Welcome back everyone. I really don't have much to say in my opening AN, so, without further delay...

Chapter 6

The following morning Ruby's alarm wakes her at 4:30. She showers knowing this will likely be her last hot shower for about a week, dresses in her combat gear, checks her pack, grabs Crescent Rose and heads to the airfield.

There she sees two ships, one a standard bullhead, the other a smaller VTOL craft suitable for a single person. She walks over to the smaller craft, greeting Professor Goodwitch. "Good morning Professor. Will you be sharing a site with myself and Shadow, or will you be setting up your own camp?"

"I'll be setting up my own camp. I'm not fond of the modifications that have been made to the original plan and I intend to keep an eye on this Shadow."

"Alright. Just remember, you may be there to keep an eye on us, but if you run into trouble let us know. We may not be full huntresses yet, but we can still help out against the creatures of grimm."

"Very well, be careful out there, I don't trust that woman."

"Neither do I, but that's all part of the fun," Ruby's grin takes in her ears, as she walks away.

Glynda just humphs and goes back to checking everything over that she's taking with her.

Ruby walks over to the bullhead and finds Shadow sitting on the bench inside. "Morning."

"Morning Little Rose," Cinder replies with a smirk.

Ruby levels a piercing gaze at the woman she knows only as Shadow and says, "Do you really want me to try and come up with a cutsie nickname for you?"

"Thank you, no. We'll go with Reaper then. Is she making camp with us?" she nods in the general direction of the smaller craft with Professor Goodwitch doing her preflight checks.

"Nah, she's going to set up her own camp. She doesn't seem to trust you."

"Smart woman."

"Before I forget, Professor Ozpin said we're sharing credit on any grimm we take out while we're in the field." Her companion just tilts her head in confusion. "Right, you probably don't realize that Huntsmen and Huntresses get paid based on the number and type of grimm they kill. Same goes for those in training, but trainees only earn 2/3 the regular bounty, the remaining 1/3 goes to the school."

"No, I understand that part. I'm just curious how Ozpin expects me to collect the bounty money."

"Oh, well, maybe this will explain it," Ruby says pulling the note the Headmaster had given her for Shadow from her pocket. "He told me to give this to you."

She takes the note, scanning the writing. Apparently Ozpin has opened an account under a false name for her, but she won't have access to it until after the mission and she meets face to face with the headmaster. As she continues checking out the remaining information she realizes something. She seems to have skipped over the name Ozpin opened the account in. This confuses Cinder for a moment, normally that would be the first thing she picked up on. She scans back up the page looking for the name, and again her eyes skim past it without her registering the name. 'What the hell is going on here?' She makes a concerted effort to look at the name, as soon as she does, pain explodes behind her eyes as a long repressed memory tries to resurface. Cinder quickly clamps down on it, shoving it away, back into the depths it had surfaced from, but the damage was done. She had remembered something, and it hurt. She knew who had done this to her and knew how. That name, a name she had given up many years before, the name of someone dead and buried. Now he was trying to bring that person back, but she was gone forever, and to ensure that, she was going to kill him. He deserved it, Ozpin was going to die, and all because he was foolish enough to think she would return. She looked at the paper, this was her way in to see him, to get close enough so that he would know that, in the end, Zezolla Cremisi was dead, there was only Cinder Fall.

"You okay over there?" Ruby asks, having noticed the wince of pain Shadow couldn't suppress.

"Fine, fine, just felt like someone hit me between the eyes with a sledge hammer. It's going away now," Cinder was controlling her breathing and easing the tension in her muscles.

Ruby shrugs and decides to check out the gear currently stacked neatly and being secured within a cargo net to be slung beneath the bullhead. This is a standard model designed for cargo and personnel transport going into hostile territory without the support of combat craft so extended time on the ground wouldn't be a good idea. As she walks toward the stack of equipment, Ruby pulls out her scroll and brings up the manifest of gear she had requested. She's certain Professor Goodwitch has already checked, but she wants to make sure everything is here. As she goes through the list she checks the crates to find everything she'd asked for.

After checking the equipment, she heads back over to the smaller craft where Professor Goodwitch is completing her preflight checks. "Everything check out over here? You have everything you need?"

