I've decided to just skip the lame stuff that merits no value in rewriting. As such, welcome to the forest.
The wind whipped in her ears. Grinning, the girl tilted her body, allowing her momentum to carry her across the sky as she, like many other applicants, were flung over the forest. Her red cloak was whipping behind her, and Crescent Rose was clenched firmly in her hands. Truly, she looked to be a fearsome sight, and, as others fell, she started firing blanks in front of her towards the ground, not only slowing her down but also shooting her up into the sky.
Ruby Rose surveyed the forest from above. In the distance, a sheer cliff marked the end of greenery. Before it, in the center, laid a large spire, although Ruby wasn't high enough up to make out specific details. Regardless, she grinned. She now had a target. 'Hm, if I make it there and back before I see anyone, how do the teams work then?' She questioned. 'Something I should have asked the Headmaster, I suppose. Hindsight is 20/20 if you can see where you went wrong!' She giggled to herself.
As her momentum ran out, Ruby started descending towards the forest. She recalled the Headmaster's words right before the students were launched: "You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you will die." Ruby doubted the last part, but, then again, she obviously wasn't the type of student that Ozpin had been talking to at that moment. "You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene." Remembering this sentence, the girl pouted. She obviously had to do some stuff at the very least. After all, she had only been invited to take the admittance test, she technically wasn't a student yet.
Suddenly, she burst into rose petals. Her semblance was... unique. Not for what it had originally been, which was a simple speed Quirk, but for how she had trained it every day for years and adapted it to fit her needs. The rose petals were her calling cards, for lack of a better term. They were what her semblance had started as and were her crutch, and she paid homage by continuing to use them even when they weren't necessary.
She reappeared on the forest floor, a circle of petals cascading around her. With a brief ray of sunlight making it through canopy, for a moment, she looked almost ethereal. A shame nobody was there to see it. She breathed in deeply, letting the flood of scents crash into her nose. Smiling and relaxing, she unfurled Crescent Rose into its scythe form. Concentrating on a spot where her aura sensed an anomaly in the natural setting, she smiled at the hidden camera. "You want a show? Try and keep up~" she winked.
Concentrated destruction was the easiest way to describe it. She was tearing through small amounts of forest trying to get to where she knew a certain girl would be. Based on the flight trajectories given, this was most likely where the Spartan would be after adjusting for time. Ruby smiled. Most would think that she'd look for Yang instead, and usually they'd be correct, but there was the small matter of she didn't want to have to live in her sister's shadow for the next four years. Or, even worse and even more likely, force Yang to live in her shadow.
So, instead, she'd go for one of the other wildcards. Pyrrha Nikos. The pride of Mistral, and a capable fighter in her own right. And, from what she knew, a pretty nice person. Sure, other people would be vying for a chance to partner with her, particularly the Heiress, but... the reaper smirked. They weren't as fast as her. Catching a lone Beowolf off guard, in a blink, she swung her baby over her shoulder and pulled the trigger, slicing the Grimm's head clean off and propelling her into a blur.
She weaved through trees and rocks, allowing her aura to enhance her senses as she searched for sounds. Nearby, nothing, but about half a mile away... bingo. Ruby blurred into the source of the sounds, expecting to be able to destroy a few Grimm before she got there, but as she reappeared into a recently-created clearing, she was disappointed to find a half-dozen dissolving Ursa Minor alongside a Major. In the middle of it, a lean redhead glad in bronze armor.
"Aw, you took care of them already," Ruby whined.
"Hyyyy-uh?" Pyrrha paused mid-windup as she realized the newcomer was not, in fact, a Grimm. "Ruby?"
Ruby smiled and held up a peace sign as she met the older girl's eyes. "Yo! Am I first?"
The other girl smiled and sheathed her weapon. "Yep! First person I've seen, unless you count Jaune being several hundred meters away as 'eye contact'," Pyrrha held up her fingers in air quotes, and the two giggled.
"Should we go find him?" The fifteen-year-old asked, tilting her head. Pyrrha seemed split between her options.
"I mean..." The celebrity looked slightly lost in thought. "It's not part of the goal, but..." In chorus, the girls said, "If we leave him alone, he'll probably get himself killed." As if on queue, a girlish scream rang out through the forest. The two girls locked eyes again, and tensed. "Let's go."
