Chapter 7

"Are we lost?" I ask Weiss suspiciously.

"Of course not!" she says proudly.

"Then where are we going?" I repeat.

"We are going... to... the Temple," her voice is rather obviously uncertain, and I give her a look.

"Weiss, you can tell me if you don't know where it is. I can just... summon an army of elementals or something," I say soothingly.

"You can?" She sounds surprised. "Really?"

"Well, I can summon up to six," I correct, "and they're a lot weaker than if I summon only 2 or 3. Speaking of which, I really need to get into the habit of having at least 2 of them out at all times." I don't see myself needing to recover Aura quickly any time soon, so I quickly summon Gnome and Roc, both manifested. The drain of 34 aura every minute isn't enough to counteract my regeneration of 66 per minute, though it does halve it. Oh well.

"Huh. I thought they'd look creepier," Weiss comments absently. I pout at her, then turn to my little minions.

"Roc, fly up and scout. Link your vision to mine, so I can see what's going on. Gnome, tell me if we get close to any Grimm," I order them. They both nod, then Roc shoots up, like a lightning bolt in reverse.

"You can link vision with them?" Weiss asks, surprised. I nod proudly.

"Uh huh! They cost way too much aura for me to use them in combat easily, but they've got a bunch of passive abilities that are really useful."

"Like?" she demands.

"Well..." I think it over, organizing my thoughts. "Let's see. Any of them can inform me of what they sense, though their weirder senses, like Gnome's earthsense or Roc's ability to see Ultraviolet and Infrared light are really hard to interpret, and usually give me a headache. So I usually just give them orders and let them interpret things for me. They're also decent in a fight. Even the low strength ones like Salamander and Roc are pretty much made out of their element, so while they can't hit that hard, they still do damage as per the element. They're not very imaginative though, so I have to give them orders and be pretty clear about things. I can't just say find me something that looks useful, I have to order them to get a crowbar, you know?"

"So they're closer to low level robots?" Weiss confirms. I nod.

"Uh huh! That's a good example. They also have their unique forms of mobility. Roc can fly without any problem, because lightning. She can also take over electronics. Fine control needs aura, but simply turning something on or off's pretty easy. Salamander's immune to fire and heat and stuff, but that's not useful. She's more of a combat type anyway. Since she's on fire, she's the only one who has any sort of Area effect even before spending Aura. Gnome can move through earth without disturbing it, so she can walk through low quality walls and stuff. My Metal elemental, Argon, can turn into weapons or armor. It's a lot less useful than it sounds though. She's also okay at noticing things, but she's better as a Tank, since it's really hard to hurt her. Next is my Water Elemental, Undine. She can swim really well, and sense stuff in the water, but since we don't really go near lakes or whatever much, she's not as useful as I thought she'd be. And finally Frost, my Ice elemental. She can move through ice like it's not there, and just by being there, it gets really cold. Physically speaking, she's a lot like Argon, but she's not quite as tough or hard hitting. She does cause frostbite when she hits though, so she's not straight up worse or anything."

"And you can have all of them here at once," she confirms. I nod.

"They're weaker, since I can't feed them as much power, but I can."

"Can you have multiple of the same type?" she asks, curious. I open my mouth the answer, then realize I have no idea.

"I don't know. I'll check!" I've still got about 9 levels worth left, so I feed it into a trio of level 3 lightning elementals. It works, and suddenly, I'm hit by all four of my lightning elemental's visions at once. "Ugh. Kind of," I explain after I manage to organize what I'm seeing into 4 screens hovering at the bottom right of my vision. "They're all the same elemental, just, multiple copies of it? Kinda? It's weird."

"Interesting," she muses. I nod.

"Do you mind if we sit down? I'm going to focus on their scouting and Gnome's earth vision, so it'll be hard for me to pay attention to where we're going, and last time I tried, I walked into a tree." Weiss nods, sitting delicately on a rock. I close my eyes and focus. It takes me a while, but eventually, one of the mini-lightning elementals manages to find what appears to be a giant stone temple, on the edge of the cliff, and connected by a bunch of stone bridges and stands. It looks dangerous, and like a single misstep will send you tumbling down into a very deep pit. So of course, there's a Nevermore guarding it. It immediately tries to eat my poor lightning elemental, whom I dismiss before it can. I send the image of the building to Gnome, who immediately gives me directions, before opening my eyes. "Found it,." I say, grinning.

"And it only took you the better part of an hour," Weiss says sarcastically. I give her an annoyed look, and she sighs. "Oh, fine. I'll admit, it was faster than walking."

"Nyeh." I stick my tongue out at her for a moment, before focusing my attention back on Gnome. "C'mon. It'll take a while to get there."

