I plan on rewriting this fic when I actually have more experience in writing.

When a character or thing does something way more op than they should : just assume it's part of the whole 'buffing' I'm doing.

"C'mon when is he gonna get ejected!?" Weiss was currently balancing herself on a branch of the tree she had landed on. All the while looking towards Beacon Cliff in anticipation of her brother, who she hoped to become teammates with. Though Pyrrah Nikos might've been an ideal partner for her known fame and skill, Weiss preferred the chance of being able to spend more time with her brother, and regarding his abilities, he'd apparently stopped a robbery from Roman Torchwick and done enough to impress the Headmaster to enroll him in the academy 2 years early, so she had no doubt about them.

Her opinion on Beacon slightly lowered a bit when she heard their system of deciding teams 'Really! Deciding pairs by eye contact of all things! It's such an idiotic approach!' she thought, her opinions on the pair selection system unknowingly coinciding with her brother's. She was still looking towards the cliff before seeing the figure of her brother being launched from the cliff.

"There he is!" she began darting towards the direction where his trajectory was going to land, using time dilation glyphs to increase her speed. Looking up towards her brother the entire time, only glancing back down to the ground when her peripherals didn't see much.

Weiss saw Shirou throw a… sword(?) at something, and then a few seconds after that... "I HAVE SUPERPOWERS!"

A declaration came from the voice of the flirty blonde guy at the auditorium yesterday. 'wha-?' in the few milliseconds she had been confused, she didn't notice the sound of running footsteps to the front of her, aswell as the figure of an equally confused crimson headed girl, and then-

"OW!? What the-!? "

Weiss and Ruby were on the ground, the two stared at each other for a few seconds before Weiss blinked twice and heavily sighed.

After bumping into the other girl, Weiss reluctantly agreed to having Ruby Rose as a partner… after she tried to walk away a few times before eventually coming to terms with reality. She wasn't really mad about not being able to become teammates with her brother, she just saw it as a missed opportunity of some sorts, it wasn't like he would stop attending Beacon with her. Besides, she'd heard from Shirou that Ruby had actually aided him in fighting Roman Torchwick, so Weiss had no doubt about her new partner's skill and abilities. All that was left for uncertainty was their teamwork in a fight which, as expected of the leader of her future team, she would surely iron it out… was what she thought until they got attacked by a small pack of Beowolves.

At the start of the skirmish, when Weiss had fired some ice crystals at one of the Beowolves, she had nearly skewered Ruby had it not been for the girl's aura, the event not having to happen if the younger girl didn't attack the one Beowolf that she was obviously aiming for.

After that, it was a mess of a long fight that included the two constantly and accidentally bumping into one another or nearly killing each other until the last beowolf was finally killed by having its entire body separated into two parts thanks to a demoralised girl's scythe.

"What was that!?" a disheveled Ruby Rose had exclaimed "That should've been easy!" she continued as an equally scruffy Weiss's glare grew "If you weren't bumping into me the whole time then-"

"SHUT UP!" Weiss interrupted. Before Ruby could respond, she continued with a pointed finger at her teammate "Don't act like you weren't doing anything wrong either! You kept going into my attacks to the point where I can't tell if you're just an imbecile or plain suicidal! So don't you dare criticise me while acting like you're completely faultless!" Weiss turned her back with an annoyed huff.

As her teammate started walking into the forest, Ruby couldn't help but agree with the points that Weiss had made, but was still annoyed at how her teammate had insulted her. Well… they had just gotten out of a fight with an extremely small Beowolf pack and already had more than half their aura drained, not to mention just being in the worst shape possible so it is reasonabl-

Ruby had unconsciously started following her partner while in thought and both had stopped when they entered upon a clearing, what caught their eyes was the cavity in the bottom of a fairly large cliff, a cave.

"Uh- Do you think this is the place? It looks pretty old with those drawings on the entrance… " Ruby pointed to the blood-red paintings of people fighting a giant scorpion thing.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check it out… Besides, we've been walking north for a while, this might be the place where the relics are…" Weiss said calmly, the anger she felt earlier having left after a few minutes of silent walking. The two deciding to go through the ominous cave, walking closer to its entrance…

"Why are you following us again? Shouldn't you be looking for a partner? " Jaune asked the silver-haired teen walking along him and his teammate.