Ozpin sipped from his mug.
"That wasn't supposed to happen, Ozpin," Glynda muttered, staring down at a tablet. "The trajectories weren't supposed to have those two anywhere near each other."
The grey-haired headmaster chuckled. "And yet, it happened anyway. Wouldn't you say that's quite the opposite? Despite outside interference, those two still found each other." Glynda folded her arms over her chest, frowning.
"Still, Miss Rose..."
Ozpin's good nature quickly faded. "Indeed. We will have to assess for trauma. To have such a change in her personality from social life to fighting, it's... jarring, to say the least. If there was indeed something that caused it, or perhaps even continued treatment, we will have to ensure a proper adjustment. It could easily lead to her being taken advantage of, or..." The rest of the sentence was left unsaid. Glynda nodded in agreement.
Eager to change the topic, she cleared her throat. "Well, what about the other teams? Most of those seem to have gone to plan. Yang Xiao Long and Blake Belladonna, Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie, poor boy, that group of infidels..." Seeing the glance Ozpin gave her, she rolled her eyes and huffed. "You can look at them yourself! All they have is brute strength. Not half a brain between them." Sighing and regaining her composure. "Lastly..."
"How the hell am I stuck in this with you out of all people?" Weiss Schnee screamed as she used glyphs to make distance between her and the Elder Deathstalker. Of course, the person in question, Jaune Arc, was too busy screaming his blonde head off to respond as the enlarged scorpion crashed through tree after tree behind him. They were running out of space, though, and fast.
"Argh!" Weiss growled and suddenly spun on her heel, casting a repulsion glyph in front of the Deathstalker that halted its moment for the moment. "Please tell me you have some sort of magical Semblance to have made it here!"
Jaune shakily held his shield up. "I don't even know what that is!"
Despite herself, Weiss lost her composure. "How the fu-" She was cut off by two blurs racing past them and impacting the Deathstalker at full force, digging it into the ground. She wasn't surprised, as she turned, to see the pride of Mistral to be one of the two blurs. However, the other... "That brat?!" The stupid girl who had looked like a toddler and had gotten in her butler's way was not only an applicant, but she was the one who had partnered with her path to success?
"Nice to see you too, Princess..." Ruby muttered, not looking behind her. The Deathstalker was definitely massive. She couldn't really fault either of the other two students for running away, really. "Pyrrha," she started, causing the other girl to turn towards her.
"Hm?"
Ruby winked. "I call the tail." Without no more indication than a sudden breeze, the caped crusader disappeared. Within seconds, the Grimm let out a massive roar as black blood oozed out from the end of its tail, or, more accurately, the stump where its stinger used to be. All three students gaped at the sight, even Pyrrha. The Grimm started to stampede around, throwing the girl on its back off, although she quickly corrected her flight with a bullet, allowing her to land on a tree branch without harm. "Your turn, Pyrrha!"
The redhead grinned and nodded, turning Milo into a rifle and firing a few quick shots at the monster. The bullets weren't able to pierce its thick bone armor, but it was enough to get its attention. Roaring, the Deathstalker scuttled towards her, which she took advantage of as she turned Milo back into a sword. She leapt forward, dodging in midair over the first claw and swung her weapon down, embedding it a quarter of the way through the limb.
She proceeded to jump of the limb and used her Semblance to call her sword back to it when the Deathstalker waved its arms, practice allowing her to make it look as natural as possible. It was a majestic sight for onlookers, seeing the Spartan warrior flip in mid-air and catch her sword, and it continued as she turned it into its original form, the spear, and slammed it into the bone armor in the middle of the scorpion's head, causing it to screech.
Letting go of her weapon, the combat veteran allowed her instincts to take over as she dodged the two blind swipes of the monster's arms, as well as the sudden slam of the tail behind her. Despite the stinger being removed, it could still be used as a weapon. Pyrrha breathed in deeply and allowed her aura to grant her more speed and strength. As the first claw surged towards her, she jumped lightly, landing on top of the pincer, and kicked off again.
