When she finally managed to claw up enough influence to let her attend a Huntsman academy, she chose Vale for a few specific reasons. One, and most importantly, it's a fair distance away from that man. And Second, there are more than enough sycophants hoping for get an in to the company trying to curry her favor and by extension his in her home kingdom. Hopefully a different nation would have even slightly less of that. Third, for as much pride as she holds for Atlas, many of its people are… rigid at best in their thinking, and Vale, despite its unconventional approach and attitudes, is lauded for churning out some of the strongest huntsman. And to regain the lost honor of her name, she has to be one of the strongest.

Only, Weiss Schnee did not expect Beacon to be unconventional enough to launch their prospective students off a cliff.

Unconventional, but not insurmountable.

Angling herself for a better position, the heiress crosses her fingers on her left hand into a well-used pattern, focuses her aura and swipes. A moment later, a large snow-white glyph with a stylized flake appears in midair, proving to be surprisingly solid as she lands on it. Another swipe and a leap, and she lands on another a dozen feet below, repeating the maneuver until she lands in a small clearing within the forest. Landing with a small flourish to indulge in a small conceit, Weiss looks up in an attempt to judge where a prospective partner might land.

And sees a blonde scraggly boy floundering up in the air before a familiar-colored spear snags him screaming through the tree line by his hoodie.

"…THANK YOU…!"

"…I'm sorry!"

The pale huntress-in-training blinks for a beat before walking away from the boy's trajectory with a huff and a disappointed frown. She's not sure why the Mistral Champion would want to waste her time on partnering with an obvious buffoon like him instead of someone with actual promise, but Pyrrha's apparently made her choice, and Weiss considers it undignified to try and weasel herself in between that.

She'll just have to find someone with enough competence to not drag her down.

'Who the fuck launches people off a fucking cliff like this!?'

Unknowingly echoing the thoughts of past initiates, Karis twists around in mid-air to grab a malachite-green bow from her back. While she and her 'family' can survive plummeting to the ground at this speed, it does take a chink out of their reserves and is not comfortable in the slightest. Drawing the string taught and knocking an arrow (made exponentially difficult while taking an impromptu flight), she takes aim at the ground, focuses her intent in the bow, and lets a shot fly. This causes a huge blast of wind to propel her upwards over a copse of trees, greatly killing her momentum and making the landing a fair amount more comfortable.

'Just had to focus on the lightning aspects of your psynergy and let Sveta do wind for your cover stories, eh Karis? Had to blow a metal arrow on nothing and hope they buy that it was a wind-dust crystal that caused that jump if they were watching me. I swear if Matthew and Sveta weren't wary of him I'd slap Ozpin's shit out of his face next I see him!'

A twig snap and a small chorus of growls knock the fuming woman out of her thoughts, alerting her to a small beowolf pack loping through nearby bushes into her vision. Cursing under her breath for letting herself get distracted like that, the greenette archer knocks another shaft and takes aim, only to hesitate upon hearing something else. The grimm seem to hear it too, as they stop to look to and fro to find whatever is making the steadily increasing roar.

Five seconds later, a red meteor smashes into the pack, causing an explosion of fire and rock to scatter about everywhere. After shielding her eyes from the blast she lowers her arm to level an unimpressed glare at the red-haired buffoon pulling himself out of a small crater, evaporating grimm all around them.

"I'm stuck babysitting you wherever we go, aren't I?"

"Ow. Nice to see you too Karis."

"Honestly, why the meteor impression Tyrell? I know you know the importance of moderation, we've all beaten it into your head enough times already!"

"Oh, come on, Kar, don't start that shit again. I know my limits and how not to go overboard. I just felt like making an impact this time, and it took out a few of monsters anyway, so what's the problem?"

"Glassing a part of the forest isn't going overboard?"

"Said the girl who punted a racist dick who pulled on Sveta's ears in the dick hard enough to fly up a street lamp."

"Well he deserved it! You're just still mad you didn't get to do it too before Matthew got to him."