"Everything's checking out fine, and why wouldn't I have everything I need. It's not as if this were some half-baked plan that came up at the last minute," Professor Goodwitch levels a glare at the young huntress in training.

"Um... where did that come from Professor Goodwitch. I understand that this mission was sprung on you last minute, and, honestly, I didn't expect the headmaster to accept my proposed mission as readily as he did, but I'm just trying to take my responsibilities as mission leader seriously. I know you are a senior Huntress and can take care of your own gear, but as mission leader I should check on everything before the mission starts. Forgive me if it seemed I was questioning your ability."

Glynda blows out her frustration, "No, Miss Rose, forgive me. I am a bit perturbed with the headmaster for so readily agreeing to this plan, and I'm afraid I was taking it out on you. As you said, you are simply trying to be a good mission leader. My transportation is functioning at 100%, my gear is in perfect working order, and I have plenty of dust with me."

"It's fine, Professor Goodwitch, I don't blame you for your outburst. After all, I'm used to that type of reaction, or have you forgotten who I'm partnered with?" Ruby asks with a broad grin on her face.

"You really do care for Miss Schnee, don't you? I can see it in your face. When I first heard you and Miss Schnee were pursuing a relationship I believed it was just a passing fancy, or misplaced emotions based on your relationship as partners, but I see now just how strong your feelings are for her. You find happiness even in her harsh rebukes, though I suspect, now, that those rebukes are not as mean spirited as I once thought."

"The harsh things she says are her way of showing her emotions. She's told me some of how she was raised, and while she was raised to be socially graceful, she never had anyone she could really share her feelings with, and so had to lock them away. The only emotion she was allowed to show was her contempt for those deemed beneath her. When contempt is the only thing you've ever been able to show, it becomes your substitute for everything else. It takes someone who truly cares for and understands that person to see the emotions buried beneath it."

"Then it seems she is very lucky to have found you, I wish you luck and happiness in the future."

"I think I'm pretty lucky myself, and for the duration of this exercise, could you please call me Ruby, and may I please call you Glynda? We are supposed to be colleagues on this outing, and it would be easier than constantly calling each other Miss Rose and Professor Goodwitch."

"Very well, for the duration of this exercise, we shall be on a first name basis, but as soon as it is finished, we return to teacher and student. I hope that is sufficient, Ruby, as once we return, I cannot allow you to continue calling me by so familiar a term as my first name."

"I can accept that Prof..., Glynda. Even though I'm the one that requested it, I guess it'll take some time for me to get used to calling you that. If you're all set, we should probably head out."

"Everything is set with my gear, starting out sounds like a reasonable suggestion."

Ruby walks back over to the bullhead she and Shadow will be using, as she does, she asks for a status update from the pilot. The pilot lets Ruby know that everything is in the green, the bullhead is ready for departure, and the cargo net has been attached to the quick release cable on the cargo winch. She climbs aboard, straps herself in and lets the pilot know that she's ready. The pitch and volume of the engine noise increases, as more thrust is sent through them, and the bullhead shudders as it takes to the air. Ruby can feel the craft traverse backwards as it ascends, taking up the slack in the cargo cable. Ruby can visualize the crafts movements as it gains altitude and moves itself to hover directly over the cargo net with all their gear. The engine noise changes again as power is increased to them again when the cargo finally is lifted, and Ruby can feel the winch reeling it in to make a shorter length of cable hanging below the craft. A short time later, the pilot announces that the cargo is secure and that they will be transitioning to horizontal flight.

"So, Reaper, how long is this flight going to be?"

"Roughly six and a half hours. You might as well take a nap now, we'll be busy setting up our base camp once we reach our destination, plus I'll have to set up a few surprises for my team." With that, Ruby releases the seatbelt, walks to the rear of the compartment to where her personal equipment is and pulls out her maintenance kit and another package. She brings these back to her seat and expands Crescent Rose to its scythe form, and using the maintenance kit, detaches the head of the weapon. This she sets aside, strapping it down securely so that any turbulence would not cause the blade to slice through anything. She then starts removing the outer casing of her weapon, exposing the chassis and inner workings.