She had planned to kick off of the second claw, but it seemed that the Heiress had had enough of watching and sent a glyph above Pyrrha, shouting to the girl, "Here's some footing!"
The Spartan didn't have enough time to fully formulate a response, but a loud 'Thanks!' was heard as she kicked off the glyph at breakneck speeds and slammed Akouo into Milo, sending the spear all the way through the Deathstalker with a small 'boom'. "Holy shit..." Jaune murmured as he watched all this from behind a tree. The Deathstalker was still for a few moments, but then roared in renewed anger. "It's still not dead?!"
"Well, that leaves option number two..." Weiss said. "Run!"
"Retreat and live to fight another day," the only boy in the group replied. "Now that's a plan I can get behind."
"More like retreat to live to retreat another day for you," the white-haired teen snarked.
He looked at her in shock. "And you think you can kill that thing?"
"At least I didn't scream like a little girl!"
"Guys-" Pyrrha tried to cut in, wrenching Milo out of the Deathstalker's head.
"I'm sorry if I was a little scared!" Jaune replied.
"A little? You would have-"
Finally, Ruby had enough and shot a round between the two, smoke sizzling as it dug into the wood behind them. The bickering duo's heads turned towards the sniper in shock and finally took in the dissolving form of the Elder Deathstalker as Pyrrha wiped her spear off on the ground. "You're lucky it was actually dead, or you two would've died mid-argument."
"Now, look here you-" Weiss started, ready to get into an argument with whoever she had to to make a point.
"She's right." The telegraphic sentence got its point across rather quickly. Weiss' eyes widened as she took in the disapproving form of Pyrrha who was shaking her head at the duo. "Come on Ruby, let's go." The other girl hopped off of the tree branch, her red tips bouncing as she did, and the two set off in a seemingly random direction, leaving behind a shocked blond and a speechless heiress.
"That sure was... something," Ruby stated, her personality starting to go back to normal now that there was no combat going on. She flicked Crescent Rose in the air, splashing the blood off, and then shifted it into its compact form.
"Indeed..." Pyrrha said, thinking about the duo they were leaving behind. "Do you think they'll be alright?" Ruby waved her concerns off.
"Of course... probably. Most likely, the only thing hurt will be their egos. Also, how many forms does your weapon have, anyway?" By the end, stars were in the girl's eyes as she inspected Milo fervently. Pyrrha chuckled and scratched the back of her head in slight surprise, this being the first time she had seen the younger girl like this.
"Just three. A spear," she gestured, "a sword," she transformed Milo into its short sword variant, "and a rifle." She completed the show by displaying the gun form. By the end, Ruby's silver eyes had grown even wider.
"That's so coooooooool!" She shouted, loud enough to make Pyrrha wince slightly and try to change the subject.
"Ah, uh- it's not that cool, I don't think..." Ruby's scoff was enough to show that the girl disagreed wholeheartedly. "Anyway, what about you? How many forms does your weapon have?"
"Crescent Rose? Four. Well," she amended, "three and a half, really. A quick gun form," she pulled out Crescent Rose and a stock and a scope quickly popped out, "the full gun form," she popped the full barrel out and then shifted the full weapon into its bladed form, "its main form, a scythe, and, finally, a staff." She collapsed the blade and scope and popped the magazine out, presenting a staff that looked surprisingly balanced, and had one rounded and one pointy end, adding to its versatility. "Designing it was a pain, but totally worth it."
"Woah, you designed that yourself?" Pyrrha questioned. Ruby nodded happily.
"Mhm! Weapon design was one of the classes offered at Signal, and all students are required to make their own weapons regardless." Ruby chuckled awkwardly. "My dad happened to be the teacher of that class." Pyrrha nodded in understanding.
"That makes sense. You're really good with it, too!" It was Ruby's turn to blush and stammer. "Anyway, do you know where we're supposed to be going, or are we wandering aimlessly?"
After getting over her stammering, Ruby finally replied, "Somewhat. I know where the temple is roughly, but I'm not quite sure of where we are exactly. We should be only a few minutes away, less if we start to sprint."
Pyrrha smiled at the younger girl. "I'll race you. But only if you don't use your Semblance!"
Ruby rolled her eyes. "Fiiiiine..."
The start of a good friendship, indeed.