Several months earlier.
Shiro relished in the feeling the wind through his hair as he was thrown across the sky over the forest. His objective was to get his hands on a relic and find a partner. Not necessarily in that order.
He saw a tree that seemed satisfactory so he drew his weapon and made himself ready. With his revolver sword combo held in an icepick grip with the pummel held to his chest and his left hand under the chamber and grasped onto his own right forearm with the blade resting on his left elbow.
He had heard the sound of Ember Celica earlier and chose to take a page out of his cousin's playbook. Chambering the fire dust round he began to fire the recoil slowing his descent. The more he slowed he began to look for a tree that fit his needs.
He found one such tree and after lining up to collide he used the point of his sword and the bend of his knees to absorb the impact. With his left hand still on his hilt and his feet angled against the tree he looked out over the forest and searched. Northward he saw a clearing that seemed to be where he was going.
He also saw an explosion that he assumed was Yang due to the large fireball to the west. That meant that he needed to go north and east. He wanted to avoid being paired with his cousins that way they could be paired together.
Ruby wasn't ready to be forced into a team away from her sister yet and they all knew it. He had seen her trying to socialize yesterday but the fact that she was trying to talk to the Schnee heiress meant that she was still bad at reading social queues.
The "Porcelain Bitch," as Yang had privately called her, wanted nothing to do with anyone who wasn't named Pyrrha Nikos. Which Shiro found amusing since Pyrrha Nikos wanted nothing to do with Weiss.
He had to admit though being on the same team as the invincible girl did have its appeals. But until he found out what kind of a person she was off the mat he wasn't willing to hang a four-year-long partnership on it.
Shiro also heard a set of gunshots that wasn't loud enough to be Ruby or Yang to the north. Since that was the way he was going any way he would see about getting a partner there. Plotting his course through the branches Shiro began his decent.
He leaped from branch to branch letting gravity help him down all he had to do was keep moving forward to make the most of his height. When he arrived at the gunfire he saw a blonde woman with a sword and shield.
Her sword looked to be lined in gold but that may just the light and her shield seemed to have a large gun built into it. Her armor covered her ample upper chest which Shiro made a fact of not staring at for too long.
She had just killed the last of the Grimm she was fighting so Shiro didn't have much to do. That being said she would be a good partner so he made his last jump to the forest floor.
When she heard the sound she calmly turned and with a smile on her face said." so you're my partner then, my name's Willow."
Extending his hand with a matching smirk Shiro replied. "Willow huh, Like the tree? Name's Shiro"
She shook the hand but quickly went back to watching the area saying. " we need to keep our guard up this forest is still full of Grimm."
Shiro leaned back on one of the nearby trees. When he answered. "Please between you and me I think we can handle whatever this forest throws at us."
Almost like it was waiting for its queue a massive King Tajui rushed out of the dense trees lashing out at Willow with its tongue. Willow lashed back from behind her shield severing one of the forks of the beast's tongue.
The tongue was withdrawn with a scream as the Tajui swung it's head at Shiro the impact sending him flying into a tree. He survived the impact and was back on his feet when he heard the sound of the Tajui struggling with something.
When he looked he saw that it had a shield in its mouth. Not Willow's shield but a different one. The large snake soon bite down and crumpled the metal before swinging back to attack Willow.
Shiro was about to attack when he saw a man covered head to toe in armor come in from the beast's flank. His gauntlets unfolded to reveal saw blades on his arms. In a quick slashing motion, the man destroyed one of the Tajui's eyes.
When the beast lifted it's head and screamed in pain he rolled over the body and repeated his work on the other eye. The snake was trying to move now but for some reason, it couldn't go backward and since it was blind it had no idea where the trees where.
This lead to the snake smashing its head around frantically before it knocked itself out. As Shiro moved in the man walked over and was about to speak to Willow when the snake suddenly came to life and wrapped its tongue around him.
Shiro moved as fast as he could but unfortunately the snake was faster. It had closed it's jaws around him in half the time it took Shiro to get there.
That man was dead, nobody could survive that. Or so he thought. Right up until and armored forearm covered in blades and blood shoved its way out of the Tajui's mouth. The other followed a second later. And soon they were prying the mouth open.
Once it had succeeded the man yelled. "THE TONGUE" he was still saying it when Willow used her sword to cut off the rest of the beast's tongue. As it screamed the man grabbed it by the fangs and forced it's mouth open wider. Shiro was about to fire an ice dust shot down its throat when Willow fired a lightning round.
The shock ran through the mouth and into the Grimm's brain frying it instantly. With the monster dead the man ripped one of the fangs off and stepped out of its mouth. One of his salivae covered hands reached out and grabbed Shiro as the other brought the fang to rest just touching Shiro's neck.
The venom dripped onto his collar as the man growled. "If you ever fail your partner again I will kill you," with that he threw the fang away and walked off towards the north.
Shiro looked to Willow who hadn't done anything after shooting the Grimm. "Who the Hell was that guy?" he asked.
Willow smiled again saying. "That was just my brother Jaune."
"Is he always an aggressive asshole?" Shiro continued.
Willow chuckled slightly before she answered. " No, he is just very protective as well as just being in a bit of a mood lately,"
They decided that it was best if they moved on in silence so that was what they did. While they were listening for Grimm they heard a strange noise. When they moved in to investigate. They found a large man holding a Grimm to the ground.
He was at least six foot four and almost three hundred pounds bit counting his armor. They watched as he wrapped his right arm around the back of the Beowolfs neck as he pinned the right side of his chest to the creature's chest.
The Grimm's left arm looked broken and the right was being locked up by the man's legs forcing it away at an unpleasant angle. While the beast was frantically trying to bite him he slid chest plate under its jaw forcing it shut.