"I'm kind of curious as to what you're doing over there, Reaper."

"I'm removing the red casing from Crescent Rose, and replacing it with a matte black casing." As she says this, Ruby opens the other case and starts attaching the new parts to her weapon. After she has attached all the black parts, she places the red ones back in the case. With the chassis now clad in black, the head of the weapon is next to be worked on. Ruby is extremely careful working so near the blades while still in the bullhead. As she removes each piece, she replaces it with the black. She starts at the back and works her way forward, closer to the blade, and then up the back of the blade itself. After about two hours of careful work, Ruby finally finishes swapping out the red for the black parts, and reattaches the head of the weapon.

As she collapses her weapon back to its compact form, she notices that at some point Shadow has fallen asleep. Glancing at her scroll to check the time, Ruby sees she still has a little over four hours before they reach the landing area. Deciding that a nap is in order, she sets the alarm on her scroll to wake her in three hours, and then straps herself into a seat across from Shadow, settling in for some rest.

Ruby finds herself waking up, but not hearing the alarm from her scroll. Glancing at the device, she sees it's a little less than a half an hour before the alarm is set for. Looking around the cabin, trying to determine what had woke her up, she notices that Shadow seems to be having a dream of some sort, and is occasionally muttering something.

As she's about to call out to Shadow to try to wake her, the other woman's eyes fly open. She takes a moment to get her bearings, glancing around she spots Ruby watching her and quirks an eyebrow at her questioningly.

Realizing she has been staring at Shadow, she apologizes, "Sorry, you were moving around in your sleep and muttering something. I was about to call out to you to try and wake you up. Bad dream?"

"Not really, an old memory that I don't particularly care to recall. Don't ask, I'm not sharing with you. How long until we arrive?"

"Just under an hour and a half."

Cinder leans her head back against the headrest, staring at the ceiling, and thinking of the memory that had just resurfaced in her sleep. She knows exactly who to blame for its appearance after so long. Ozpin and his use of that name. She wonders if he knew how much it would affect her. Probably, that man is more manipulative than her own superiors and she is determined not to fall into whatever scheme he is trying to trap her in.

The rest of the trip passes in relative silence, the two exchange occasional small talk, but for the most part they are each lost in their own thoughts, and their relationship is not one of friendship where they can reveal their inner musings.

When they are ten minutes out from the LZ, the pilot calls back informing them to begin prep for their landing strategy. In the time since she's woke up, Ruby has returned the case that now contains the red casing for her Sweetheart, as well as the maintenance kit to her gear. She has also loaded a magazine of rounds that can be used to pierce the flanks of heavily armored opponents, being loaded with about twice the dust of her normal rounds. She will need the extra recoil from these rounds to help with her landing strategy, her gear will add extra weight, and therefore inertia to her. Glancing over at her companion she asks, "How solid is your landing strategy?"

"Very, though you may want to give me some space when we exit. I can be quite 'explosive' on my way down. Any idea of the ground conditions? I'd hate to burn down the forest before I can study your training techniques."

"Figured it'd be something flammable so we're being dropped on a rocky outcropping near the clearing where our gear will be dropped, to minimize the risk. We'll have about a twenty minute hike to our gear once we're down."

"Seems like a reasonable precaution, although the fact that there is a clearing near that outcrop seems a bit serendipitous."

"Not really, the clearing where our gear will be dropped is a crash site. A cargo bullhead out of Vale was attacked by Nevermore and went down. The pilot of that craft knew of the outcropping and tried to get his craft as close to it as possible. We're actually going to be the first people back to the site since the crew escaped, so there may be some salvageable equipment there."

"Why was there a cargo craft this far out from civilization? There's nothing out here so what was it doing?"

Before Ruby could answer, the pilot gave them the one minute warning. "I'll tell you once we're down, after all, we have a bit of a walk ahead of us."

