"Oh! Jaune you're alright!" Pyrrah Nikos exited the bushes, having immediately ran to where Jaune was, the excuse that she was, 'simply worried about a fellow student' was shadowed by the fact that she was definitely just doing this to become partners with him.
"Also what were you saying about, 'superpowers'?" The declaration of some sort did confuse her, not to mention virtually every student in the forest considering how loud it was…
"Look!" Jaune pointed to his feet standing in the centre of a small crater, a golden shimmer being seen before disappearing.
"Uhh, Jaune?" she said in a confused tone while the other student only kept looking ecstatic.
"Do you really not know what aura is?"
The troubled face he made at the term only confirmed her thoughts, she was concerned as to why he was being so panicked about the fall,
-but she only thought it was because his aura was on the lower scale of things, not that he didn't have it at all…
That fact stupefied her, aura was something that was practically necesarry to actually be a huntsman, so a student in Beacon not having manifested it would confuse just about anyone.
Aura was the manifestation of the soul of its user. The equivalent of wearing a shield that can protect your body, one of the main things humans and the faunus could survive against the Grimm.
"Oh so like a forcefield"! " Jaune said at hearing her brief explanation of what aura was.
"Uh… I suppose you could describe it like that…" Pyrrha said in the technically true description of what aura actually was.
…
…
"So…" Jaune interrupted the metaphorical crickets in the background.
"I guess we're partners now, huh." Well, Jaune would've preferred that Schnee girl but this girl was fine. (well, he was fine with any girl)
Pyrrha made a small smile, that fact being taken in made her slightly happy for some reason.
"Yes, I suppose we ar-"
A loud footstep that shook the nearby surroundigs interrupted her from outside the large clearing they were in, then another smaller kind that wasn't as loud but was still powerful, and then another, and then another, and then another dozen.
Their entire surroundings sounded like hefty beads raining from the sky, multiple sounds of thudding were heard on the dirt, though the sources still remained unseen by the two. Then-
…
It all stopped at a final thud,
-Multiple crimson glows started appearing in pairs, completely surrounding the two as Jaune inwardly cursed whatever god there was at realizing there was no way to run while Pyrrha lost her earlier smile and furrowed her brows.
Suddenly-
At their front, where the first groundshaking footsteps sounded, a deep growl resonated before a massive bear-like monster thrice their size came charging, its vanta-black fur moving against the wind, it was slow, probably being weighed down by the thick bone and spikes that covered random parts of its body, the usual clean white usual Grimm have was instead covered in a faint red,
Its eyes beamed through the bone mask it wore, the color being nearly the same as the random blood-red inscriptions on it.
"A Major Ursa…" Pyrrha mumbled in recognition, the blonde tried his best to not run away while a second massive Grimm came out, a large werewolf-like beast, An Alpha Beowulf, it simply stood in place doing their equivalent of glaring.
"hahah…" Jaune made a slightly maddened laugh at seeing the dozens of the Grimm pack leader's smaller counterparts came out of the bushes,
A Grimm that reached intelligence?
Pyrrha thought of it as the only conclusion, the dried blood the Ursa had, the fact it commanded an entire Beowolf pack to not just mindlessly charge it, not to mention its unusually large size…
She reached for her weapon…
…
…
Which she forgot to retrieve while running to Jaune….
…
Ignoring her slight clumsiness she pulled up her shield, Milo, to block the charge with it, having given up on simply dodging it as her partner seemed to be unmoving.
"Here, catch." A new voice came from their side as an object was thrown in her direction in a light parabola, it was her red and gold weapon, the same one she had forgotten to retrieve, Akuou.
Swiftly taking it in a quick motion while the Ursa Major was still a distance from them.
The both turned their heads to where it came from, seeing a silver haired teen making his way to them, efficiently killing every Grimm that he came across, the two black and white blades staying clean even with the blood and fat it's sliced through.
"Y-You." Pyrrha recognised his figure, the same figure of the student that threw that sword…
Shirou Schnee didn't actually leave the boy to die if he hadn't manifested his aura, he had grown a little more light-hearted after a decade and a half of being surrounded by something that wasn't death and bloodshed,
As soon as he landed, he ran to where the boy should've been, even using time dilation glyphs and a bit of reinforcement, enough to make it look unsuspicious to the obvious cameras in the forest.
He decided that they probably needed his assistance considering the nearly hundred Grimm horde that surrounded them, Pyrrha NIkos could probably have handled it, (well, if she didn't have that blonde holding her down), but the girl foolishly lost her weapon and the boy… well, he was just plain incompetent.