It does, but mainly because we're stopped halfway by Pyrrha Nikos (Level 13, Gladiator, Full Health) and Jaune Arc (Level 3, False Knight, health somewhere around 70%), running away from a Death Stalker (Level 16, Soulless, ~90% health). I immediately order Gnome to engage it, giving her access to 100 Aura per minute. It'll drain me out if I take too long, but that's better than having to blow 10 Aura each time I need to resummon her. It'll also let her do things like what she's doing now, stabbing the Death Stalker with a spear of earth. I back off a bit, Observing it.

Death Stalker
Title: Soulless
Level 16, XP 50.00%
HP: 452/500
SP: 500/500
AP: N/A (Locked)
Str: 50
Agi: 15
Vit: 50
Int: 5
Wis: 3
Luk: 3
Visible Skills:
Stinger Level 39 (3.08% XP): Determines accuracy with One Handed Clubs.
Power Blow Level 45 (88.89% XP): Deal an additional 98% damage with your attack. Costs 5 Stamina.
Stinger Mastery Level 25 (93% XP): Deal an additional 50% damage with a stinger.
Armored Carapace, Level MAX: Armor Level 30.
Grimm Restoration, Level 2: Regenerates 2% per minute.
Description:
A decently aged creature of Grimm, the land bound Death Stalker, despite it's lack of significant intelligence, remains a powerful threat. Its Armored Carapace allows it to shrug off many lesser blows, and and its Stinger can do immense damage to the unprepared. Combined with it's Power Blow special ability, being hit by a Death Stalker can often prove deadly.
Death Stalkers were singlehandedly responsible for the loss of Tiamer to the wilderness 500 years ago, which dealt the deathblow to the already dying art of Aura Blades.

A Quest has been created!
Aura Blades
The town of Tiamer, a good 350 miles east of Beacon Academy, has long since been lost to Death Stalker infestations. Cleanse it with fire and sword, and recover the knowledge long lost.
Rewards: 3,000 XP, 12,000 Lien.
Failure Penalty: None

... Okay, that was interesting, and now I totally want to find out what Aura Blades are, but also a bit of a tangent from what I was looking at. I call up a 1 level lightning elemental, then send it over to Weiss, unmanifested. "It's got an Armor level of 30," it hisses to her in my voice. "That means that the first 30 damage you hit it with per attack is ignored." In the meantime, I switch titles to Living Artillery. The 50% damage increase is significantly more helpful than a regen and mana bonus right now. I wince a bit as my current mana drops, but pull out Crimson Rose and open fire. Luckily, the thing isn't very agile, and doesn't manage to dodge my barrage of 10 Aura Arrows, each of which do 36 damage... before its armor reduces them to 6 each. So 60. Okay, I just took out about 10% of it's health. Not bad. Of course, that attracts its attention, and it disregards the others to focus on me.

I barrage again, this time only doing 1 damage per arrow. "Weiss!" I have Mini-roc hiss at her. "Can you hold it? If you can, I should be able to wear it down." I call back my other lightning elementals, then raise my eyebrows in surprise as Gnome spends only 2 and a half mana to rain a bunch of stone shards on it. Unfortunately, they fail to even injure it, simply bouncing off its armor helplessly. I start retreating as I shoot, accepting the loss in accuracy. Of course, the creature's so big that it's barely a loss, and I still manage to hit with them all anyway... not that it does much good. Stupid jerkface.

I drop an Aura Barrier in front of it, hoping to slow it down. The things have 850 HP now. It... works, actually, and a lot better than I expected. The Death Stalker's tail smashes down, hitting it for only 79 damage. Huh. I can take about 10 of those hits per barrier. Okay, this might actually turn out pretty well. I switch back to my Reaper title, taking advantage of the increased mana regen. Unfortunately, my current mana doesn't rise to match the rise in the cap, but that's okay. The almost 100 mana regen per minute part's more important.

Pyrrha, having noticed that it's temporarily held back by a Mana Barrier, starts opening fire with her rifle, the bullets doing about as much damage as individual arrows. Fortunately, her stats appear to be rather significant across the board, and I get the feeling that level 13 is underestimating her capabilities. She manages to knock the Stalker down another 10% or so in only a single hit, which, considering the sucker's armor, is pretty darn impressive. And then the next hit Power Attacks, doing almost double that. I decide to switch from my apparently useless bombardments to just keeping the Death Stalker off her back. "Weiss, keep freezing, I'll help with Gnome. Pyrrha, we'll keep it from attacking you, moving, or blocking, just stab the thing."