While they had been talking, Ruby had attached the tether for her gear to her harness, and strapped the pack on with quick release clips. Ruby opens the side hatch and when the light above it changed from red to green, she signals Shadow to go. The other woman dives out the door, and Ruby watches her for a few seconds before stepping out herself, Crescent Rose already out and deployed in her rifle form. She fires off a couple rounds to correct her trajectory and slow her decent. At about fifty feet she releases the clips on her pack, allowing it to drop to the extent of the tether so the pack would land first and not force her body to absorb the combined impact of both her and the pack. She also deploys Crescent Rose to its full combat form, placing her feet on a couple specially designed foot pegs she uses for these type of situations. Using her semblance to allow her to cycle the rounds faster, she fires off several more rounds slowing herself enough to make a controlled landing, swinging the business end of her weapon out to the side, severing the tether and allowing her to tuck into a front roll to dissipate the energy of her landing without causing herself injury.

Ruby dusts herself off, looking around and seeing Shadow standing off to the side of the clearing, hands on her hips. Ruby gives her the thumbs up, and she waves back walking towards her. As she retrieves her gear, Ruby lets the pilot know that they're down and he's clear to proceed to the cargo drop location. "Glynda, after the bullhead drops off our gear, if the clearing is large enough, could you land and keep an eye on it for us? You must be ready to stretch your legs by now anyway, but if it looks like the gear will be overrun, get back in the air and let us know, then when we hit them on the ground, you can provide support from the air."

"Copy that Ruby, stretching my legs sounds like a wonderful idea. You have no idea how mind numbingly dull it is flying escort for a cargo craft."

"On a scale of one to ten, how close is it to one of Professor Port's lectures?"

"Oh, Dust, I guess you would know something about it, but just imagine one that lasted over six hours and you couldn't fall asleep to pass the time." The stories of Professor Port's lectures are common among the staff at Beacon, most of them feel some sympathy for his students, but there is no denying that the man knows a remarkable amount about how to kill grimm, and is a great teacher, if he can be kept on topic.

"Ouch, sorry about that. Hopefully there will be something for you to do at the clearing."

"That would be nice, the gear has been dropped, and the bullhead is outbound. The clearing is plenty large enough for me to set down, going to ground, enjoy your stroll."

Ruby smiles to herself, she likes this side of the normally stern and reticent professor, she is a little sad thinking Glynda will return to her normal self once they returned to Beacon. Ruby shrugs to herself as she hoists her pack onto her back, after checking to ensure all her gear is intact, and stowing her cloak, which will only get in the way, although she feels nearly naked without it. Her friends never knew just how torturous the dance had been when they refused to allow her to wear it, the only one who had even the smallest inkling was Yang, and even she didn't fully understand.

Ruby looks around, checking on Shadow, and sees her near the center of the outcropping, with her scroll out taking several pictures. "Enjoying the view?"

"Something like that. Continuing your story, what was a cargo bullhead doing this far out?"

"Right, you see, there's a relatively new settlement about a seven hour walk from here. A few prospectors located a dust deposit and are setting up a mining camp, the transport was on its way there with equipment and supplies for them."

"If that's the case, why wasn't it being escorted by the standard fleet of ships the SDC sends with its transports, and, why hasn't the equipment been salvaged by them yet?"

"Well, it's because this is an independent operation. The SDC has no idea it's out here, and would likely swoop in and crush the operation, especially since it's owned by a Faunus."

"Hmm... maybe some of my associates could help out."

"Please don't, from what I've read, the owner's as anti-White Fang as the SDC. He just wants to be allowed to work in peace, and perhaps help the Faunus better themselves through hard work. Unfortunately, the loss of this equipment hurt his dreams severely, and anything we can salvage will be of great assistance. Professor Ozpin had heard of the situation and requested I bring my team into this area to help clear out some of the grimm so an actual salvage team could come in later on."

"So this is both a mission and a training exercise, your headmaster certainly knows how to manipulate situations to his ultimate advantage. I'm sure he's not getting anything out of this situation, he's such a humanitarian." The sarcasm dripping from her words set Ruby aback.

"I have no idea what sort of deals may or may not have been made. As for the headmaster manipulating the situation, it's simply maximizing his available resources. I needed a remote location to train my girls, and he needed a team to clear out some grimm, we both get what we need, and it's not like my team would have hesitated to take this mission regardless. This is what we're training for, helping those who need it, and this way my team has three additional dust casters to help us out, two of whom are Huntress level."