It was quite an awkward few minutes after that small argument, after the girl made a small apology at her mistake Jaune Arc, Pyrrha Nikos, and Shirou began walking towards the direction of north, where their destination should be.

"Truthfully, I don't mind being the student without a partner. Besides, we have the same destination so I don't see why I have to pointlessly make a detour." Shirou said as they continued walking towards where, with his reinforced eyesight, he saw a demolished structure with seven chess pieces -Though he didn't tell them that-

He could easily and swiftly complete the objective that the Headmaster had given them: retrieve and return the relics. -but he wasn't here to become some sort of famous prodigy and showcase his skills and abilities to all of Remnant, including his enemies. He was here to observe the students who strive to protect others by putting themselves to risk: by becoming huntsmen and huntress, aswell as observing their skills and potential.

"So you noticed it too huh.." Pyrrah muttered, to which Jaune interjected "noticed what?" confused as to what the two are talking about.

Archer had a small smirk "I suppose you wouldn't have been aware of it while you were incessantly panicking about surviving something that could easily be done with aura." Pyrrah interrupted before the blonde boy could speak up.

"The amount of students that were in Beacon Cliff are an odd number, which indicates that one student won't have a teammate." she explained as Jaune replied in an 'ohh' . "There is also the fact that there were 13 students, and since the teams are going to be compromised by 4 people, it would also imply that the one who didn't get a partner would either not have a team at all or be the fifth member of another team…" Pyrrah ended her explanation as questions started to surface in the blonde's head.

Jaune glanced the the silver haired young man and spoke up,"-But wait, shouldn't you be worried that there might be some kind of penalty if you don't have a partner?" Shirou merely shrugged at the boy's question and answered

"I wouldn't think that there would be a punishment for somebody that didn't coincidentally lock eyes with another person. If there is, then I would start to doubt the caliber of this Academy. Well… not that I haven't already from their choice to select teams via eye contact" he said, putting an emphasis on those last two words.

-A few miles away from the trio's location, Glynda Goodwitch was silently agreeing with the boy's point as Ozpin did a hum and took another sip of coffee… -

"What I'm more interested in is what they would do with the situation of my team…" Shirou ended his explanation as Jaune responded in a 'huh' while Pyrrha nodded, "Indeed, it is curious since a five man team and a student without one is completely unheard of, not including the teams where three of the members died…"

"I supp- huh," Shirou was about to agree before he interrupted himself. The two becoming slightly confused as to why the young man had stopped talking.

'I wonder how they're going to act in a situation like this' he thought, a whistling sound resonated in the air, the sound of something being shot in the wind, a noise similar to whenever he shoots his arrows. The other two quickly noticed it and turned their heads, the origin of the sound being a massive corvid-like Grimm, completely black except for the white of its sharp talons and its bone like mask where the thing's eyes are beaming with blood-lust through the mask's eye holes. A Nevermore, its wingspan being about the same length as the height of an eight floor building, volleys of its feathers being blasted through the air, the Grimm still continuing to fire in hopes of turning the trio into a pincushion…

Ruby and Weiss were currently walking inside the cave they thought to be the where the relics were held. Ruby was holding a fire dust lighter as a light source since it was completely dark in the cavern, after a few silent moments of the duo walking inside the cave, the crimson-headed girl decided to speak up "Uhh… Hey Weiss, I don't think this is the place.." she said before a small rock fell down and responding with a high-pitched 'eep', accidentally dropping the dust lighter as Weiss groaned at her partners clumsiness and started to answer the other girl's question.

"It wouldn't hurt to look around and confirm, and those paintings on the entrance seemed pretty 'ancient' to m-" In the near complete dark, as Ruby was struggling to find the dust lighter while half listening to her partner, Weiss noticed the faint orange glow a few paces from them. It had a spherical shape, slightly less thrice than the size of her head. The light fading out of it from the thick something it was attached to at its top, the bottom also having a notable pointiness to it. Ruby noticed her partner's sudden silence and looked up right before feeling the shape of a dust lighter in her hands.

