well, Ms. Nikos, you need to jump." Ozpin's voice realized that she was the last one in the plane.

"Oh, sorry!" Pyrrha evokes. She takes the leap, and the plane rushes past her. The redhead is now in freefall.

Pyrrha does her best to right herself in mid-flight, but she keeps her weapons sheathed behind her back. She scans her environment to seek out any way for her to slow her descent. Her weapons had no outward enhancements to assist in landing; the only advantage the redhead had was forward momentum.

A particularly tall tree was not far from Pyrrha. She glided across the air towards the branches of the tree. She managed to grab onto the branch and do a swing all the way around the limb. She winced, feeling a bit of strain in her arm when doing it, but she used the limb to fling herself forward.

Pyrrha used the momentum as she fell through the forest canopy; trunks became springboards for her feet, branches became temporary handholds, each grasp slowing her descent. Finally, after what felt like forever, she came to rest on the top of a shorter tree, its soft red leaves providing a pillow like landing for her bottom. "Oh thank the stars! I made it down." Then she realized down was still quite a ways below her.

Branch by branch, Pyrrha slowly made her way downwards. The strain in her arm still stung, and her hands burned due to the friction, but the pain was beginning to subside.

"I… wish there had been a better method for me to get- woah!" Pyrrha was near the ground when she slipped on a branch. This sent her tumbling down the last few branches and towards the ground…

...Or where the ground would have been if it were not for a certain blond boy.

"Oof!" Jaune was knocked to the ground by a wild Pyrrha.

Pyrrha was ready to quickly apologize when she realized she couldn't remove herself from the armor of the boy. She tried desperately to pull her hand, itself glowing black, away from his armor.

"Well, hello partner," Jaune said, laughing. "Having a bit of trouble? I guess my magnetism pulled you in."

"Not funny," Pyrrha squeaked before she was finally able to pull herself away from Jaune.

"So… now I've found one of my two objectives. We need to get to the other." Jaune sounded rather matter-of-fact on the matter.

"Where do you want to go, Jaune? We could try to find the train tracks." Pyrrha suggested. She felt that they could feasibly find a way to the tracks and use them to find their pieces.

Jaune quickly shot that down. "Pyrrha, the way I came from was a massive cliff. We'd have a long way to travel if we went for the train tracks. I say we go on foot to find the relics. That clearing shouldn't be difficult to find."

Pyrrha huffed. "Well, alright. We'll need to be on guard." She pulls out Akouo, keeping her eyes watching the forest.

Jaune chuckled a bit. "Well, looks like I'm not the only one who seems to appreciate the classics." He himself pulled out his sword, and kept himself in a guard position, ever ready to strike.

The two move forward carefully through the dense, red-hued forest. They began to hear roars; first off in the distance, then up close.

Pyrrha tried her best to put her best foot forward as the Grimm began to attack. They were few in number, but they seemed to be rather powerful. Many of them were Ursa; most of them had black fur and three or four bony spikes protruding from their back. Their faces were encased in that skull-like armor characteristic of Grimm, with red eyes glowing from within and unique red markings deviating from each one's eyes. They numbered about twenty, with one or two Ursa Majors deviating from the pack of the Minors.

Jaune dived into the fray, catching the attention of most of the pack. The clangs of his shield and sword hitting bone armor were the only things Pyrrha could gather from the fight as she lost sight of him. Her own attention was pulled away from her partner's situation by rapid heavy footsteps and a loud growl as a lone Ursa charged her. Its heavy paw came down on her, forcing her to put up her shield whilst dodging, deflecting it away but still making her wince over the brute strength behind it. Its second paw lashed out at her, the devastating blow again dodged by the much nimbler girl. This resulted in the paw getting stuck in a tree trunk for a moment, providing an opening. Her spear flashed outwards, using the opening, and glanced off the Grimm's heavily armored face. The now furious creature ripped its claws out of the wood, splintering the lower trunk of the tree and sending shrapnel everywhere. Pyrrha's shield came up to block her face from the stray wood as she crouched to provide a smaller target. A somersault from her position saved her from another heavy strike and put some distance between the two combatants. The Ursa reared up and roared at her, spewing bits of slobber in her direction. She spread her feet apart in a standard throwing stance. With Milo pulled back over her shoulder for a second for her to aim, she released it from her grasp. The Ursa was wide open; its unarmored chest was presented for the huntress in training. Its thick muscle was pierced as soon as the javelin made contact with the chest of the monster, but this alone was still not to finish it off. It let out a pained growl as it looked down to see a pointy stick poking it. Pyrrha used that moment to rush up to the monster and deliver a spinning shield bash into the butt of the spear, pushing it deeper into the Ursa and finally killing it. She felt the recoil of that, wincing at the shock she felt for a moment.