Shirou stood, his backside facing the two who only looked at him, one in a slight awe and the other with a slight hint of malice.
"While I think you would want to talk to me, please be reminded that we're currently surrounded by dozens of Grimm." Shirou glanced in their way before facing back to his front, assessing the Ursa Major's figure who had stopped, the thing probably doing the same with the intelligence it had.
…
A low vibration came out from wherever its throat was, a growl, and with it, the multiple other Grimm that it came with started charging.
"Jaune Arc." Shirou said, well, it was still quite a distance in the large clearing until the Grimm reached them.
"H-huh?" the boy responded frantically, Shirou pointed at how his legs were practically shaking.
"Don't soil yourself yet."
"HEY! What the heck do you mean by that!?" Jaune curb-stomped his fear in place of yelling the guy currently charging to the big bear Grimm thing.
"Jaune," the girl beside him said, she had a furrow on her brows for some reason, (she was also kinda mad about it).
"While I may have some… opinions of that student, he is right,"
"What do you mean be 'he is right'!?" seriously!? Jaune gets that he may have been a little scared at the big, -no, really big Grimm surrounding them, but why do they have to rub it in like that!?
"Oh! I meant the thing he said about the Grimm surrounding us, not… that." she partly blamed herself for her wording, slightly inwardly panicking about accidentally insulting her partner.
"Ohhh, yeah of course you were talking about that, you are my teammate." Jaune attempted to smoothly play off his misunderstanding, Shirou in the background was starting to get tired of the two just standing around.
Pyrrha took a look at where the silver haired teen was fighting off the multiple Beowolves surrounding the Ursa, the large Grimm only seemed to stand around for some reason, watching him.
She decided with a small amount of bias that he could probably handle himself and went to the opposite side of the clearing, near the treeline where there was still a large amount of Beowolves,
Jaune followed her step by step, his earlier slight anger was now being overshadowed by his fear, even more so when the Alpha Beowolf made its way over to them.
"Jaune, cover me."
"Wh-what? O-oh, Uh yeah sure.." Jaune stumbled through his words at her unreasonable request (to him) while all the Grimm simultaneously moved in to attack.
Ohcrapohcrapohcrap
Jaune inwardly repeated in his head, narrowly dodging a lunge by one Beowolf, only to move into the pathway of another, the thing being inches away from his face before he could even respond by pulling up his shield.
…
A yellow trace line went by the Grimm's skull where it didn't have any bone protecting it, a splatter of red and black went on the ground while the force of the bullet that hit it was enough to fling the now-dead Grimm away from the blonde.
"Jaune! What are you doing!?" Pyrrha yelled at him, the girl held up her left hand where the shield attached to it deflected a lunge from a Beowolf, then using the thing's momentum to throw it over herself and to the numerous Grimm behind her.
She turned her weapon into its Xyphos Form from its gun form, addressing the three other Beowolves that charged her from the front while the Grimm behind were still dazed, doing so by swiftly making a horizontal arc that sliced through their unprotected necks, using her semblance to add more force to the motion.
"I can't keep helping you!" Pyrrha used that slight moment of rest to yell at Jaune, the carcasses of the Grimm blocking the others.
Jaune would be in awe at the view he had just witnessed, if not for the Beowolves that were charging towards his direction, most probably hellbent on gutting him.
Thankfully, a majority of the Grimm aimed for his partner, even the Alpha Beowolf, probably because they thought of her as a greater threat, they did the same with that silver haired teen, though not as much they did with Pyrrha. (Shirou was half-assing it the entire time.)
-but even with the large amount that went to his other classmates, Jaune still had to deal with just about a dozen Grimm that were… charging at him right now…
"Crap."
Shirou dodged another mindless lunge at him by a Beowolf, simply replying to the thing by putting his white blade in a reverse grip and pushing his right hand down into its skull.
The Major Ursa only seemed to stand still like it was even in the beginning of the battle, watching his every movements.
Most of the Grimm he encountered in this world really weren't something he would consider a problem, even with the tough armor some of them had, Shirou could still cut through it with enough slices, what helped was that most of them were mindless, and consequently, predictable.
But this Ursa wasn't mindless, it has probably 'lived' for hundreds of years, gained a sense of intelligence, learned from its experiences, and probably even older than his soul.
It was probably analysing his every move, his fighting style, to see if it should flee or not, to see when it should step in for an opportunity to get an easy meal, even Shirou's noticed the thing taking a step whenever he purposely lets a Beowolf get an obvious hit at his aura.