"OH! Found i-…" Ruby had raised the dust lighter in front of her while simultaneously turning it on, revealing a massive scorpion-like Grimm staring at the partners, white bones acting for what a normal scorpion's chitin would be, only covering the thing's top and bottom, black being revealed to be under, the round light Weiss was staring at being it's stinger. A Deathstalker. It appeared to have just opened its eyes, being 'woken' up by Ruby's slight yell of delight.

The thing had responded to its awakening with a loud screech that resonated within the cave, it immediately started to charge at the two. The girls responding by putting their weapons up in an attempt to try and mitigate their aura damage.

The Deathstalker had flinged them out of the cavern before a few seconds later, it had plowed through the cave entrance onto the outside. The two using that short time to recuperate themselves in preparation of battle, the Grimm revealing its true size under the sun's light. It was almost twice as tall than Weiss, which didn't even include its tail...

That fact was enough for the two to reconsider their chances at winning and… immediately run away, Ruby with her speed semblance, and Weiss with her time dilation glyphs, both automatically agreeing that this was something they definitely couldn't fight without experiencing a painful death.

"Huh, this must be the place" Yang Xiao Long said as she walked out of the bushes to a clearing, her partner, Blake, following behind her. The pair were currently looking towards the broken ruins of a rotunda, a structure with a circular base. There were 7 pedestals lined around the razed building, each having a 'relic'.

"Chess pieces?" Blake said, recognizing the figures of the objects.

"A cute lil' pony!" Yang had grabbed and held up a golden Knight piece. Blake ignored it in place of being curious about the singular white Queen piece, being at the center dividing the other gold and black chess pieces. There was writing on the pedestal it was on, reading 'Reserved for the one without a partner'

Blake's thinking was interrupted by heavy sounding footsteps, which she heard with her more advanced faunus senses, and from her experience of being outside the kingdom walls, she recognized the sound to be from an Ursa Major.

The faunus tensed her body as she became ready to lunge at the threat, steadying the grip on her two blades. Yang had done the same once the noise had been apparent for human hearing. The sound getting louder and louder with each moment, until the Grimm would no doubt come out from the trees in a second or two..

The Ursa did come out… only for it to collapse and die a second later… and in the next moment a girl dressed in mainly pink and less than half the size of the Grimm enthusiasticly jumped off its back, as another young man wearing mainly green came out from the bushes, looking completely exhausted.

The events stupefying Blake, and Yang just responding with a dumbfounded 'what?'. The pink girl just excitedly running up to the relics, grabbing a random piece, and declaring "I'm the queen of the castleee!", ignoring the confused looks of the pair.

"Nora, that's a rook…" the nearly collapsed young man said as he took a glance at the piece the girl now known as Nora was holding.

"Aww, which one's the queen then?" Nora asked as the young man pointed to the lone white chess piece. The girl eagerly ran up to it before her partner spoke up "-But it seems to be reserved for 'a person without a partner'" he gestured to the wording on its pedestal as the girl responded with an 'Aw' and took back the rook piece.

"Uhh-…!?" Yang tried to speak up before frantic screaming started to become heard to the four students. A moment later an extremely distressed Jaune Arc ran out of the forest along with Shirou Schnee and Pyrrah Nikos, and in another moment after that a screech from a rather large Nevermore resonated within the air before it swooped down in a attempt to crush the running trio.

"Well I suppose it's good that the girl famously known as 'Invincible Girl' knows when she can't win…" Shirou said before seeing the looks the pair is giving him. 'Ah, I accidentally said that outloud…' he says inwardly, realizing his Freudian slip.

After the other two had realized the presence of the large Grimm, Pyrrha shouted for them to run, to which Jaune obediently followed. After a few minutes of sprinting, dodging the grimm's feathers aswell as its swooping attack, they had reached the location of the abandoned temple. It was a fairly large clearing with the structure on its center where chess pieces occupied its seven pedestals.

Four other students were gawking at them: Yang Xiao Long and Blake Belladonna in dumbstruck confusion, Lie Ren in battle readiness, and Nora Valkyrie in -for whatever reason- excitement. After nonchalantly dodging another volley of the Nevermore's feathers, a scream different from Jaune Arc's started to be heard from the distance. All heads turned to its direction to see the figure of a panic stricken Ruby Rose falling from the sky, screaming about ''not having that much aura lef-'' Oh.