"So you're actually fine with being moved around like a piece on a game board?" Some resentment is evident in Cinder's comment.

"I've told you this before, I'm a huntress in training, it's part of the job description. Didn't you believe me when I said that yesterday?"

"I guess I really didn't, I hate not knowing what's going on. I don't find being left in the dark particularly palatable, unfortunately mission security often leaves me in that situation."

By this time, the two have been walking for some time, Ruby keeping them on target by consulting her scroll, using it to home in on the tracking beacon located among the equipment that had been dropped off. They were nearing their destination when they start hearing the sounds of conflict, from the sounds they can hear, Ruby suspects a Boarbatusk has found the drop zone, and Glynda is blowing off some steam playing with it. Ruby hurries their pace hoping to witness the spectacle of Glynda having fun.

Ruby stops them just before they enter the clearing to take in the situation. Glynda stands near the center of the clearing facing off against a Boarbatusk, from the condition in the clearing, it appears she has been playing for a while. Ruby notices a shadow moving on the other side of the clearing, and another, larger Boarbatusk enters the clearing, attempting to remain in the Huntresses blind spot.

"She'd better watch herself, looks like she's about to get ambushed," Shadow says, readying herself to engage the new threat, but Ruby places a hand on her arm, shaking her head.

"She's got this, watch. Oh, by the way, you might want to look up," she says, motioning towards the treetops not too far away, as she slips her pack to the ground.

Cinder glances in the direction Ruby had motioned and her breath catches in her throat. There, floating in air are half a dozen Beowolves, each surrounded by the purple haze indicative of Glynda using her semblance. She returns her attention back to the huntress in the clearing just as the Boarbatusk she'd been playing with launches itself at her once again. With a flick of her riding crop, Glynda alters its trajectory just enough to cause it to crash into the face of the grimm that has been attempting to sneak up behind her.

"About time you two showed up. I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to share the fun with you." With that she flicks her crop in a downward motion, and the Beowolves are hurled to the ground with enough force to stun them. "I've had my fun, you can have the honor of eliminating these creatures. I'd suggest caution against the larger of the two Boarbatusks. It's a Guraz, which is the equivalent of an Alpha or a Major. You can see the spikes on its back are more numerous, and the armor is thicker, but the underside is still vulnerable." With that she leaps backward, flicking her riding crop and launching herself into the upper branches of one of the trees.

Ruby leaps forward readying herself, "Shadow, take out the Beowolves, I'll delay the Boarbatusks then we can work together to take them down." She fires a couple rounds at them, bringing their attention to her.

The noise of Ruby's gunshots draws the attention of the Beowolves, but before they can leap at the girl, Cinder steps from behind her tree, opening a vial from her pouch and flicks the glass dust inside out into the air. Using her semblance, she crystallizes the dust into shards and launches them at the beasts. Each of them are hit at least once, and the attack draws their attention to her. Opening a second vile, she again activates her semblance to call a small amount of burn dust into her hand and flings it at the nearest of the Beowolves forming it into tiny needles that pierce the beast's flesh in several locations which she then cause to detonate. The small explosions, which would have caused only minor burns on the surface, play havoc with the beast's innards, one needle had lodged itself next to the heart and one lung and its detonation killed the beast in an instant. 'Too bad that type of attack won't work against someone with their aura unlocked, it would make so many things that much easier.' she thinks to herself.

She caps the burn dust vial, opting next for lightning dust, and calling forth a large handful, which she throws into the path of two beasts which have leapt at her, activating it just as they enter the cloud. The resulting energy discharge instantly fries both creatures, dropping them at her feet as the final pair charge her. Twirling backwards out of the range of their initial strikes, she calls on the dust imbedded in her clothes, a special mixture of burn and glass dust, to form her twin blades. As long as she holds them within her aura, they are sharper than any razor out there and stronger than steel. Should she drop them, however, they will instantly revert to the powdered dust they are composed of. She parries the strike of one beast with one of her blades, severing three of its fingers in the process and counters with a strike to its neck with the other, thinking to end the engagement quickly. The creature pulls its head back at the last moment, so, instead of removing its head, Cinder's strike merely opens up both the carotid artery and windpipe. Granted it's still a fatal strike, but the beast still has a few moments to attempt a counterattack, but she doesn't give it a chance, leaping up and kicking it in the chest, knocking it back slightly, but more importantly, causing her to fly backwards out of the beast's reach. It collapses with a final gurgling growl, and Cinder rushes the only other Beowolf standing. This beast decides it's had enough and flees.