Shirou could get through the black hide it had but it probably wouldn't even do any good,
The thing had thick white armor protecting practically all of its vitals and even more, the only things being exposed were places that just contained fat and other unimportant body parts, probably just another reason as to why this one particular Grimm has survived for so long, through sheer luck that it was 'born' with a more-protected body.
Shirou was troubled by that fact only for a second before he came up with a simple conclusion.
He purposely had another Beowolf get a small scratch in at his right hand before quickly killing it, it was the last Beowolf thus leaving the only things in Shirou's side of the battlefield being him and the Ursa,
A red drop of liquid fell from the wound while the ursa simultaneously began charging towards him.
"Oh cra-!"
Jaune backtracked while a Beowolf kept rapidly making very, very, close strikes inches away from his face, each time probably lowering his life expectancy from pure fear before finally resolving himself.
He put both of his sweaty palms on the blue grip of his sword, gritting his teeth, he raised it while simultaneously thrusting it towards the thing while it was still preparing for another swing.
His unskilled attack luckily pierced through its neck while the thing slowly fell backwards, Jaune getting pulled down along with it as he still had an iron grip on his weapon.
"Oh god… It's finally over…" Jaune couldn't care less while he simply layed on the dissipating corpse of the last Beowolf, causing blood to soak the clothing under his armor.
the smell and blood will probably evaporate too, right?
His surroundings had multiple Grimm scattered along the ground, his shield which he clumsily dropped earlier being a few paces away, (he decided to just grab it later.)
The Beowolves were in different levels of dissipation, having various types of wounds in them, at most three had sword wounds while most had random bullet holes, his partner being the one to kill a majority of the things.
"Jaune! I need some help here!" A voice in the distance yelled over to him,
Oh right, there were other people with him…
He frantically stood up from his bed of decaying meat and looked over to where the voice originated to see a red-headed girl standing infront of the Alpha Beowolf, glaring at her with a hiss, it looked really pissed, probably because of the slash wound that was on its left eye…
He pulled his sword out of the ground and ran over to his shield a few paces away in a hurry,
A deep sound emanated in the entire clearing, a roar of some kind, surprising Jaune and Pyrrah, and even the Alpha Beowolf turned to look at it.
It was the Ursa from earlier, but one of its front feet was pinned down to the ground by a large sword, the other student from earlier was distanced to it by a few meters.
He threw… something at it, it wasn't clear since Jaune was quite far from it but it was pulsating in a red glow, the thing was thrown in a straight motion towards the Grimm's still-open maw, not leaving any time for the beast to react to even think of dodge it.
"A firedust crystal?" Pyrrah sounded, her focus was primarily on the massive Grimm in front of her but she saw enough of the scene to discern what the silver-haired student probably threw.
The theory was confirmed as the Major Ursa that led an entire Beowolf pack exploded like a dead whale, violently and really, really messy, getting the student in front of it a bathe in blood.
(Fortunately for Shirou, Grimm blood did evaporate even when soaked in clothing.)
Shirou faced forward as the massive ball of black and red-tinted white continued charging at him, he only stood as he was waiting for the opportunity to proceed with his plan.
Earlier, he had faked his aura being broken, something mindless Grimm wouldn't care about since they'd just keep trying to maul you either way, but this Ursa had a sense of intelligence, and once it saw that drip of blood, it fell for the bait…
Even with intelligence, it was still something Shirou could manipulate in some way just as he uses normal Grimm's lack of it by predicting its attacks.
Now.
Shirou began running towards it, the thing responding in a slight show of surprise before stopping as it raised its left front foot right when he was only a few feet away from it.
Shirou ducked just as the massive arm was about to come in contact,
Using his semblance he summoned a nameless sword, a durable and large greatsword, it was more like a slab of iron really, the type of blade he would never actually use but was more than sufficient enough for what the situation at hand.
It was summoned on its side just above him and was pointed towards the Ursa's mid-swing limb, since he definitely couldn't wield it properly in his current body, he had to use that method used by a certain golden king.
The weapon penetrated through the thing's unarmored hand as it still continued, forcefully guiding the limb towards the ground, pinning the hand onto the dirt while the Ursa tried and failed to pull it out before angrily responding by using its by using its free arm to do another swing, if it hadn't been for the bone covering it, Shirou would've used the same method as before.
Shirou did a swift jump back, narrowly avoiding the Ursa's right paw as it was swung.
The Ursa did another few attempts at pulling out before failing again, seeing that it had no choice, it opened its jaw in order to communicate in some way to that Alpha Beowolf, exactly what Shirou wanted it to do.