Shirou immediately put up a few dozen propulsion glyphs in the girl's trajectory to try and lessen her fall, ignoring his rapid depletion of aura. Knowing that the students here don't have any abilities sufficient enough to prevent the young girl from falling to her death without atleast getting her severely injured.

Ruby had safely landed on her butt with a little bounce, relief seeming to completely wash over her as she opened her eyes, before suddenly turning back to look at the direction she came from.

Yang decided to try and speak up "Uhh.. Rub…?-!?" before getting interrupted by an exhausted Weiss Schnee running from out the bushes, and a few moments after that, a rather large Deathstalker pulverising everything in its path as it's lunging towards the running girl. Shirou's sister starting to run to the group in desperation.

Shirou thought this was a good opportunity to see the skills of these brats who wish to protect the world, so he decided to hold back on his abilities unless necessary.

"Uh, so does anyone have a plan?" Yang said after getting over her initial bewilderment.

"Yup! Let's kick their butts!" Nora eagerly charged towards the Deathstalker, ignoring her partner's plea to stop.

"I can accept that!" Yang responded as she began running towards the Grimm, activating her gun-bracelets, Blake sounding a grunt at her partners actions and going towards the pair currently being chased by the Nevermore.

Weiss collapsed to her knees at realizing her safety. "You seem to be doing fine, my dear little sister" her exhaustion was replaced with annoyance at her little brother's comment as she looked up, seeing his hands reaching out to her, taking it and responding with a sarcastic 'yes, thank you'.

Seeing the black feathers shooting down towards their direction, Shirou casually used his semblance to summon a nameless shield with his Reality Marble's blueprints since the volley was spread out in a way that he didn't have a way to dodge with his exhausted sister, blocking or atleast deflecting the Grimm's feathers that were nearly twice as large as him. Weiss was startled by this action but Shirou chose to ignore it in favour of putting his attention on the very high pitched squeel a starry-eyed Ruby Rose was making.

"ohmygodthatsuchacoolsemclancecanyoumakeotherweaponstoo!?" the young girl said frantically, the silver haired teen barely being able to understand her words.

"We are currently surrounded by two extremely large Grimm that want to gut us, not now." Shirou responded as the massive Nevermore screeched in the background, Ruby sounding an 'aw' before blushing in embarrassment at his next words. "-And please speak more clearly next time."

"Uhh, I don't know if you guys noticed, but we need some help here!" Yang shouted to the trio, dodging the massive Deathstalker's stinger by just moving in closer to attack it with her bare fists.

"OH! Guys I have a plan!" The students turned over to see a jittery Nora backing away from the scorpion Grimm. "Shoot me!"

"Uhh- Are you sure about this? " a hesitant Ruby asked Nora, who held her hammer-grenade launcher over her shoulder and looked to be more than ready to hurl herself towards the massive Grimm at any time.

"Don't worry about it I'll be fine!" Nora assured as she seemed more excited.

"If you're so sure then, just don't blame me if anything goes wrong." she was delighted at Ruby's words of acceptance, simply ignoring the other girl's last words as she tensed her body more, getting more thrilled at lunging to the massive Deathstalker, the other girl starting to count down.

Three. From behind her, Nora heard the sound of someone quickly and efficiently changing the ammunition of a gun. Lightning dust rounds, with her semblance, High Voltage, the electricity from the bullet can be channeled into her muscles and be used to greatly enhance it to be more than enough to pulverize the large Grimm even with its armor, the impact of the bullet itself being mitigated by her aura.

Two. The Deathstalker was being held off by three other students: Ren had went to go help Jaune and Pyrrah with distracting the Nevermore. Yang was bombarding the thing with a mix of punches and shots from her bracelet-guns, Ember Celica, keeping most of the Grimm's attention to herself, uncaring of how much her aura is depleting. Shirou was using his twin blades to strike at any type of opening he saw, -barely even trying, though it's armor was tough enough that he needed to go full strength with reinforcement to actually be able to pierce it-. Weiss was supporting the two with her glyphs; using hard light dust to make barriers to deflect blows and making time dilation glyphs with lightning dust to hasten her fellow student's movements, aswell as attacking the thing whenever an opportunity is seen.