She looked up from the rapidly fading body of the Grimm, ready to rush to the help of her partner, only to see him slamming his shield into the Ursa Major. This slam attack dazed it and allowed Jaune to cut its leg off. The massive form of the beast, now unsupported, fell down on its side. Its inability to move didn't stop it from attacking Jaune, however, as claws and now its foot lashed out in all directions, trying to hit the knight. It was all in vain, though, as he slammed his shield down on one of its burly arms, pinning it to the ground for a few moments. Those moments before it ripped its hand out were all he needed to release his shield and dive onto the prone body of the monster with his sword overhead, ready for a finishing blow. A singular hack sent the Ursa Major's head rolling as the whole body began to dissipate.

Other Grimm were drawn to the sounds of fighting; this time, it was more Beowolf than Grimm itself. Many of those were lesser Beowolves, not even comparing to the sizes of the Majors the duo had faced.

Pyrrha tried her best to focus on what she could get done. Most of the creatures were again focusing on Jaune, as if sensing he was the bigger threat. She started impaling Grimm from the back of the group, usually dispatching a Beowolf with a single strike but taking more time with the lumbering, bear-like Grimm, having to dance around their heavy strikes and getting hits in whenever possible. She took quite a few scratches from the sheer frequency of these strikes but was also able to provide a distraction for her partner to exploit.

In the middle of the fight was Jaune, her partner, in a whirlwind of death as he used everything he could to decimate the Grimm surrounding him. A Grimm stamped forward with its clawed arms poised to strike Jaune, only for him to slide under another's legs and causing the charging one to hit its confused buddy in the face, making it fade into dust. He was up in a second, diving through the dissipating Grimm and impaling the attacking one with his sword. As he was pulling his sword out, Pyrrha saw a particularly nimble Ursa dodging through the trees, heading straight for her partners back.

"Jaune! Behind you!"

Jaune threw his shield at the Grimm's path. It connected with the Grimm's face. He then took the opportunity given by the dazed monster and sliced the creature in half. Its lower half sunk to its knees as it began to fade and it's upper half squirmed as it, too, began to fade.

In the direction that the Ursa was launched, the trees began to rustle. The other Ursa stopped attacking Jaune, staring at the direction where a member of their pack had been just killed before running off in a coordinated herd in a tangential direction. The Beowolves took after them a second later, easily outpacing and overtaking their larger and more cumbersome cousins.

Jaune and Pyrrha both turn to the direction of the rustling trees. The rustles turned to the snapping of tree limbs, and those snaps turned into the falling of whole trees themselves.

A gigantic Grimm enters their line of sight. It resembled a gorilla wearing a skull mask. Its skin was pitch black, reminiscent of other Grimm, but it, at parts seemed to glow red. Pieces of skull shaped armor seemed to adorn it at random parts of its body. It had very long arms, and even in its current stature, standing on all fours, it towered high above the two, over four times the size of Pyrrha.

"Pyrrha, run. We need to leave. NOW." Jaune's face took a look of abject fear, and Pyrrha immediately understood why.

It peered down and sniffed at the direction of the two students, who began to sprint through the forest to the best of their ability.

The monster began to let out a harsh cry that emanated through much of the area of Forever Fall and then chased after the two hunters in training.

Pyrrha seemed to be faster than Jaune in a dead sprint. The two spent their time throwing themselves through the trees in a desperate bid to save themselves from the titanic Grimm, which was simply tossing the trees aside like they were nothing.

Soon, they noticed a clearing in the distance. On one side, a cliff. To the rest of their surroundings, only a thick wood was present. Just the two partners, and this massive Grimm. They were going to be pushed into a dead end.