I unmanifest Gnome and then user her to back up Weiss's Freeze Glyphs with massive slabs of stone a la Earthen Grasp. The earth elemental's much better at it than I am. We hold the creature down while Pyrrha pokes some massive holes into it. A moment later, Jaune tries to attack, and fails miserably. I absently Observe him, then realize that the idiot doesn't seem to have any combat skills. How did he manage to get in? Whatever. I'm about to return my focus to the Death Stalker when Roc quickly sends me a warning to grab Weiss and get down. I launch myself at her, knocking us both over.

"You dunce!" she yells. "Why'd you- oh." I use Roc to get a good view of the stupid Nevermore that just tried to eat me, and then have her lightning bolt it. The bird fries nicely, but then goes after Roc.

I'm about to warn Pyrrha to break off, when I notice that Jaune already has. He shouts something, probably guessing I can hear it. While I can't, the elemental hovering next to him can, and relays it to me. "We need to get out of here and meet up with the others! We're having enough trouble with just one of them!"

"Agreed," I send back. I have leave Roc orders to harass the Nevermore and Gnome orders to harass the Death Stalker while the four of us beat a hasty retreat.

"I need to spend more time working on Aura Bolt" I mutter to myself as we find a cave to hide out in. The thing does more damage than Aura Arrow, despite only being level 5. Of course, Aura Arrow launches 8 arrows at once, but still. It's level 27, it really should be doing more damage by now. I put that aside as Weiss suddenly decides to confront Juane about his lack of any sort of combat skill.

"How did you get in here if you're so bad at fighting?" she demands. "Beacon isn't some ordinary starter combat school, it's where we go to learn how to fight monsters!"

"I am sure that he was simply caught off guard," Pyrrha says calmly. "Once he gets over-"

"No he wasn't," Weiss hisses. "He's level 3."

"Wait, how did you know that?" I demand. She glances at me in annoyance.

"Your semblance of course," she says, waving at the letters floating over their heads. My eyes widen, and I Observe her. Nope, she's still not the Gamer. So why can she... wait. I close out the viewcam-things of my elementals, and notice a small notification blinking. Leadership leveled up to 12 while I wasn't paying attention, and as of level 10, "Information you have obtained is now shared among followers." Well. That explains how she can see his level.

"Um, maybe one of you could explain what's going on?" Jaune asks, chuckling nervously.

"My Semblance lets me gather and share information really effectively," I explain, compressing everything down to the basics. "I can get an idea of your combat capabilities and everything just by looking at you. Levels are the fastest way to express this. Level 1 is your average person. Level 10 is an academy graduate from Signal. Pyrrha's level 13, I'm level 11, Weiss is level 10, you're level 3. That's the beginning of a second year at Signal. On the other hand, the Death Stalker is level 17, and the Nevermore's 16."

"What? He's even weaker than I thought!" Weiss complains. "So what's he doing here? He's obnoxious and useless!"

Jaune opens his mouth to protest, only for Pyrrha to beat him to it. "He is not obnoxious!"

"I'm noticing that you're not quibbling about him being useless," Weiss growls.

"Can we please stop arguing?" I beg. "Look, my Semblance has some really weird side effects, and one of them is that if you kill something while under its effects, you get stronger really quickly, so let's just kill one of them, he'll get stronger, and then voila! We don't have anything to worry about."

"Don't I get a say in this?" Jaune protests.

"Of course-" Pyrrha begins, only to be interrupted.

"No! I want to live through this, get the relic, and get back, and I'm not having the dead weight of your dead body weighing us down," Weiss growls. "Ruby, are you sure your Semblance works like that? And it's instant?" Well, that's one way of saying you don't want anyone to die.

"Well... it does for me," I admit. "And I'm pretty sure it does for other people, but I haven't had a chance to test it, per se."

"Look, I don't want it!" Jaune shouts, his voice louder than both of ours. "I'm not going to, to cheat my way to power!"

"Hey!" I protest. "That's my Semblance you're insulting!"

He ignores me. "If I can't do this on my own, there's no point!"

"If you try to do this on your own, you'll be dead," Weiss growls.

"Wait, what's this?" I ask, suddenly realizing there's probably something I'm missing. "I mean, we're assigned partners upon entering the forest, though admittedly, not in the best way, and then we're going to get four person teams when we leave it. There's nothing to do on your own."

"Except get everyone else killed," Weiss adds, apparently kinda stuck on the everyone dying thing.

"Perhaps we could all try calming down?" Pyrrha suggests. "Jaune, they have a point. If we have a quick way to bring you up to the power level the rest of us are accustomed to working at, there is no reason not to take it, especially in a situation between life and death. There is no room for pride in the life of a Hunter."

"... Wait. Really?" I blink at her. "Because I mean, if we're fine without pride, then why don't we just run away? I can just summon some more elementals, or open an empty Instant Dungeon or something. I don't know if they can follow us in, but I don't think they can."

"We're not running away," Weiss declares. "We're killing the stupid things."