Without hesitation Cinder brings the pommels of her blades together, fusing them into a single bow. Uncapping a vial of the mixed burn and glass dust, she uses the contents to form three arrows, each arrowhead having a burn dust shard imbedded in them, which she infuses with her aura. This has a dual purpose, allowing the arrows to remain intact once they leave the influence of her aura, and making it so the shards will detonate on impact. Bringing the arrows up to the bow, she pulls her arm back as if drawing an invisible string, and launches the arrows using her semblance. While she can launch the arrows without her "bow", she feels more accurate when she does it this way, she knows it's all psychological, but she can't argue with the results as all three arrows impact into the back of the Beowolf, driving the shards inside where they detonate with spectacular results, dropping the beast instantly.

Walking over to the last surviving Beowolf, she looks down at the beast. It had been hit by so many glass shards in her initial attack, it had been incapacitated and unable to join its kin in their attack. It appears that one of the shards has severed its spinal cord and the beast is glaring at her with murderous intent, but is incapable of moving to assault her. Extending her open palm towards the creature, she activates her semblance, shattering the shards still within the beast, and reforming them into needles. She makes a motion with her hand and wrenches the needles out of the grimm, completely shredding its internal organs. She converts these needles back into shards and flings them at the two Boarbatusks that Ruby has been keeping distracted. She knows she has no chance of piercing their armor, but if she can distract them, it might open up an opportunity for Ruby to strike.

Cinder's ploy works, Ruby has been using small bursts of her semblance to harass the Boarbatusks and then avoid their attacks, and the smaller of the two, in its frustration screams a challenge at its opponent just as Cinder's shards arrived. One of them severs the beast's tongue, the pain distracts the creature, and it turns in the direction of this new attack. In its moment of distraction, Ruby pounces. Darting in Ruby leaps onto the Boarbatusk's back, hooking the blade of Crescent Rose under its neck and leaps up while activating her semblance and firing off a round from her Sweetheart. The creature collapses, its head neatly separated from its body, and Ruby does a back flip in the air, firing another round to move her away from the Boarbatusk Guraz.

Now facing two to one odds, the Guraz starts pacing around the clearing. It knows there is a third creature of light around somewhere, it had glowed brightly to its senses, but the two before it shown with much more intensity. The creature that had snuffed out the darkness of the piglet shown with a light more pure than any it has previously encountered. It has lived for nearly 270 years, and in all that time it has encountered many creatures of light. All of them had a very noticeable core of darkness at the heart of their light, but this one's darkness is barely perceptible. The other has a much darker core and while its light is more intense than the missing third's had been, the darkness at the core dims it considerably. It knows the armor on its back and sides is near impenetrable, so these creatures will need to attempt to expose its belly, or perhaps try a repeat of the attack that ended the piglet. In all its time, it had never seen an attack like that, but now that it has, it will not be taken unawares easily. The dark one flings out its hand, and a trickle of its light flashes across the distance and impacts on its flank doing no damage and the bright one's light blurs. It had seen that happen just prior to the attack on the piglet and it instinctively tucks up and rolls a single length forward. The bright creature's attack impacts on his flank instead of under its chin, but the impact cracks its flank armor. This creature needs to be eliminated now, if it can crack its armor it was more dangerous than previously thought. The Guraz spins around to face the bright creature, not understanding why it is shining even brighter than before.

After she had eliminated the Boarbatusk, Ruby retreated to stand next to Shadow, and watches as the Guraz starts pacing around, likely looking for an opening to attack. "Hey Shadow, you remember the night we first met, when you rescued Roman and fought Glynda and me on the roof? Do you think you can do that explodey thingy again? If I can distract it and cause it to stand on the explosion maybe we can kill it outright, but if not, the explosion should open up an opportunity for me to get under its armor."