That was… anticlimactic…
Pyrrha thought while having her vision on the silver-haired teen wiping out Ursa insides from his body, the only interesting thing about the scene was how that large sword began dissipating into blue motes of light, a semblance..?
The Alpha Beowolf infront of her glared, before taking a glance at the brutalised corpse of what was its leader,
-And running.
Pyrrha made a small, glad, 'hm.' at the avoidance of what was probably going to be a slightly difficult battle.
"Jaune!" She turned over to her partner and called out, wanting to ask if he was ok after that entire battle.
Shirou, in the distance, clicked his tongue at the
girl's choice, the choice of letting go such a Grimm…
He summoned a nameless but sturdy bow on his left hand, he normally would've used his original one that could launch Noble Phantasms through an entire cityscape in seconds had it not been for the body he resided in,
(Pulling back an entire bowstring made of steel that was just as tall as his original body takes alot of strength.)
He would've preferred not revealing this one ability, but that meant letting that Beowolf go, and in an obvious conclusion, letting it continue killing…
He pulled back the tightly held string, even though no 'arrows' were even on his person, not yet atleast.
His Ideals were always something that affected his choices, and most of those choices only made his life harder, like when he nearly revealed Rho Aias when saving Ruby Rose, or in his current actions that would mean revealing his skills as an archer,
but…
An ice-blue glyph formed on the arrowrest of the bow, slowly making its way to the strung nock of it while a blue-tinted sword formed along with the thing.
Is there really anything wrong with that when it meant potentially saving a life?
The magic-circle-like object disappeared while his right hand simultaneously let go of the bowstring, Shirou already having aimed at the thing even when the bow wasn't even summoned yet.
A short whistle sounded in the clearing before the sound of a body dropping in the distance was heard to the two students and to Shirou, who began walking over to them with an annoyed face.
"For someone so well-known for being skilled, that was idiotic." Shirou faced Pyrrha Nikos with a glare, his taller stature making him more menacing in a way.
"Uh.. What?" the girl responded with a confused tone, not knowing why he was referring to, something he expected but it only made him more irritated at how ignorant she was.
"You were about to let go of a Grimm that has murdered most probably dozens, and would most would keep killing."
"I…" Her voice faded off as the realization of how he was right became apparent in her mind, and more importantly, how she could have possibly let a person die just from her uncaring choice of letting a Grimm go.
"Hm, interesting…" Ozpin watched the camera footage of the three students, while Glynda Goodwitch did the same beside him.
"I suppose," she said in a tone that she always used when she was impressed with something, which only showed how intriguing the scene was considering how Glynda was probably the hardest person in the world to impress…
"It only makes sense that Shirou Schnee would say that since he's been recorded to go on Grimm hunts before…" Ozpin briefly glanced over the camera footage over the other students before putting his attention back to the trio,
The Kingdom of Vale's security wasn't something to be underestimated, practically every citizen's activity was carefully recorded like how a bank monitors its customer's acoounts for fraudulent activity.
Every citizen had files on every one of their spendings, travels, hobbies, associates, height, weight, blood type, practically everything.
This was true for all of the other Kingdoms, and as much as it seemed like a total breach of privacy to some of the council members and a majority of the masses,
It was necessary.
"Indeed," Glynda scrolled to another student's footage before humming, "it seems that the final pair have been formed, Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie."
"Oh? Then it seems Shirou Schnee will be it." Ozpin took a sip of coffee before beginning to rewatch the footage of Lie Ren battling a King Taijitsu, seeing that the trio of students he was observing before have now left the battle and was now simply walking towards their destination.
"Ugh." Glynda's mood turned sour while she groaned at his words.
"Why didn't you just reject Jaune Arc, or anybody if you truly wanted for Shirou Schnee to join." Shirou Schnee's enrolment was something that she really didn't mind considering what she's seen of him, but Ozpin's decision was just plain infuriating to her.
"Now we have to deal with this 'five-man team' nonsense if Mr. Schnee doesn't accept being without one." Glynda crossed her arms before angrily raising it, "-And what are we even going to do with the Vytal Tournament!?"
"Glynda." Ozpin tried to take a sip from his coffee mug, only to find it empty before turning his head to face the slightly red teacher in front of him.
"Did you know? In a chess match, a single pawn out of the many in the beginning of the battle could be, later in the game, detrimental to attaining a victory." Ozpin ignored the question (he didn't actually have an answer for it) and resorted to using a rather convuluted reason as he calmly handed the empty coffee mug towards the now sighing teacher.