"... Wait. You can summon more elementals?" Jaune asks, apparently distracted from his anger by that. I nod, taking advantage of the lull. "So... why not summon a swarm of elementals and have them take out the Nevermore for us? Like that lightning one that you were fighting it with earlier? It did some damage, right? And then we can go finish off the Death Stalker the way we were fighting it before the Nevermore interfered."

"Oh, that's a good idea!" I decide. "Just lemme rest for a little bit first. I need my Aura to regenerate a bit; Roc and Gnome used up most of it when they were distracting them for our, uh, tactical retreat, and, oh hey, one of the baby ones found Yang! I should tell her about the Death Stalker and the Nevermore so she doesn't get worried."

"I believe I might have misheard you," Pyrrha says after a moment. "Did you just say you want to tell someone about the Nevermore and Death Stalker so they don't get worried?"

"Yup!" I say cheerfully, ordering mini-Roc to tell her. "She says to have fun, and call if we get into trouble!"

"We won't need to make that call," Weiss decides. "Ruby! Summon your elementals! Show that bird what you're capable of! I'll help Pyrrha with the Death Stalker!"

"Okay, just gimme a minute..." I quickly invite Jaune and Pyrrha. "Here. This will let us keep track of each other's health and aura and stuff. You can also check your own ability scores by thinking status to yourself."

While they do that, I dismiss my remaining elementals. The small boost of recharge speed is still helpful. "I need two minutes," I order them. "I'm switching into a meditative trance to rebuild my Aura faster. After that, I'll help you on the offense."

"We can wait two minutes," Jaune says, sitting down. I sink into my meditative trance as he begins talking to the others. "So... what's she talking about? I thought Aura was just a force field?"

"That is the simplest use of it," Pyrrha explains. "Simply reinforcing the body in some manner. However, it is most commonly catalyzed through dust into an elemental form. This can be used to strengthen our weapons, fire bullets, or otherwise wreak harm upon our targets. However, what Ruby does is different. She shapes her Aura into a weapon directly, spending the light of her soul to strike at the darkness without any medium. Her Aura Arrow technique is an old one, developed from before we found Dust. Although relatively uncommon, due to the high skill required in order to even match a more mundane dust weapon, it is not considered "lost" like her elemental summonings. The elemental summons, on the other hand, I am afraid I know little about."

"Oh." I can practically hear Jaune's sad look.

"I suppose I can help out here." Weiss's voice sounds a bit grudging. "I wasn't able to attend the lectures, but I did manage to get my hands on some notes. Apparently, an elemental is contracted in two steps. The first is constructing an affinity within your soul. That is, modifying your soul to be closer to an element through extreme concentration and meditation upon the nature of that element. After your nature matches the element enough, you can construct a summoning circle, and call forth the elemental. By invoking an ancient pact, they agree to serve you, and in return, you sustain them with your Aura."

"So it's a deal?" he confirms. "Just promising to feed the element bits of your Aura, and in return, they help you fight?"

"As far as my notes indicated, yes." Weiss nods. "But the student I get them from wasn't really the best, so I'd suggest taking that with a grain of salt."

"What happens if you try to make a contract without sufficient... elementyness?"

"If your affinity isn't strong enough, they won't appear, but if it's fake, they'll attack you for trying to trick them," I say without opening my eyes. "I'm at about 30%. If I stay in the trance, I can probably send a couple elementals out now, and sustain them long enough to hurt the Nevermore pretty badly, even if I don't kill it."

"So long as the Nevermore does not interfere, I believe Weiss and I will be able to handle the Death Stalker," Pyrrha confirms.

"Jaune." I can practically feel her glaring at him. "You'll be watching for interference. Don't bother trying to interfere, don't try to help. But if the Nevermore's coming, and Ruby's elementals all went down, or if there's something we don't see coming because we're too close, or whatever, warn us. You can do that much at least, can't you?"

"S-sure thing, Snow Angel!"

"If you call me that one more time, I'm going to shove Myrt-"

"Ready!" I announce, interrupting them. "Roc, Roc the Second! You two take out the Nevermore!" I summon a third, slightly weaker one as well, then possess that directly, following the first two into the fight. The three of us quickly ascend to meet the massive bird, which begins by shooting feathers at us. After some rather epic dodging, if I say so myself, we return fire with massive bolts of electricity. The Nevermore shrieks, then apparently decides long range is a bad idea, and swoops at us. We scatter, then begin taking turns harrying it. Luckily, due to my meditative state, we're gaining about 632 energy per minute, so 10.5 per second. On the other hand, each bolt of lightning only costs us about 3. With three of us, that means that we're actually losing slightly less aura than we're gaining. Things are going pretty well until I'm suddenly forced awake and out of my trance. "I was bus...y." My yell dies in my throat as I look at the figure in front of me.