"...yeah, I'll admit that at least."

Leaving behind an impaled ursa major to fade near a sandy crater, Matthew hurries onward, a look of calm concentration on his face as he looks at a compass in hand and a silent conversation in his head.

"Alright. Ignoring the absurd and irresponsible method of this "initiation" for now, most of us are on the ground. You saw how that one lady nabbed that guy with a spear through his clothes?"

"Yes. Very impressive aim, I must say. I'm on top of a small hill with a cave carved out of it to the… south of where that happened, I believe?"

"The spear throw was launched northeast of where I landed. I'm now heading west towards a large cliff face with a ruined dome temple, do you see it from where you are?"

"Yes. That's where we'll regroup I assume?"

"Yes. Hopefully we'll both get there without any compli-"

A deep hackle-raising hiss-turned-screech to the left grabs the blonde warrior's attention, where he sees a large white-scaled body slither behind the trees to avoid a flurry of ice spears launching from the opposite tree-line. Shortly afterwards a certain blue-haired scholar in robes rolls out from the brush to avoid a giant black-scaled serpent's fangs.

"-cations… damnit. I was hoping to have you for a partner, dear."

"I'm disappointed too. At the very least it's Rief, so we know you're both in good hands. And I can scent Amiti to the southwest of here. I'll intercept him to partner up and have us all meet at the cliff."

"Understood. I'll see you shortly, Sveta."

"Love you."

Focusing on the task at hand, Matthew raises a hand and launches an earthen spear to pierce one of the king taijitu's eyes, making it give another ear-piercing shriek before Rief nails his spear deep into the other eye, hitting something vital and killing the black head. The white half of the monster crashes through a few trees towards the two in response, hissing in rage. The two warriors dodge out the way of its lunge, with Matthew unsheathing his greatsword and Rief causing a pillar of ice to clock it in the jaw upon landing. This disorients the serpent and leaves it stunned long enough for Matthew to stab into the side of its mouth and drag it along the length of its face, nearly bisecting it. Reeling from the pain, the taijitu shrieks and wildly flails at the blonde swordsman, who blocks a headbutt with the flat of his blade and skids a few feet back from the force. Before the snake grimm could try and follow up, a hail of icicles pierce its hide from behind, causing it to whirl around and shriek at Rief, who launches a lance of ice through the newly-cut gap in its jaw to spear its throat and kill it.

Taking a small moment to breath and watch for any other hostiles, the two lock eyes, with the blue-haired cryomancer sporting a cheeky grin. "I take it you were hoping to see eyes a little more green?"

A raised middle finger in response causes him to laugh.

'Gotta find Yang! Gotta Find Himi! Gotta Find Jaune or Tyrell!'

Dashing through the forest in a flurry of rose petals, Ruby repeats a mantra to herself as she frantically searches for someone she knows.

'Yang would be the easiest to find. Ember Celica has a very distinctive sound, and she's very vocal when having fun in a brawl. Although she would be disappointed a bit after the pep-talk earlier. Himi, Tyrell and Jaune are the only others I really know. But they don't really use firearms and are harder to hear and thus find. Maybe Tyrell? He seems loud like Yang, but I think he landed in the opposite side. Where-'

A chorus of howls to the right grabs the red reaper's attention, who whirls to find the tail end of a pack of beowolves charging away into the brush. Distantly she can hear clanging metal and grunts of exertion in their direction.

Taking the most obvious course of action, Ruby loads in a clip of dust bullets, shifts her weapon into scythe mode, and charges in after them. Breaking through into the clearing, she sees a certain tattooed girl blind a trio of grimm with a storm of nettles before beheading one with a well-crafted and maintained katana. Spotting a particularly burly and armored grimm rear up behind her friend, Ruby dashes in between and impales it with an upward swing. Twisting around, she adjust her grips and forcefully slashes down onto another grimm's head, killing that and the bifurcated one behind her. Himi then kneels to the ground to duck a horizontal swipe from a lunging beowolf, places a hand on the ground and causes a small group of bamboo chutes to spring up and impale her foe. A loud crack and one behind the impaled monster loses its head from Ruby's sniper shot.

