Hello everyone, Khman here surprisingly with another chapter in this fanfic. I'm quite surprised that I had plenty of free time this past week to actually write a little more and post it for this week. Not only that, but even just decide to post it at about midnight. I didn't think I wouldn't be able to post this one in a while, but anyways, here it is. Happy RWBY day and please enjoy!

Disclaimer- I do not own RWBY or any other references made within this fanfic.

Chapter 10: Greater Potential

Both Team STRN and Team RWBY sat in silence, side by side, as their exhausted teammates were being checked on in the infirmary. It wasn't long before a nurse came out with the students.

"Please tell me my little sister is ok," Yang said as she stood up with a hopeful look at the nurse.

"Both Ruby and Naomi are fine and in stable condition," the nurse said as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, RWBY more than STRN. "Other than a few minor cuts and bruises, they are just suffering from exhaustion. The match caused them both to use too much aura. All they need is some rest and they will be ready to fight again in no time at all."

"That's great!" said a relieved Yang.

"Is there any chance we could go see them?" River asked.

The nurse immediately replied, "Actually, they have no need to stay here. I'll go ahead and bring them out."

The nurse left and came back with Ruby and Naomi behind her, each adorned with some bandages in areas that they were cut, to make sure any bleeding was kept at a minimum.

"Oh I'm so happy you're ok!" Yang exclaimed as she proceeded to hug Ruby.

"Please shtop," Ruby managed to squeeze out as she struggled to breathe from Yang's tight grip. "This is starting to hurt."

"Oops, sorry," Yang said as she smiled sheepishly at her younger sister.

"Sorry for your loss Naomi," Stacy said as STRN approached their spell caster.

"Don't worry about it!" Naomi said ecstatically. She then turned to her former opponent and said, "That was one hell of a match! I'm glad I got the chance to face you Ruby!"

"Thanks, the same can be said for you," Ruby replied back as the two went in for a handshake, complimenting each other for the good match. Everyone from both teams left the infirmary talking about their matches, except for Weiss, who solemnly walked behind the group of seven.

It wasn't long before both teams reached their rooms, which was when they realized that they lived right next to each other.

"Wait, so it was you who blew that obnoxious whistle the first day?" Terrance asked the first year group. "You disturbed what was a perfectly good morning of sleep."

"Eh he he, sorry about that," Ruby said, giving a small smile to the ox faunus.

"Don't worry about it, it's in the past now." Terrance sighed.

"Well, it's been quite a day, especially for Naomi and Ruby," Stacy said, everyone agreeing. "We should relax and get our rest. I'm done for the night at least. Goodnight everyone."

Naomi then followed Stacy into their room, remembering the nurse told her to get some rest for the day. Everyone followed the two veteran students, entering their respective rooms, except River, who decided to go for a late night walk. A few minutes later, Weiss left Team RWBY's room and proceeded to find the martial artist.

It didn't take too long for the glyph caster to find River near a fountain, admiring its design.

"So you decided to follow me out?" River asked not even turning, surprising Weiss as she approached him.

Weiss thought for a moment before saying, "Why did you fight us, of all the students? Why only a bunch of first year students when you could have fought another veteran team?"

There was another moment of silence before River replied. "We saw what you did during initiation, both your team and JNPR."

This caught Weiss by surprise. "But I thought the instructors were actually professors, not a bunch of students."

"Despite being one of the most prestigious major combat schools in Vytal, the professors were too busy preparing for their classes to watch you during initiation, so Ozpin asked the veteran students to volunteer to watch everyone," River explained.

"Ok, while that does make sense, that still doesn't completely answer my previous question."

"As I said, we saw what you and JNPR did during initiation. We saw that you had potential to do amazing feats here at Beacon. What you all did during initiation was a feat in itself. After what we saw, we knew right away that you would turn out to be outstanding huntsman and huntresses. So, we decided to fight you and the rest of your team, as well as JNPR eventually. In all honestly, we didn't fight at our fullest because we knew it would have been to easy to beat you. We wanted to test your abilities with an opponent who used aura themselves. Except for Naomi however, who actually did fight with all she had against Ruby, which even surprised the three of us. Not only did your leader manage to make Naomi, who is perhaps the best spell caster at Beacon, second only to Goodwitch, but she managed to beat her too. Not only that, but Ruby was accepted two years early thanks to her skill. I hope you and your friends realize that Ruby isn't just an ordinary huntress-in-training. She's far from it in fact, the girl is a prodigy."

"Well, that certainly does answers my question, I guess," Weiss said shying back a little bit.

"I would hope it would," River said as he turned around to face the Schnee heiress. "As I said, you all have potential, and we want to see you become the best that you can be and more, even better than us. We want to be able to help you all grow stronger as you progress through your time here at Beacon, and I'm sure I can speak for everyone when I say that when we see that you have reached your true potential, we will need to fight again."

There was a pause in River's speech as he gave a smirk to Weiss while saying the last few words. Weiss responded in kind, giving the martial artist a warm smile in return. River then began to walk past her and back to the dorms.

"Well, as lovely as it is to chat with you, I'm gonna call it a night," River sighed as he began to stretch his arms. "Don't stay out here for too long, you should get some rest as well, it's been a long day for both of us. I'm sure both of our teams, as well as JNPR, will get to train together in the future. Have a good night, Weiss."

"And to you as well... uh."

"River. River Mandallow. Sorry for not introducing myself earlier, but we will get to know each other in due time."

"Right. Goodnight River," Weiss replied as she turned around to face the fountain and began to watch the water flow throughout its intricate design.

Author's Note- Well, I hope everyone enjoyed, despite it being a little shorter than what I usually write. I honestly had a little trouble with this chapter, as I wasn't quite sure on how to actually write it. I knew what I was wanting within this chapter, but I was unsure of how to get from point to point. If no one understood the title yet, this chapter sort of explains it. From what I have seen, a lot of people that write stories that involve RWBY usually have first year OCs. I was wanting something a little different, so that is why I went with third year OCs. Also, I'm not sure how well it is playing out to everyone, but I was wanting to include the main characters as well, rather than focus purely on OCs, so I made my team decide to try to form sort of a master/apprentice relationship with them and bring the other teams "under their wing," or ring in this case. Anyways, I hope to be able to post another chapter soon. This is Khman signing off!