It's tall. That's not important. Its skin is made of shadows. That's kinda important, but not too much. Lots of people look like that when the light is bad. Instead of a face, it has a bone white mask streaked with red. That's pretty important. But its name? That's the most important. Because it's name, title, and level are "Ancient Grimm. ?, Level ?"

A Quest has Been Created
Survive the conversation.
Rewards: ?, ?, 25,000 EXP.
Failure Penalty: Death.
Duration: This Conversation.

"I would speak with you alone, false one," it hisses in a voice straight from my nightmares. "I will ask you questions. Why do you taste of flame and lightning and ice and water and metal and earth? Those who once did are dust in the wind. What are you? Why are you permitted to fake a soul when we are not? And if you do not fake it, why is it that when I taste you, I taste nothing but the void? And do you know where the Master is?"

"Wh-what?" I ask, my throat kinda dry, because there's a stupidly overleveled, really old grimm standing in front of me and asking questions, and I didn't know Grimm could talk!

It repeats the string of questions, and I decide that figuring out what's going on can wait until after I actually understand the questions, and the thing doesn't look like it wants to murder me. After all, if it can talk, it's probably reasonable, right?

"Um, I probably taste of, er, fire and lightning and wind and all of those because I made an affinity for those, so I could summon elementals. You know, make contracts with them and ask them to help me out? Like this!" I summon Argon between me and him, draining a level from the weakest elemental I'd summoned for the fight against the Nevermore. The creature in front of me glances at her, then looks back at me.

"How?" it demands. "Those who tasted of such are dead and dust, and no human has heard their words for hundreds of years."

"I... read a book?" I offer sheepishly.

"A book. A series of words imprinted onto the world. Yes. I understand," the creature decides. I refrain from pointing out that that's not exactly what a book is. "What are you?"

"... Human?" I ask, not really sure what it's asking.

"No you are not. You are a fake. A falsehood. A shadow, cast upon the world of some other creature. An empty shell, separated by the void, nothing but flesh around a false soul born of the elements and without emotions," the creature explains, explaining absolutely nothing.

"Well I don't know what to tell you." I shrug at it.

"Why are you-"

"Don't know," I say loudly, interrupting it before it can repeat the rest of its questions. "Actually, you probably know more than I do, so if you find out, could you tell me please?" The creature lets out a hiss of irritation, then turns and stalks outside. It returns a moment later, holding a dead rabbit. Poor bunny!

"Take an aspect of Death," it orders me. "Then summon forth the Servants of Grimm. I will forge the contract you have made with the spirits of the world, and I shall learn what you are and what you have done. And when I have done so, I shall forge a false soul, and create whatever tastes I desire." I stare at the rabbit, then at the Grimm. Then the rabbit.

"Um.., it'll take a while. Like, a quarter of a year. At least," I finally say. "And I'm not even sure it's actually possible. Can't you just generate yourself inside the Instant Dungeon or something?"

"Demonstrate," it orders me.

"Okay, okay," I mutter. "You don't have to be so pushy." I invite it into the party, then create the instant dungeon. I vaguely wonder what the others are thinking, before disregarding it. Then I wonder how the heck the invitation worked. Isn't it a ridiculously large number of levels above me? According to the now working title and levels, yes, yes it is, being level 267. And having the title "Ancient One." Okay, that's terrifying. Oh, wait, it's talking. Worry about this stuff later.

"Yes. I can appear here before the Fake," it decides. It turns its burning orange gaze on me, then nods. "I will learn from the fake, and I will find the Master and I will forge a false soul like the Fake has done." It turns and leaves, leaving me with a notification, and the feeling that it insulted me. Somehow I can't be bothered to care. Maybe because a Grimm just spoke to me. I think I'm going into shock. Wake me up when the universe starts making sense again.

"Ruby? What happened?" I wake up to see Weiss in front of me, looking worried. "We were fighting the Death Stalker, and suddenly your elementals stopped fighting as smoothly. The Nevermore took them out, and then your semblance claimed there was someone called Ancient Grimm in the party. After a brief moment of panicking about that, it deactivated. So what happened?"

"You know how Grimm get smarter when they get older?" I said, kinda dreading how I was going to finish this sentence.

"... You mean there was actually a Grimm in the party?" Jaune looks properly horrified when he asks that.

"Yeah... We had a talk. It's very creepy, and please tell me we can go home now, because I have no idea what to do, and I need to talk with Yang and Uncle Qrow and Professor Ozpin and-" I feel myself beginning to panic again, before a wave of calm washes over me. "Right. Anyway. Did you guys get the relics?"

"We weren't going to leave you here alone and probably dead!" Weiss protests. "The last thing we saw was the Grimm in the party, and then everything turning off! I mean, we thought it knocked you unconscious or something!"

