{Malfunction}

We were almost there, according to my heads-up display, the temple - and consequently, our objective - was 254, make that 253, metres ahead.

Scarlet didn't say or do much for the rest of our journey, still receding inside of her shell after her mishap with the tree.

I, on the other hand, had decided to actually talk to Gabriel and Kyzal - big surprise - at least attempting to break the ice in order to ward off the veil of awkward silence looming over us.

"So, judging by the cards, you're a gambler, right?" I asked, Gabriel nodded and pulled out the half empty deck of cards before fanning them out.

"Yeah, been doing it for as long as I can remember. As you have seen, these are my weapons, my… tools of destruction, if you will. I call them Reapers, one-hundred and four playing cards that are surprisingly a lot deadlier than you'd imagine. Many a sore loser have learned that the hard way."

I analysed the deck he held in his hand before he ever so kindly gave me one of the cards. The Ace of Hearts to be precise.

The card was very much decorated in a sense that it had the image of the grim reaper on both the face and rear of the card. The reaper was holding his infamous scythe, no doubt ready to harvest the souls of the dead, or in Gabriel's case, take them by force. Chemical analysis showed that it was pretty much a normal card, though a minute amount of burn dust was mixed with the ink to give it incendiary properties.

I was kinda impressed actually, I've seen a lot of weird and downright illogical everyday items become weaponized, but this was the first time I had actually seen the use of playing cards. Gabriel must've had something else up his sleeve too, given the limited exposure to him fighting, these cards would have had no way in hell of penetrating as easily as they did back in the clearing, when we first met.

I hypothesised that it was probably something to do with that purple energy his staff emitted, though, further examination was required to determine an accurate conclusion.

Kyzal was way easier to get a reading on. The boy used a bow and arrow, a sharpshooter in every sense of the word, though hinges in the shaft indicated a secondary, possible melee configuration for the marksman to use in close quarters.

"Hey Kyzal, would it be alright if I hold your bow?" I enquired politely, hoping he would say yes so I could get both a closer look and a 3D scan of the weapon.

"Certainly, be careful with her though, she and I have been through a lot. If you break her, I'll break you,"

"Noted."

I gave him a (somewhat) grateful smile, as to give no impression of an ulterior motive. He didn't need to know that I was planning on scanning, saving and possibly planning on using an exact hard light copy of his bow later on.

He handed me his weapon, where I immediately noticed a golden detailing on the pitch black, metal shaft matching his similarly coloured quiver mounted on the back of his hooded jacket.

Kyzal had also been so kind as to hand over one of his arrows too, not like I could do much with it other than look at it and curse my semblance for having literally no ranged capabilities what-so-fucking-ever.

"You can fire it if you want… or can. Careful though, Deliare has quite the draw strength," The boy stated, although smugly.

I switched my focus from the bow and arrow to his concealed face. Slowly, I held the bow in my left hand and nocked the arrow with my right as I maintained what I hoped to be eye contact with him. I straightened my left arm, drew back the incredibly tense string and let the arrow fly.

If the boy was surprised, he didn't express it, as the arrow I had fired, managed to stick an unsuspecting beowolf right in the head, I had known the bastard was there for a little while and was just waiting for a reason to kill it. A dull thud indicated the beast's repulsive cadaver falling out of the tree it was perched in, before I put it to sleep.

My lips slowly curled into a smirk of my own before I handed Kyzal his bow. Gabriel was failing to understand how I had managed to kill a beowolf none of them had realised was present, both without looking and on my first use of a weapon that didn't belong to me.

The gambler's gaze alternated between the decaying corpse and myself, still trying to process what in Remnant had just occurred.

"How did you…?"

"Shoots well, little off balance towards the bottom of the shaft, though that can easily be compensated by adjusting your aim." I stated without pause.

Kyzal opted to say nothing, either he didn't have a witty comeback and was just as perplexed as Gabriel was, or the boy had nothing to say considering his challenging demeanour just got shot down by a kid in a beanie.

I turned to the gambler with a mischievous glint in my eyes.

"Oh, and by the way, I believe that makes Kyzal's kill count thirty-six, correct me if I am wrong, but that makes you even."

My smirk turned quickly into a wolfish grin before I carelessly placed my hands into the pockets of my jeans and walked away, intent on once more forcefully smashing open the shell of my midget partner and hauling her ass out of it before we reached the objective.


Scarlet was walking with an air of weariness and saturnine moping. Even Ray's display of archery prowess didn't elicit a response. Her heavy feet scuffling against the dirt path she lethargically walked was clearly far more interesting.