The next few minutes continue to be a flurry of movement and violence, as the two young ladies whittle down the pack of grimm to where only the alpha, a lanky and leering giant of a beowolf, is left. Eying the only one that stood back to analyze their fight, Ruby glances at her friend. "Nab its feet while I dance?"

"Go for the neck."

Nodding in affirmation, Ruby gives a smirk before blurring to the alpha's side and giving it a quick slash to the side, which barely pierces its hide but gets its aggravation. The monster launches a quick flurry of swipes which Ruby blocks and weaves around before jumping back a fair distance. The alpha prepares to pounce after her, but a sudden snarl of vines restrain its feet as it moves, sending it face first into the ground. Ruby capitalizes on this and jumps onto its back before it can tear its way out, hooks her scythe under its neck, and pulls the trigger, the recoil giving her enough momentum to slice clean through its hide and decapitate it.

A beat after, Himi takes a deep breath to shake off the adrenaline and sheathes her sword, before getting glomped hard by an ecstatic Ruby.

"HimiohmigawshthatwassoCOOLI'msogladtoseeyouIwasworriedImightgetstuckwithsomeonemeanliekWeissbutIheardyoufightingthewayyoutookoutthewolveswasAWESOMEI'venevertakenoutanalphagrimmthateasyandyourswordit'ssobeautifulandwellmadewhomadeitcanIlookatitwhat'sitmadeofpleasetellme-"

'Oh dear, you're a genuine and friendly person but you have to be the most energetic girl in this world, Ruby. Uzume-sama give me strength.'

In another part of the forest, a pair of ursa majors scramble in panic trying to dislodge their unwanted hijackers.

"Whoo-hoo-hoo! Come on, Theodore, onwards to the temple!"

"Oh no you don't! I'm the better grimm wrangler here, Blondie, and I'll prove it by hit the relics first with good ol' Yogi here! Hi-ho, and awaaay!"

Chasing after the two absurd thrill-seekers insane enough to ride grimm like a carnival ride, a black-haired beauty turns to the stoic man to her side. "Remind me again why we chose them for partners?"

"Nora and I have been friends since childhood and know how to work together already. Why you chose to make eye-contact with this Yang girl is on you."

"Fair enough."

Not for the first time Ilia wonders why she's here.

Oh, she remembers the catalyst that started it perfectly. What should have been a simple train hijack with Blake and Adam to just steal a dust shipment from the Schnees turned into a bloody disaster because Adam, for all the good he did in the name of their kind, had gone too far. Too far for Blake to stomach, to continue striving with in good conscience.

And so she ran. And Ilia in her pining couldn't help but follow her.

'Applying' to a Hunstman's academy after their flight also made a certain kind of sense. They can't simply stop trying to make things better for their kind, not after struggling for so long and with so much injustice still around, and the slayers of grimm are revered all around the world, so becoming one would be a viable, if indirect way of furthering their cause. Vale being the closest and the second-most openly accepting of the kingdoms and is also a bonus (even though Blake's paranoia of being recognized ruins the effect with that thrice-be-damned ribbon).

All of that, Ilia can understand.

What she can't understand is how in the name of the bloody Brothers did all of that lead to her in a meadow surrounded by decaying ursa and creeps and spent dust, making eye-contact with Weiss. Fucking. Schnee of all people as an academy partner?! 'Why didn't' this bitch go to Atlas?! Why did she bother to come here of all places!? Why me?!'

With a look that could curdle milk straight from the source, the blue-eyed witchspawn scoffs and turns on her heel. "Well at the very least you can fight. Keep your baseless accusations out of my ears and don't slow me down."

'Oh, this is gonna fucking suck.'

-x-

Surprise surprise, it lives!

Finally got a new job in the field I've been trying to get into, and had a burst of motivation for this thing.