"Aw!" I give her a happy smile. "Well, I'm okay. Let's just get the relic and finish this first, and then worry about this stuff."

The others give me concerned looks as I get up, but I ignore them in favor of turning in the quest, and assigning my stat points. For once, I decide to dump all fifteen, born of 3 whole levels, into Wisdom. Aura regen shoots up to 116, and I focus on the notifications that follow.

Through communication with the Ancient Grimm, you have earned the title Herald of Shadows.
Through communication with the Ancient Grimm, you have discovered more about yourself. Your greater knowledge of the self has resulted in an additional point of Wisdom.
A new Story Line has been created.
Find out about the Master
The Ancient Grimm has mentioned that it is searching for a being known as the Master. Learn more about this mysterious figure.
Rewards: 25,000 exp, +1 to Int.
Failure Penalty: None

Okay, so Aura regen's 119. Not about to complain about that. I close the notifications, and we move on, the others questioning me about exactly what happened as we walk. After about half an hour, we arrive at the Temple, where Yang, Blake, and a couple others whom I don't know are all waiting.

"Yang! Blake!" I shout gleefully.

"Ruby!" Yang shouts back, grinning at me.

"Hey." Blake waves, a bit calmer.

"Nora!" The other girl suddenly yells, striking a pose. I look up at her name. Nora Valkyrie, Mighty Warrior, Level 10.

"Uh... isn't that your name?" I ask, somewhat confused.

"Yes it is!" she agrees. "How did you know that? Gasp! Did you break our code of tree sloth calls? But I don't think I said my name. Unless I did in Sloth!" I decide to ignore the rest of her ramble in favor of stopping Weiss from telling on me to Yang and darn it, too late.

"Wait, what?" Yang asks, looking incredibly confused. "How can you talk to a Grimm? They're all mindless monsters, right?"

"We believe this one was rather old," Pyrrha comments. "Judging from Ruby's explanation on our way here, it simply... grew into its intelligence. Grimm grow stronger and wiser as they age, is it any surprise that it does not stop before it attains human levels?"

"Also, it's level 200 and something," I add in. "It's beyond ridiculously powerful. I'm just happy it didn't try to eat me."

"We're telling Headmaster Ozpin about it," Yang decides. "In the meantime, you guys need to get your relics. After that we might as well all head back together!"

"Okay!" I say cheerfully, heading over to the group of chess pieces. "Ooh! I want a knight!"

"Sure," Weiss says with an uncaring shrug.

"Awesome!" Yang cheers. "We grabbed one of those as well."

"I'll grab a rook, I guess," Jaune decides, glancing at Pyrrha to see if she has any objections. Seeing that she doesn't, he grabs one, shoving it in his pocket. I shove my piece into my inventory. No way I'm going to worry about losing it.

"Wait, what was that?" Weiss asks, narrowing her eyes at me.

"What?" I look at her in surprise.

"What you just- I thought your semblance was information based. What did you do with that chess piece?"

"Oh, information's just part of it. I mean, it's the main part, but the Semblance also does other stuff, like making it so that when I kill a grimm it usually drops loot. The thing you just saw was my inventory. Basically, well, my Semblance is called 'The Gamer' and it lets me treat my life like a video game!"

"Wait, so is that why the dead Grimm turned into a pair of books, half a ton of Lien, and a couple random bits of junk?" Jaune asks, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Yup!" I say cheerfully. "Speaking of which, when we split the loot, I call dibs on the books! They're probably skill books, so I can use my Semblance to learn the skills instantly. Oh, and hand me the other things that dropped, I'll tell you what they do."

"What they do?" Weiss asks, her voice incredulous. "You mean, they dropped, what, magic items? This is ridiculous! This is real life, not some video game!"

"I beg to differ!" I say, fake-snobbishly. "But seriously! Gimme!"

"Oh, uh, here." Jaune pulls off his backpack, and how did I not notice that? "I've been carrying it because, um..." He gives Weiss a somewhat scared look as he trails off. She gives him a very cold look in return.

"As the one most suited towards directing a fight instead of being within it, we decided that it'd be best for him to hold on to the weapons," Pyrrha says diplomatically. "His strategic skills are rather noteworthy."

"That's... true. He did manage to help us coordinate the two creatures against one another when your elementals disappeared," Weiss admits grudgingly, her glare softening a bit.