"Scarlet." The deep, yet smooth voice of her partner called. The girl shook her head and continued walking, her wavy red hair slightly bouncing from the sudden movement. Desperate to avoid contact so she didn't hurt anyone.

Again...

"Scarlet, seriously? Talk to me Rubine." Scarlet's instincts told her to pay attention to Ray's voice, but the girl, out of spite, fought them off. She didn't want to hurt him with her semblance, so it was best to just avoid all contact with him.

Ray's fingers curling around her shoulder made the girl instantly freeze on the spot. She felt him pull on her shoulder and spin her around to face him.

"Ray please..." She begged him in yearning. Though her pleas went ignored.

"We need to talk about this Scarlet. I understand that you can't control your semblance, but it'll be better if us three know what we were dealing with in case you do lose control over it again. Trust me, keeping us in the dark will only cause more harm than good." His reasoning demanded her to think on her current behaviour. He was right, if they didn't know the risks of being around her, how were they supposed to care for someone if – when – they got injured.

With a burdened sigh, carmine eyes connected to a pair glistening in a brilliant heliotrope as she tried to hold off the flood of ravaging emotions she stored inside her. If the deadly potency of her semblance didn't scare Ray off, then her inability to maintain a grip on her feelings would.

"Okay..." She breathed, nodding slightly.

"Walk with me."

There was something about Scarlet that Ray found both frightening and admirable. Her semblance, that carried the title of Entropy, was the physical manifestation of chaos.

When Scarlet is in proximity of anything out of the norm, where something could go wrong at any second, her body feeds off of it. Taking all of that risk and all of that danger, turning it into a scarily unpredictable energy that is capable is stripping flesh from bones, scorching the earth around her and embedding fear into the hearts of all men.

That was the scary part.

The impressive part was the fact that despite all of this energy bottling up inside her constantly, she always fought an ongoing battle with it to prevent someone getting hurt.

Imagine that? Waking up every day and spending every second of your life trying to maintain a hold on something that could potentially kill someone by merely bumping into them.

Ray compared it to a living nightmare, trying so desperately to hold back on your emotions and expressions just to stop yourself from unintentionally murdering your friends and family.

Scarlet was a ticking time bomb, any slip up, even the slightest loss in concentration and someone could die.

He felt sorry for her. He really did.

Sympathy and pity were emotions Ray would hardly ever express or even acknowledge for that matter, but this was a rare exception. The fact that his partner had it far worse than pretty much ninety percent of the student population and yet, they still bullied, picked on and tormented her with their narcissistic superiority complexes.

Though he couldn't deny her nobility. She was unwillingly burdened with the daunting reality that if she didn't focus, something bad could happen. Yet, she lived with that responsibility, thrived even, she did not get into this school by mere chance.

Really, Scarlet was a sweet girl, with a lot of love to give, but no one to give it to.

He would find it hard saying goodbye to her after he got that final piece…

A delicate flower as she may be though, Scarlet was no pushover when it came to slaughtering Grimm.

The girl was a death machine, even without her semblance. Ray shuddered in fear thinking about the kind of situation she would be required to use it in.

Should such circumstances ever arise, he would want to be as far away as possible when she lets go. After that tree got mutilated, he would hate to see the end result of her semblance on people, never mind the fucking Grimm.


Ray had managed to get details of Scarlet's semblance surprisingly easily. She was proving to be easily susceptible to peer pressure. A fact that she despised.

Scarlet couldn't withstand the intense glare from those violet eyes of his.

They were exceedingly bright, yet held a cold and calculating glare behind them. It was as if he was constantly searching for something and should he want anything from her, she would be the first to admit that those eyes were more than enough to get her to cave.

Despite this, those eyes were beautiful to Scarlet, quite contradictory considering the hard, yet unpredictable personality of the one who possessed them. Like twin gems, the eyes dared to be stared into, but what someone wouldn't realise, is that while they are analysing them, those amethyst orbs would be doing the exact same thing.

Keeping secrets from Ray would be a real challenge for the crimsonette.

Ray had relayed all of the information about Scarlet's semblance to Gabriel and Kyzal, if they were to be around such a dangerous force of nature, they had to be informed.

The hacker received mixed responses from the pair, Gabriel's behaviour picked up a more cautious undertone to it, though he still acted the same.

Kyzal? Well…

"So, by just merely touching us, she is capable of imploding our bodies just like that?" The hooded boy took a couple of healthy steps to the side as the four of them made their way through the forest. Ray had to admit, they were making great pace, with only 132 metres to go, they weren't far now.