Then he reached back and grabbed the Grimm by its right leg and lopping his arm around the inside and feeding his hand out the outside he brought his hands together and locked them in an "S" grip.
Shiro had heard of moves like this but they were normally used on people. And any normal person would never be large enough to even try it on a Grimm but this man was nearly at big as the Grimm so it was working.
The way the hold did its job was by forcibly constricting the diaphragm and lungs. The victim was able to breathe out but they couldn't breathe back in. he was for all intents and purposes suffocating the Grimm.
Shiro had never heard a Grimm scream before. That was just changed. Whether it finally realized that it was being killed or not he couldn't tell but it was screaming with all of his breathe. For a few seconds. Then it stopped breathing altogether and passed out.
Once the beast was limp the man stood up and grabbed a massive war mace that was nearby. Just as the Grimm was beginning to regain consciousness the mace crushed its skull into a paste in the dirt.
He turned to face Shiro and Willow with a look of disgust on his face. "The fuck are you looking at, if you aren't going to save my friends and you aren't going to help me carry them then you should just get the Hell out of my way!"
Until now Shiro thought that Willow was looking at the Grimm the man was killing but when he looked around he saw three bodies strewn about amidst a pile of fallen Grimm. Shiro had just seen them when Professor Port burst out of the tree line out of breath.
He looked around and Shiro could see the pain in his eyes when he saw the three dead students and the one living one who was scarred from the encounter. Speaking to Shiro and Willow Port said. "I will aid Mr. Winchester I think it would be best if you two returned to your objective."
They wanted to help but the professor was right. They still had a job to do. They kept moving North and when they found the relics they also found a few other people. Ruby was there standing with the Porcelain Bitch.
He was thinking about what to say when Yang and a another girl who Shiro didn't know approached from the treeline. The moment that the other girl saw Weiss she looked mildly aggravated.
Shiro had to do a double-take when the girl's bow twitched. Yang greeted Ruby with her usual antics fussing over her baby sister. And Ruby responded with all the fury that a five foot two reaper had.
Which was to say not a whole lot she mostly just thrashed about in her sister's grip for a few seconds. Yang did, however, release her when they heard a rather loud explosion. Everyone looked at the source and saw a dying Ursa with a disturbingly chipper looking ginger girl on it's back.
She looked at the dead Grimm and with a truly pathetic frown muttered. "Aw, it's broken," it was at about this time that a very tired looking boy with long hair caught up with her.
He was muttering something too but since they were so far away and since he was out of breath Shiro wasn't able to hear him. Returning to their mission they approached the pedestals. There were eight of them in total.
They all had chess pieces on them. Two knights, two rooks, two bishops, and two pawns. One of the bishops was missing. And Ruby and Yang both taken a knight. As they approached Willow started talking.
" Knights are the only piece that can attack a queen, but other than that they have limited use, rooks are powerful but they aren't the most powerful, bishops are arguably more powerful than a rook but they are much harder to use and while two rooks can checkmate the King two Bishops cannot. Ultimately they are a harder use piece but in the hands of a master they can be game-changing"
Shiro looked at her surprised by the lecture only for her to shrug and take a step away from the pieces. She didn't want to choose but she wanted Shiro to know what they were. After a fair bit of thought, he grabbed the last Bishop.
He had done so just as a deathstalker burst out of the treeline. It was chasing Pyrrha Nikos and swing it's tail wildly. Upon further inspection, Willow's brother was holding onto the stinger and trying to cut it off with the blades on his armor.
They all started running towards them at the same time that a nevermore attack. The feathers were flying and they were all out fo cover. Willow covered herself with her shield with one hand while the other hand forced Shiro behind and beneath her. It wouldn't do much but it was still appreciated
They all braced for impact Yang and Ruby trying to shoot down as many of the spear length feathers as they could but it wouldn't matter. If Ruby ran she would survive but she would never leave Yang behind. They would all die here. The Schnee was trying to do something but it wouldn't be enough. And the other girl with Yang was nowhere to be seen.
Then a girl in a green robe with white hair ran into the group and held her hands up. She started to move them from right to left like she was pushing something and soon enough the feather's started to move. when they landed the feathers where about ten yards to the groups left.
Shiro squirmed out from under Willow to see that the deathstalker was gone and the Willow's brother was shielding Pyrrha the same way the Willow had been shielding him. Only her brother didn't have a shield so he had tackled the Mistrialian champian and used his armor as a shield.
Shiro turned to see the girl in green-leaning heavily on a new girl who had blue hair and a leather jacket over a pink shirt. He saw a bishop in the blue-haired girl's hand but that didn't matter right now everyone needed to get back to Beacon.
…
They stood at on the stages. Shiro was with his new teammates Naomi and Oliva. Naomi was the one who had moved the feather's and it was Oliva who had convinced her to try. To his right was Ruby, Yang, Weiss, and the fourth girl that Shiro had learned was named Blake. To their right was Willow's brother and Pyrrha as well as the ginger who had tried riding a Grimm and the boy who was following her.
They had been naming teams but there was one team that wasn't named. The four-stage had only one man on it. Cardin Winchester had refused to withdraw from Beacon. He and his three best friends had come here to become hunters. Now he was the only one still alive. He had been given the pawn piece by Ozpin and was currently staring stoically at the wall trying not to show any weakness.
Ruby had been named team leader to Team RWBY, Willow's brother now revealed to be Jaune Arc was the leader of Team JNPR, And Shiro had been named leader of team SNOW. it was going to be a long year but Shiro was ready for it. After all, what was the worst that could happen?