One.

"Get out of the way!" Nora yelled, the other students following her order before the sound of a trigger being pulled was heard throughout the entire battlefield.

'That was certainly… interesting.' Shirou was currently staring at the how the ground was all broken and cracked like glass, the dirt unevenly displaced, the epicentre being where the massive Deathstalker was, was.

The Grimm was dead, that much was obvious, but the site of where it was looked as if a maddened Hercules had landed on it from a considerable height, the body parts where it hadn't been hit were scattered across the forest from the sheer force of the hammer's impact.

Shirou hadn't actually been able to see Nora Valkyrie's weapon's history since it was too far from being a 'sword', from doing basic structural analysis he concluded that the weapon had too many complicated parts from it being a rocket launcher and added with the fact that it was a war hammer that didn't even have any bladed parts, he definitely couldn't use his special variation of Structural Analysis on it, his Tracing can be used on eyesight alone, but it only worked with objects relating to swords due to his element and origin, unless they were weapons made by deities, Divine Constructs. With anything else, he needed to actually be in more contact with it to be able to Trace it, and even then its insides would be hollow.

He only knew about Nora Valkyrie thanks to her partner, Lie Ren's bladed weapons, the sheer destructive force she had was impressive, the most formidable he had seen in this Academy, Yang Xiao Long coming in second, -she had weapons that were also too far from being a 'sword' since they were literally just gun-bracelets, he only saw of her strength from the history of her sister's scythe, aswell as from what he had seen when she was barraging the Deathstalker, even cracking some of its armor-. The both of them lacked a considerable amount of technique and skill though, only hitting things really hard like cavemen until said thing died without a care about themselves. -but, that could easily be fixed with some training.

A number of students in Beacon, specifically their battle prowess, were impressive. He could still win against them in a straight confrontation though with a little strain, which is a scary thought since they were relatively inexperienced brats, who knows what they could become after gaining enough real battle experience, witnessing bloodshed or other equally disturbing atrocities.

"Jaune!" Shirou's inner monologue was interrupted by Pyrrha yelling that boy's name, 'what is it this time?'.

He and the other students who heard the yell turned to see a Jaune Arc desperately hanging onto the massive Nevermore's talon, the Grimm then starting to shake its leg in an attempt to detach the boy and have him fall to his death. Shirou thought of summoning Hrunting and using it to shoot down the oversized bird…

-but that was just plain stupid. There were multiple other ways of saving the boy without resorting to revealing his abilities, like having Pyrrha Nikos use her semblance to catch the boy mid-air with his metal armor or using propulsion glyphs were among the many ideas that intuitively came to his head, so being at the center of attention by killing a Nevermore in one shot while it was still in the air was just idiotic.

"Hey! You said you'll tell me about your semblance earlier!"

The group of students were all currently walking towards the location Ozpin had said to return after retrieving the relics. They had just defeated the Nevermore after Pyrrha saved the blonde with her semblance-'They' referring to the other students since Shirou barely even tried-, Shirou was quite honestly impressed at how the students had done it, they were all well coordinated in the battle; some students assisting others with their individual abilities like Weiss when she used her Glyphs. The students managing to pin the massive Grimm down to the ground while it was swooping down to attack and Ruby Rose then decapitating it.

After the students introduced each other, each student pair grabbed their own 'relics', while he was left with the individual white Queen piece that was set aside for a person without a partner, himself.

"Since I am part of the Schnee family," Shirou started answering the girl's question, Blake who was walking along the group of students slightly grimaced at the name. "I have the same hereditary semblance as my sister, Glyphs" he said briefly, before Ruby could speak up to have him explain more, Weiss interjected

"Same? Yeah right" she said in a teasing manner "You're barely even able to summon a normal glyph, though I can see that you've improved when those gravity glyphs actually seemed to help in keeping the Nevermore to the ground, you're still amateurish at our semblance when it isn't related to summoning a weapo-"

"OhmygodsodoesthatmeanyoucansummonANYweapon!?" Ruby excitedly said after realizing what the shorter Schnee was gonna say, interrupting Weiss, much to the other girl's annoyance, the other students walking along them also being intrigued by his semblance "Can you summon Crescent Rose!? Canyousummon-"

"Please speak comprehensively" Shirou interrupted, the girl getting embarrassed at how she started rambling before perking up as the silver haired teen started to continue speaking.