She noticed the Grimm's arm was about to swing at Jaune. "Jaune, to your right!" Jaune threw up his shield in response to the Grimm's attack, battering the creature away. Pyrrha noticed that a milky white bubble covered his shield. The Grimm was sent spinning, destroying trees in his wake while Jaune is sent in the other direction into a nearby clearing.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha rushes for the blond boy, who is groaning as he slowly is getting up. "What… was that even?"

Jaune seemed to smile at her, despite the fact that he seems to be in serious pain. "It's my Semblance. Repulsion. I can use it to augment my defenses and send enemies away from me. If it's as strong as… well, that, I can be sent back too. It's happened many times before."

She helps Jaune up, and the two prepare for the Grimm to reel back, and stand their ground.

Suddenly, another rustle. This time, not the cracks and falls that the two expected and feared. It was the other redheaded girl riding in on a… Goliath? Well, her and her partner, who seemed to be out of breath.

"Nora… never do that… again." The black haired boy looked to Nora, who simply smiled at him.

"Oh… Renny, look, other people!" Nora seemed rather jovial. To be expected… of someone who rode in on a Goliath.

Pyrrha cracked a smile at the two, but that smile was very short lived.

The titanic Grimm's ear-piercing roar echoed through the clearing again. The four turned towards the creature, whose lumbering form seemed to be a little damaged from the hit it had taken from Jaune's shield.

Pyrrha and Jaune both had their weapons out and as soon as the two saw the weird Grimm approaching Nora and Renny, the duo also pulled out theirs. Nora pulled out a large Warhammer, and her companion pulled out two small automatic pistols with daggers attached to the underbelly of the barrels.

The Grimm took no time to think as it immediately began throwing trees across the clearing at the four teenagers.

Pyrrha took notice on how each person attacked. Ren fired off shots as a distraction while speeding through the clearing and used amazing acrobatic movements to dodge the trees and the gigantic fists thrown in his direction. His dance took him around the gorilla, driving him out of the forest.

Nora seemed to focus on damage control. Her Warhammer was able to splinter even the thickest tree thrown at her, and… was that a grenade launcher? She seemed to serve a similar purpose as Ren, yet very different: Suppression fire. Her grenades seemed to affect the Grimm as its loud roars became pained, although not much visible damage was done.

Jaune seemed to be as he showed himself prior: A tank with great ability to do damage. Taking the brunt of the Grimm's focus, he seemed to try to damage the Grimm in any way possible. Although… his fatigue started to show. His stance was weakening; each hit seemed to slow him down more and more, making him seem more sluggish.

Pyrrha frantically looked for a way to assist her teammates in taking down the Grimm. She looked down the cliff and at the jagged rocks below.

"Guys! Draw him to the cliff! I have a plan!" She started running into the fray herself, taking the other flank from Ren. She, herself, began to take aim at the Grimm. Her goal, however, was to help direct the Grimm out of the forest.

"Nora, cloud its vision with your grenades!" The redhead seemed to do as told. She used a tree flung at her as leverage to launch herself high into the air. Once there, she turned her Warhammer into its grenade launcher form. She fired the launcher straight into his eyes, making him stagger backward, and then forward as it tried to regain its balance.

"Renny, fire at him and pace towards the cliff!" The boy did as told. Pyrrha, taking advantage of his stagger, stabbed the Grimm in the back of one of its legs. Upon doing so, the Grimm kicked back and connected into Pyrrha's torso, sending her rolling a few feet away, the wind knocked out of her.

The Grimm seemed to follow the path of the gunfire, staggering ever closer to the cliff, limbs flailing wildly as the grenade smoke began to clear from its vision.

Pyrrha coughed wildly and started to try and get up, her breath slowly returning to her in pained gasps. Akouo was left on the ground where she landed after taking that hit from the monster but Milo remained in her hands.

She ran back to the group as the Grimm inched ever closer to the cliff itself. Staggering, and bruised, but far from beaten, the Grimm bellowed a mighty roar, one that cut the air around them and tried to push them backward. It sent Pyrrha and Renny flying, but Nora and Jaune stood their ground.

Pyrrha huffed as she once again picked herself up off the ground. Upon helping Renny do the same she shook her head to clear it of the fatigue and dizziness the fight was causing. Still reeling from the buck she took when stabbing the back of the Grimm's leg, her mind racked any thought she could find to take down this Grimm. Immediately, her mind thought to both the repulsion of the Grimm's arm, the likes of which still showing as a weakness, and Nora's hammer.