"Yes." Ray responded without any inflection in his voice. He was failing to understand the sharpshooter's confusion. He wasn't even sure if it could be classified as confusion at this point, Ray thought the boy was just struggling to come to terms with it.

This was annoying him.

"Would you like me to say it slower for you to be able to understand it? Or are you a big boy and are capable of doing it yourself?"

Ray felt the boy deadpan in response to his condescending tone of voice.

"I'm not an idiot-"

"Are you sure?"

"-I just wanted to double-check." Kyzal's snappy reply earned him a shrug from the hacker.

"Absorbing information is a slow process for you, clearly..."

"Hey! Now you listen here!"

Gabriel chuckled at the petty bickering between the two and found his gaze wandering over to an extraordinarily quiet Scarlet Rubine.

Gabriel's initial impression of her was a cheery girl with a lot of energy. This at first was confirmed, though, after her infamous sneeze, he saw a drastic change in her mood and behaviour, and that unsettled him. In Gabriel's eyes, the fairer sex should never have to look so glum, as a lady's man himself, well…

Miss Rubine was in dire need of some cheering up.

"Excuse me, miss." The boy greeted courteously as he tipped his hickory tinted cowboy hat in her direction. He saw her spin her head around, watching as her hair – partitioned on the left side of her head – swung around with it. Bright red, luminescent locks swaying smoothly over her left shoulder to look at it him, paired with deep, crimson eyes that instantly began tracking his own purple orbs.

"Oh… hey." Her morose tone was enough to get the duellist's eyebrows to furrow.

"Why the long face little red? Surely such a pretty thing like yourself shouldn't have to be so upset?" A meek smile crossed Scarlet's face as her cheeks heated.

Not used to receiving compliments, huh? This will not do.

"T-Thanks." The girl mumbled reservedly. At 5'2, she was pretty short compared to Gabriel, with his 5'10 he pretty much dwarfed her. Though that looked like it was going to be a repeating pattern.

Not like it mattered though, all girls were special in their own way.

"I'm just a little… I don't know… down, I suppose..." The girl continued her speech.

"Hey, don't be like that. We all know what we're dealing with here, if anything bad does happen, it's not like we can't react accordingly. Seriously red, don't beat yourself up over it." Gabriel spoke in a reassuring tone, trying his best to dissolve any tension she had with a kind smile.

"Besides, I'm pretty sure you're not the only person here that's destroyed a tree, I doubt Ozpin will give you any grief for it."

Scarlet gave Gabriel a contemplative look as the words floated around her head. Eventually, she nodded, her meek smile becoming a little more genuine.

"See! That's the spirit, red! No need to feel so blue." A wink was sent her way as he joked, earning a small chuckle from the red-clad girl.

Kyzal and Ray had soon since stopped their minor dispute, just in time as all four of them closed in on a small stream in their path. Scarlet, Kyzal and Gabriel all walked through the stream, seemingly not bothered by the lukewarm water.

Ray, on the other hand, stopped dead in his tracks as he stared blankly into the ford. Water trickled gently over the stones, flowing smoothly as it followed the path of least resistance.

"Hey Ray, c'mon man, we're not that far!" Kyzal called as he pointed at the temple, now visible through the break in the trees.

His words fell on deaf ears as Ray's eyes never left the stream. A gulp made its way down his throat. His hands began lightly sweating through his gloves and his feet absolutely refused to move an inch from his position.

A sharp, yet ragged breath was released as the boy exhaled slowly.

"I uh-"

Bubbles floated to the surface, escaping through the gape in Ray's mouth...

"You guys go on ahead… I'll-"

Images of waves stretching towards the sky flashed in his mind; memories of fruitlessly attempting to swim to the surface, desperate for just one gasp of air…

"I'll… catch up..."

Scarlet and Gabriel looked to one another in apprehension.

"Are… you okay, Ray?" His partner asked cautiously.

Gabriel hummed thoughtfully. He'd seen these signs before. A strong declination to so much as twitch, wide eyes staring vacantly into the shallow water, hands slightly shaking; expectant of danger. A single bead of perspiration could be seen trailing down his left temple, slowly making its way down his cheek. Gabriel metaphorically clicked his fingers as he figured it out.

It was fear.

And if Gabriel had to put his finger on it, he would say that Ray was severely aquaphobic.

"He's scared." The boy concluded. Turning to Scarlet as he did so.

Scarlet frowned before she nodded and carefully trod over to the boy on the other side of the stream.

Once she had approached him, she carefully grasped his hand and he flinched in response.

