Chapter 11: Initiation and Teams
Blake, Weiss and Yang walked through the Emerald forest together, they had just finished off a pack of beowolves.
"I wonder how Maple and Ruby are doing." Yang wondered aloud, drawing the attention of the other members of her party.
"She's fine from what I can tell, I can sense that odd energy of her's all the way over here, whatever it is she has a lot of it." Weiss said, her eyes glowing for a second, though Yang and Blake didn't notice it due to the lighting.
"Wait, you can sense that?" Yang asked intrigued.
"What are you two talking about?" Blake asked, confused, raising an eyebrow.
"Can you not sense it too?" Weiss asked Blake.
"No, I cannot. What are you two talking about?" Blake asked again.
"It's okay, I can't sense it either, but my younger sister Ruby can, her telling me about it is the only way I know of it." Yang said.
"Wait, you can't sense it either? I thought everyone could sense magic." Weiss said incredulously.
"I didn't know that's what that was, but you are one of a very short list of people that I know who can sense that. The only person other than Ruby who I know of can sense that is Sapphire. By the way if she ever asks you to join her cult please just don't, I won't get into why since that's more Maple's story to tell than mine." Yang explained seriously.
"I remember hearing Sapphire rambling about joining the 'Cult of Maple', at the dining hall when we got breakfast, I tuned her out though." Blake admitted, recalling the blue themed girl leaping in front of students to preach about whatever it was she was preaching about.
"Must be nice having someone worship you like that." Weiss thought out loud, Yang's expression darkened, and her voice turned deadly serious.
"If you were in Maple's shoes you wouldn't be saying that, Weiss. I only know of one example of the horrible things those cults do, and while neither Ruby nor Maple told me the full story, the way they talked about it tells me that other cults have done or tried to do much worse to Maple. And ever since the one example that I do know of, Maple started acting a lot more reserved about her past, at least according to Ruby." Yang explained, the tone and serious attitude Yang had stunned Blake and Weiss into silence. Neither of them have known Yang for very long, but they could already tell that she was the more lighthearted type that liked to tell jokes, but the seriousness Yang had when talking about this subject told them how severe it was. If whatever Yang saw was what caused Maple to be less open, what else has Maple had to endure? And how much worse was it?
"I-I…. I'm sorry. I did not mean to offend." Weiss apologized Yang smiled gently.
"It's okay Ice Queen, you didn't know, but now you do!" Yang said, the nickname visibly annoyed Weiss.
"Will you stop calling me that! I've told you over and over that I'm not an Ice Queen!" The Ice Queen shouted.
Soon enough the group made it to a clearing to find a scene that could only be described as pure chaos. The biggest Ursa Major that Blake had ever seen was fighting a grimm that she hadn't even heard of before, along with Ruby Rose and another group of initiates. The other grimm was purplish black, had six limbs, a long tail, an armored head and a bright red main, Currently it was busy biting off one of the Ursa Major's arms that had just tried to swing at Ruby, who was using her Scythe to draw large cuts into the Ursa.
"Those grimm are huge! How are we going to beat them both!?" Weiss exclaimed, pulling out Myrtenaster and Blake Pulling out her Gambol Shroud. Yang simply laughed.
"Well for starts one of those isn't actually a Grimm, the purplish black one is actually Maple in her Atrocity form, though she does seem to be holding back a bit." Yang remarked, holding her chin, confusing The other two and causing them to look back at her.
"So what you're telling us is that that thing fighting that Ursa Major is actually Maple, who turned herself into a giant monster?" Blake asked, starting to get tired of all the surprises, Weiss could agree, the day was getting to be a bit much for her.
"Yep, Now let's go help take down that Ursa!" Yang said as she started running towards the fight, Ember Celica extending into position, Blake and Weiss followed close behind and so they entered the frey, though not for very long as Maple seems to have decided that enough was enough, and bit the Ursa's throat and ripped it out, causing the grimm to fall backwards and die.
Maple reverted back to her base form and everyone regrouped, It turned out the battleground had been where the relics they were supposed to get are. Blake and Weiss picked a Black Knight piece and Yang had found the only piece left by one of the pillars. It looked like all the chess pieces were melted down and fused together.