"Anyway. Yeah, here's the stuff." He hands me the bag, and I pull it open. There's the two skill books, both of them actual text books. The first one teaches Stoneskin, which I already have, while the second teaches a skill called Fatal Feathers. Huh. Isn't that a card? A quick observe informs me that it's basically an Air based version of my Aura Arrows, though stronger. It also has the prerequisite of 25 int and 15 dex. I've got the int, but not the dex. I move on and take a look at the other items they found. The first is a bracelet that increases stamina by 30%. So that's pretty good for anyone who uses Stamina a lot. The second is a small dagger that increases damage dealt with it by 10%, or 30% if your target can't see you. And the last two are completely normal daggers. I quickly explain all of this to the others.

"Do the items work for anyone other than you?" Weiss asks doubtfully. Yang nods, pulling out the mask we got from the Beowulf in the Instant Dungeon.

"Yeah. I checked, and while I wear this, I hit a lot harder, and I can go a lot longer," Yang explains.

"Oh! I want the bracelet!" Nora suddenly says. I let out a yelp, falling backwards a bit, having completely forgotten about her. "That way I can smash people more often!"

"Uh, sure?" I say, glancing at the others. "If no one else does?"

They all shake their heads, letting her have it. She slips it on, then starts singing absently. We shrug, and begin our trek back.

When we arrive, Ozpin collects our relics, then drags me away from the others, to his office. "I must admit, that you are one of the more unique people to grace Beacon's halls," he says calmly. "Beyond resurrecting ancient techniques long lost, you are now among the first to have spoken with a Creature of Grimm."

"Heh, yeah... Wait, how did you know about that?" I ask, blinking in surprise.

"We were watching," he says, giving me a look. "The entire point of this exercise was to gain a grasp of your combat capability and evaluate your leadership potentials. That would be rather difficult to do if we were unable to see the events as they occurred. No, I would like to ask you a few questions about the nature of your Semblance."

"Okay," I say, somewhat nervously.

"First, what exactly can it do?" he asks. "I need a full description of all of its capabilities, so we can find out exactly why this Ancient Grimm is coming after you."

"Right." I take a breath, and then describe my semblance in as much detail as I know. Which, admittedly, isn't that much.

"I see," he says thoughtfully. "Very well. I thank you for your assistance, Miss Rose. Do you have any questions you need to ask immediately?"

"Um... what should I do about the Grimm?" I ask cautiously.

"Is there anything you can do?" His own voice is calm. "Try to avoid allowing it to speak with you unless your uncle Qrow is there as well. When you do, attempt to avoid antagonizing it. We simply do not know enough about their kind for me to make any further suggestions. I would, though, appreciate if you gave me transcripts of any conversations. Oh, and Ruby, before I forget, Dr. Oobleck has asked that you be granted a formal apprenticeship with him. If you accept, your schedule will be slightly different from that of your teammates. Would you like to accept?"

"Of course!" I say cheerfully. He nods, making a note. A moment later, I get a notification of a title, but quickly close out of it.

"Now my next question was about these titles of yours." He peers at me over his glasses. "More specifically, this 'Herald of Shadows.' You mentioned that it reduces your Aura to 0, but also grants you the ability to take a Grimm Form. I would like to see if we can test this at some point, if that is alright?"

"Uh, sure," I decide after a moment of thought. "Better to know what it does, right?"

"Good." He gives me a faint smile before continuing. "I believe that was everything of importance. Teams will be chosen after dinner, so for now, I suggest you have a meal, and recover from your initiation."

"Oh, thanks!" I say cheerfully, a bit relieved.

"You're welcome. And if you have any problems, feel free to come talk to me at any time."

I return to the dining hall, calling up Gnome to help me find Yang.

"Hey, Sis!" She calls me over as soon as she spots me. She has Weiss and Blake with her, probably because she knows she'll be on the same team as Blake, and because she knows I'll want to sit with her, but should also sit with my partner. She's nice like that. "What happened?"

"Headmaster Ozpin told me not to talk to it without Uncle Qrow there, asked if I wanted a formal apprenticeship with Professor Oobleck, and told me that he wanted to help me test the effects of one of my titles."

"Wait, you have an apprenticeship?" Weiss looks surprised. "How did you get that?"

"I rediscovered Elemental summoning." I beam at her.

"What?" She looks completely stunned. "Wait, that was you?"

"... Should I feel offended?" I wonder. "But yeah, that was me! No one else managed to construct an affinity yet, so I'm pretty much the only elemental user for now. My friend Sterling was getting pretty close last time I checked though, so he should have one by the end of the year. Professor Oobleck says that once that happens we'll probably get a lot more people trying to learn it, since they'll have proof that it's not a Semblance."

"That's... rather impressive," she admits. "Wait! Can you teach me? I want to have an ice elemental!"

"Sure!" I say agreeably, "It's not that hard to learn the idea behind it, it's just really hard to actually do, because creating an affinity's really tiring, and takes a long time."