"C'mon," She offered gently, smiling up at him as his eyes darted between her and the river, "I'll help you through it."

Slowly, she began to pull on his arm, leading him towards the water as his feet shuffled against the dirt beneath them.

"It's okay, it's just a little water. It can't hurt you." Scarlet spoke softly, trying her best to distract him from his abject horror. Her right foot entered the water, soon followed by her left and she stood there, looking up at Ray.

"Just keep looking at me." She instructed, her voice softly encouraging him to follow.

He kept alternating his gaze between Scarlet, the other two and the stream itself, before slowly and very, very warily taking a single step into the stream. As soon as his purple canvas shoe touched the liquid, he immediately pulled it back, shook Scarlet's grip off and hastily backed away from the stream.

Scarlet let off an elongated sigh. She had been too confident in herself to believe that she could help Ray get over what was quite possibly, a very deeply engrained fear. Something bad involving water had clearly scarred him for life and while she intended on finding out what it was, she knew that they all had to complete the initiation first.

She watched Ray, carefully analysing him as he stared into the water then looked around him.

"What is he doing?" Kyzal asked, his tone underlying his annoyance.

"Come on, Ray! We're literally at the temple and you choose now to quiver in fear?!" He yelled over to the boy from the other side in the stream.

Ray didn't respond, instead, the boy must've spotted something behind him and went after it. Briefly disappearing behind a large, jagged boulder.

A crystalline hum pierced the silence and the sounds of him hacking away at something were prevalent in the still air.

Before long, Ray soon reappeared, dragging behind him a slab of slate, just long and wide enough to fit over the stream.

"He's making a bridge." Scarlet mumbled, more so to herself, though just in earshot of Gabriel and Kyzal.

Gabriel chuckled. "Of course he is."

Ray, surprisingly, managed to flick the slate up and over his shoulder, before manually lifting it with a small grunt and walking towards the edge of the stream. The thing must've weighed several kilograms and yet the boy lifted it like it was nothing.

He allowed the slab to slide down off of his shoulder, its sharp, jagged edge digging into the ground before he shoved the thing using whatever strength he possessed in his arms, forcing the rock to teeter before toppling over and landing firmly on the other side, dust beginning to plume as he disturbed it.

Ray then, without hesitance, hastily crossed over his makeshift bridge with a serious manner.

"Let's go."


The final approach to the semi-circular temple was dead quiet, no Grimm nor student in sight, though on a series of pedestals were various chess pieces. Some of the pieces were missing; the black pawns, white knights, the black bishops and the black and white rooks.

All that remained were the white king and queen pieces, the black knights and then the white pawns.

The black monarch pieces didn't seem to be placed anywhere.

How foreboding…

Ray eyed each piece analytically, though didn't so much as touch one. It was, in fact, Scarlet that approached the pieces and looked at those that remained with a timid nature.

These 'relics' were clearly how teams got assigned, it didn't take a genius to understand that. Even Scarlet knew and she wasn't exactly the most intelligent person the hacker had ever met.

The girl in question stood on the stone blocks that made up the ruined temple, turning her head to look at Ray with an inquisitive look on her face.

"I suppose you should just pick one, not like it really matters which one we pick. It's not as if they have any ulterior meaning behind them or anything."

Anyone that thinks that is clearly an idiot.

Scarlet's attention returned to the pieces and she picked up one of the white pawns, holding it up in front of her sanguine tinted eyes. A satisfied smile involuntarily crossed her lips as she nodded and placed the piece inside one of the leather pouches around her waist.

"Hey, chuck us one of those little white ones as well, might as well pick the same, y'know?" Gabriel called to her beside Ray, Kyzal seemed to be watching the treeline for any suspicious movement, his bow in his left hand with an arrow pinched between his right index and middle fingers.

Grimm could appear at any second and the marksman didn't want to be caught with his pants down.

Scarlet happily complied with Gabriel's request, throwing him the second white pawn to which the duellist caught it effortlessly, he twirled the piece between his fingers playfully before flicking it up in the air with his thumb and catching it in the other hand before dropping it inside his right coat pocket.

"Are we done here?" Kyzal asked, still directing his attention to their surroundings.

Scarlet hopped off of the temple, landing next to Ray with a small thud.

"Yeah, we're good." She replied cheerily, locking eyes with Ray.

What are you looking at...?


Author's note:

I am literally at a loss for words here, author's notes are harder to write than the actual story itself, who knew?

Anyway, I hope this chapter was worth the time it took to write, edit and upload it.

Have a good one!

-Hydra