"Nora, you think you could launch Jaune into the Grimm?"

Nora gleefully conceded to the idea, and Jaune reluctantly sighed and nodded. His reservations to the plan were made present. "You think… you can make the shot, Nora?" He asked the girl, who gave a quizzical look at Jaune. "Don't you trust me?"

Pyrrha nodded at Renny at her left, and the two ran straight for the Grimm. He grasped onto its stronger left arm, running up it to distract the creature. Meanwhile, Pyrrha stayed on the ground, dodging the weaker right arm, which it used to sweep around to try and knock Pyrrha off the cliff.

Nora shot a grenade down on the ground, and Jaune took a running start. He threw his shield down on the grenade, and himself on the shield just before it went off. The explosion sent Jaune flying at the Grimm. Noticing this, Ren dragged the scythes of his weapon down the length of its arm and flung himself towards the nearest tree, not knowing what would happen but realizing he did not want to be on the creature when Jaune impacted it. Jaune activated his semblance, the milky white bubble enveloping his entire self as he dove towards his target.

He collided with the Grimm with his right shoulder. Both of them were sent careening in different directions, Jaune straight into the forest and the Grimm down into the deep pit of the cliff itself. Pyrrha showed a great deal of panic as the boy careened over her head, and, in a fit of panic, activated her Semblance. This promptly slowed Jaune down and keeping his unconscious form from flying head first into a tree. He came to rest in the clearing, not far from the mouth of the forest itself, with his arms slumped over himself and his body cradled into the fetal position.

Pyrrha loomed over the cliff itself. The Grimm had fallen onto the sharp rocks, each one of them impaling throughout its body. One final cry was heard from it, and then silence.

She was joined by Nora and Renny- Is Renny really his name?- and the three loomed over the cliff in relative silence.

"We… took down the Grimm." Pyrrha's voice was calm, full of utter disbelief.

"We did it, Ren!" Oh. That's his name. Nevertheless, Nora still threw herself all over Ren, the boy momentarily dealing with it with a calm, stoic face as the girl gets out her enthusiasm.

Pyrrha stumbled back to the unconscious Jaune. What little that showed of his body was covered in scratches and bruises. His undershirt, showing on the very abdomen of his armor, was ripped, and small cuts dotted his arm.

"You… doing alright, Jaune?" She quipped to him, unsure if he would respond.

His response was a deep groan, one that assured Pyrrha that he was still alive. His hand clutched his stomach. "Remind me… to never do that again."

Pyrrha chuckled a bit, which turned into full-blown laughter. She then winced, clutching her own stomach and giving a gasp of pain. "Ugh… that Grimm really took a number on me."

"Serves you right… for laughing." Jaune gave a small smile himself. He then pushed himself up to his feet and dusted himself off.

"I think we just need to rest." Pyrrha motioned them to a large, shady tree, and beckoned everyone to sit down.

"So… you guys are Nora and Ren?" She motioned to the two of them, accidentally pointing at the wrong people.

"I'm Nora, and he's Ren." Nora points to herself and then at Ren, and then looked at Pyrrha. "How did you (italics) know our names?"

Pyrrha shook her head. "When you're yelling his name, it isn't hard to pick up who you're talking about. As for you, I was listening when Ren spoke."

Ren simply shrugged. "We did well to take down that Beringel. He was… a lot bigger than the ones I've ever seen."

Pyrrha looked to Jaune for another answer, but the boy had passed out again.

"I think… we really should let Jaune rest. He did a lot for us there." She gave him a look of concern that each took as a sign of understanding.

Nora smiled. "He'll be up soon, and then we'll all be ready to kick the butt of anyone who comes in our path!"

Ren crossed his arms behind his head. "We need to pick our fights right now if we're all wanting to survive the forest. Our objective is clear: Get the relics and leave."

Pyrrha took a moment to relax, and to look upward. Small bits of sun flocked under their tree, but the clearing was one of the few places in her view that the sun truly shined. Its warmth emanated to their tree, where a pleasant forest breeze gave a truly pleasant feel.

She knew that, soon, it would be time for action again. Time to find their relic and to leave… but, for now… they needed to rest.