The rest of the meal passess more quietly, the three of them still a bit tired from the trip through the forest. After we end our meals, Headmaster Ozpin calls everyone to the auditorium to form the teams. After a bunch of people I don't know, I realize that Yang, Blake, Weiss, and I are all going to be on the same team! Yes! My Luck of 8 must have... wait, 8's actually kinda bad for my level. Huh. I'm not really sure how this happened.

Your good fortune has lead to an increase in Luck.

Aaaand neither is my semblance. On the other hand, luck up! Awesome! I'm still not really sure what that stat does! I should probably figure it out at some point. I know it helps with criticals or something, but I've never actually seen a critical...

Oh! Us now! We quickly get up on stage, and I'm a bit distracted by our pictures swirling on the giant screens, but I focus when the Headmaster begins speaking.

"And finally: Blake Belladonna. Ruby Rose. Weiss Schnee. Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team RWBY. Led by... Ruby Rose!" Wait, what? Why am I the leader? I'm the youngest! Is this because I have the leadership skill? Because all that does is give a stat boost to my Followers, it doesn't actually have much to do with, you know, leading. And I don't think I actually have to lead to grant that bonus, it's more of a Bard thing, where I can just stand there and everyone gets boosted.

"I'm so proud of you!" Yang says happily, hugging me. I hug her back automatically.

"Thanks," I manage to get out through my shock. A wave of calm washes over me, and a notification pops up.

You have entered Beacon Academy! Your life as a Huntress in Training has begun! What adventures await?
The Storyline, Rising Darkness, has advanced.
Story Quest:
You have begun your days at Beacon Academy. While much of your time will be taken up by classes, you will also retain significant amounts of free time. Find the secrets that the school hides, explore it's halls, join clubs, strengthen the bonds between your teammates, and make new friends! But make sure not to get into too much trouble.
Rewards: 15,000 exp, 25,000 Lien, Academic Skills
Failure Penalty: Expulsion from Beacon Academy.
Duration: 1 Semester.

... Wait, the story line is called Rising Darkness? That's ridiculously ominous! As we get off the stage, I quickly start looking through my Story section of the Quests menu. There are two main Stories that are active right now. Rising Darkness, which is the main one, and then Return of the Lost, which is the one with the Ancient Grimm, or more specifically, finding out more about his master.

I quickly check for anything else ominous-looking. The main place to find that sort of thing is the Titles screen, with a bunch of potential new titles.

The Lost: +50 Str, +50 Vit, Int is set to 1, Wis is set to 1. Lose yourself to a Grimm form.
Encroaching Darkness: -10 Luck, +20 Espionage skills. Destroy Beacon Academy.
Herald of the End: +3 to all stats. Destroy Vale.
The Pale Rider: +100% damage, -5 Vit, Grimm Form. Kill 500 innocents while in Grimm form.
Servant of the Shadows: +10 Str, -5 Wisdom, Aura -100%. Swear allegiance to the Master.
The Master: Gain the allegiance of the Grimm. Become the Master.

... Well this can't end well. On the other hand, there's some nicer sounding titles as well!

Bastion of Light: +1 Int per level. Become Headmaster of Beacon Academy.
Savior: Increase Closeness with the various citizens of Vale. Save Vale from destruction.
Torchbearer: +1 Wis per level. Found a new city.

And then there's the more neutral ones, some of which I have no idea where my Semblance got the idea for.

Historian: Observe grants more information, and makes suggestions based on historical precedent. Have a History skill of 50.
Soulless: Aura cannot be awakened, because you have no soul. This title cannot be removed. Have no soul.

Of course, I'm not going to be getting any of these any time soon, but they're still pretty interesting. Oh well, I'll worry about all of this tomorrow. Tonight, I'm going to get my stupid passive boost skills past the stupid 30 mark.

AN:

Blargh. Another short chapter. Anyway, onto notes.

On Weiss: Without having a bias against Ruby, and in fact, having a bias toward her (Elemental user!), Weiss isn't blowing up at her, and is more inclined to take her and her suggestions seriously. Their lack of getting into a fight where Ruby screws her up, and Ruby's own lack of needing to prove herself helps keep that particular relationship a lot less on Weiss's tsun side. On the other hand, Jaune's incompetent. Jaune is blatantly incompetent, and Ruby's Semblance is explaining exactly how incompetent he is, in an area where incompetence can get you killed, and get your friends killed as they try to rescue you. Hell, Jaune's title is the False Knight. Weiss is pretty much as against him from the start as she is against Ruby at the start. Actually, more so, because he's also acting, well, like Jaune, and annoying her. The difference is that Ruby quickly demonstrates her talents, while Jaune's both incompetent and unwilling to accept the help needed to become competent. Weiss is definitely justified in her annoyance.

Ancient Grimm: I regret nothing. I've been foreshadowing him since the first nightmare.