"I can't summon just any weapon," he said, putting an emphasis on the 'any'. "I can summon any sword-like weapon, or atleast anything relating to a sword, like spears, knives, shields, bows, scythes." Shirou ended his explanation, choosing to leave out some details as Ruby's eyes widened at that last word.

"How are shields and bows relating to swords?" Jaune asked after he was briefly and quietly explained what a semblance is by Pyrrha when the girl saw his confusion at the term.

"When a person is told to think of an object that has a correlation with a sword, one usually answers with 'shield' or 'bow', no?" Shirou clarified, only to receive a raised eyebrow from the boy, him getting confused at how the blonde couldn't understand before somebody else spoke up.

"Wait shouldn't it be 'Gun'" Yang asked…

...

...

'What the hell?'

Shirou could only respond with a sizeable grimace at the blonde girl's words, then being utterly dumbfounded when the other students seemed to agree with the question, just before he could hostilely raise his objections, Ruby spoke up. "soo… can you summon Crescent Rose?" she asked, gesturing to her scythe as he decided to put aside his anger and answer the girl's question by summoning an exact replica of the scythe, though with a little difference…

The young girl tinkered with the scythe for a few seconds before seeming to get confused, then speaking up"The machinery of the High-Calibre Sniper is… kinda weird.." Ruby explained as she converted the blue tinted weapon into its sniper form, although a little slower than how she does with the original weapon.

"Just as I said before, I can summon any weapon relating to swords, but not guns" he said, an emphasis being put on the 'not'. "if you stick a blade to a gun, then I can technically summon it, but, only the bladed part would be finely replicated, the gun part of the weapon would become lower quality." 'There's also the fact that gun's won't normally be stored as a blueprint in Unlimited Blade Works aswell as the fact that non-sword objects take up more aura or magical energy to create' he finished his explanation leaving some details out as some students responded with an 'oh' and some others getting confused at why he can't summon a gun, something easily correlated with swords, Shirou just responding with a grimace at that.

"What I've seen of your abilities today was quite impressive, students" Ozpin stated as he took another sip of coffee.

The first year students were all standing before him in an orderly manner, after they had returned the relics, they were all picked up by a Bullhead, a type of aircraft in Remnant used to transport cargo, or in this case, people. It was similar to Shirou's world's VTOLs, but powered by dust.

They were told to wait before the remaining other 4 students had finished the objective, it took nearly a half hour of waiting before the four arrived as they were called to the same cliff where they had been launched to the forest.

"It really shows of what you students could be capable of should you all succeed in becoming huntsmen and huntresses." Ozpin continued, the students being well pleased at the Headmaster's words.

"-though there are a few exceptions" Jaune could be heard chuckling to himself in self-pity while the four late students kept their smug face and being self-congratulatory, ignoring the obvious jab at them.

"But you all may be wondering how your teams will be formed" most of the students perked up at this while some already knew how to some degree. "The chess pieces you have collected will signify which other pair will make your other half of the team, the pair who has collected the same type of chess piece as another would be put on the same team." Ozpin explained, the students who didn't know sounding out an 'ohh' while Shirou was silently judging the school for its equally stupid way of making teams as its method for making pairs.

"-For the leaders the school will be the one to decide that" Ozpin continued, 'that's an improvement' Shirou said inwardly.

"-And Shirou Schnee, since you don't have a partner nor a team we will need to discuss that later in my office."

Huh, for some reason every time I try to write I just suddenly have an urge to do something else (attempting to beat radiant Hollow Knight for the 60th time) while saying to myself 'I'll just think of some story ideas while playing', is this what writers block feels like? Weird.

After writing this: god is fukawasa hideyuki so great. Pretty much had his music on the entire time writing this

I think I want to write shorter chapters (3-4k) to be able to get more reviews on each one to improve more