"THAT WAS AWESOME! Did anyone else see how she hatched out of that egg when she transformed into that badass monster!?" A redheaded girl shouted with excitement, bouncing all over the place with girl wore a dark brown top with a white chest area that had a heart in the middle, pink fingerless gloves, a pink skirt with a blue ribbon on the back, and pink and white cuffed boots.
"Alright everyone! Now that we have our relics let's head back to the cliff, they're probably waiting for us to finish initiation." Ruby called out to the group. And so they all headed for the cliffs.
"Ruby Rose, Maple Lavel, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna. The four of you have retrieved the Black Knight. From this day forward you are team RWMB, lead by Ruby Rose." Ozpin announced, causing Ruby and Maple to cheer, and Blake to smile.
"This is awesome Ruby, you're going to be an amazing leader!" Maple cheered, hugging the red cloaked girl. Weiss had mixed feelings on the situation, while she did think she would have been better suited for the role, given what she now knew about Ruby she could trust that the silver eyed redhead would at least be a kind leader. With that Team RWMB headed back to their seats to see who the last team would be.
"And finally, Yang Xiao Long. You have retrieved the mixed piece, you are the only one who didn't get a partner during initiation you will get the unique choice of choosing what team you are on." Ozpin told the blond brawler.
"I choose to join team RWMB!" Yang said, giving a thumbs up and a smile to the team she had selected.
"Very well,you have now Joined team RWMBY!" Ozpin announced, the team clapped and welcomed Yang over to sit with them.
"Now then, everyone please head to your dormitory, you will have the rest of the day and all of tomorrow to adjust it to your liking along with growing accustomed to the school, Miss Goodwitch and Sapphire will guide you there. Team RWMBY please stay here, I have something I'd like to talk with you about.
After everyone else left Team RWMBY walked back onto the stage with professor Ozpin.
"Since there's five of you, a normal dorm would be a bit too cramped for you, thankfully there is a place that I have reserved for occasions just like this. Follow me and I'll take you to where you'll be staying." Ozpin led them through the halls of Beacon academy. Eventually they found themselves at the end of a hall in front of an old oak double doorway, the wood had engravings of dust crystals and beowolves on it.
"And here we are! I hope you all have a wonderful year here at Beacon" Professor Ozpin said as he left. The group went inside to find a rather large room with old carpeted flooring. Farthest from them on either side were bunk beds with, they seemed to have been put there recently. Between the bunk beds against the wall was a decently sized bed. In the spaces between the beds were tall windows that showed a delightful view of the city. To the right was a decently sized bathroom with a bath and shower included, the floor of it had a black and white checkered tile floor. Back to the main room on the wall closest to the door were five large oak wardrobes, each of them had a full body mirror that was divided by their doors. On the left side of the room there was a doorway that led to a humble kitchen with a dust powered stove/oven and a sink, along with some cupboards and cabinets. On each of the beds were the suitcases and bags of everyone's stuff, and embedded into the walls of the hall that lead to their kitchen was a bookshelf.
"Alright team! Here's the plan, first we decorate the place and get our stuff sorted, then we do some self introduction, that way we can function better as a team!" Ruby declared, earning an approving nod from everyone. Maple however wasn't feeling too great about her past, not only would it be painful, but what if someone overheard and decided to use that information to hurt her, her teammates, her friends, and those in NWO? The last thing Maple wanted was for more harm to come to the people she cares about.
"You shouldn't be the one fearing anything, any bastard willing to hurt those you care for should be afraid. Don't forget that you have to get them back for what they've done!" A voice advised, to Maple's silent surprise it sounded like her voice, but distorted somewhat. She looked around for whoever spoke, her eyes glowing crimson for a second, before returning to their normal silver color. In that brief moment though a familiar rage boiled within Maple's heart before she quickly calmed back down.
"Is everything okay Maple?" Blake asked when she noticed Maple looking around.
"Y-yeah. I just thought I heard something" Maple replied, walking towards the bed in the middle of the room and started unpacking her stuff.