"Why not just go for the same attack you used on the smaller one?"

"That's what I'll be aiming to do, but I suspect this thing won't fall for the same trick as the younger one. It looks fairly old, maybe getting close to the age where it will become an elder, and I feel it will likely anticipate that attack. If it doesn't, and I can take it out with the same attack, I will, but be ready with the explosion."

"Fine, you ready?" At Ruby's nod, Cinder launches her attack and watches as her fireball harmlessly explodes against the creature's flank.

As the explosion from Shadow's attack clears, Ruby activates her semblance, launching herself towards the Boarbatusk. Even as she begins to move, she can see the creature rolling itself forward, and she knows her strike will hit the thing's flank. As she swings, she fires off two rounds, imparting more momentum into it. She smiles to herself as she notices a small crack appear in the creatures armor. 'That should get its attention.' she thinks as she leaps away.

The creature spins around to face her, not noticing that its now standing squarely on a glowing patch of ground. Ruby smiles with glee, waiting to see if Shadow's attack will kill the creature, or if her Sweetheart will be needed to finish the fight.

Cinder releases her hold on the unstable burn dust currently scattered around the clearing causing a series of explosions. One of which is directly under the grimm, and it launches the creature into the air. Even from this distance, she can tell the explosion hasn't finished the creature off, and Ruby launching herself into the air in pursuit tells her the girl realizes this as well. The two collide in mid-air, the impact forcing the Boarbatusk into a new trajectory, dragging the girl and her weapon along. The creature hits first, followed by Ruby who appears to be standing on the handle of her scythe, adding her weight to the momentum gained in the fall to drive it deeper into the creature. She then throws her weight into levering the blade up through the innards, firing a couple rounds to add to the force, finally ripping the blade out of the abdomen, eviscerating the creature.

Ruby takes a moment to catch her breath, and Shadow walks over towards her. As Ruby stands up, and Shadow stops a few paces from her, Glynda drops down from her perch and says, "Very well done ladies. Sorry to leave all the work to you, but I wanted to see if you could work together."

"Do you always have to be a teacher?" Ruby asks.

"Not always, no. I just felt it was prudent to see if you could work together. After all, you'll be together for about a week, and if you couldn't handle something as simple as this, you probably wouldn't have survived each other," she smiles at the pair, walks over to her craft. Opening the canopy, she climbs in, and runs through her preflight checks. Once she finishes the preflight, she waves to the two of them, latches the canopy, and pilots her craft into the air, and away from the clearing.

"She could have stayed to help set up camp," Cinder comments.

"She's got her own camp she needs to set up. Besides, like she said, if we can't work together on the small stuff, how are we going to survive a week together?" Ruby checks the time on her scroll. "If everything's on schedule my team should be leaving Beacon about now. That gives us about five hours to set up camp and to prepare a few surprises for my team when they start out tomorrow. This is going to be fun, I just hope they don't end up hating me too much."

"But Cave," some of you are probably saying, "Professor Goodwithch is acting so OOC. She'd never let a student call her by her first name, and she wouldn't have toyed with the beowolves and boarbatusk the way she did."

Remember, Ozpin put Ruby in charge of the mission, so Ruby technically outranks Glynda, temporarily. While normally, Glynda would not allow a student to call her by her first name, Ruby is the leader of the mission, at least until Glynda deems the mission to have off the rails. Allowing Ruby to use her first name is a small sign of respect for the mission leader. As for her toying with the grimm, understand, she's just spent over six hours cramped in the cockpit of a small craft escorting the transport Ruby and Cinder were on. As she said, imagine listening to one of Port's lectures for over six hours and not being able to fall asleep to relieve the boredom. She wanted some excitement and fending off a boarbatusk while holding six beowolves aloft certainly fills the bill. She also wanted to see how Ruby and Cinder worked together, so, while she definitely could have crushed all seven grimm easily, she saved them for the pair.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this weeks chapter. Leave a review if you wish, and, as always, Keep Moving Forward.