End of Grimmnitiation

Pyrrha burst out of the cave, followed closely by the Ursa. Unfortunately her flight from the Grimm was interrupted by running into one of the other students, nearly bringing them both to the ground. Instead she somehow managed to grab their hand and pull them along behind her.

Before there was a chance for either of them to speak, to give an explanation or ask for one, the Deathstalker burst from the cave, showering the ground behind them with rubble.

It was at this point Pyrrha stopped needing to drag the other student with her, him, as she now realised he was a boy, starting to run alongside her and her partner, the Ursa.

Another girl joined them, presumably the boys partner, and Pyrrha let his hand go, not quite blushing but feeling close. With her lack of social experience she couldn't be entirely sure how it had looked to the guys partner.

"Do you have any plans to deal with that," the girl called to Pyrrha. "I don't give good odds to anyone it takes by surprise."

"I had hoped the cave could contain it. I haven't got much experience with fighting Grimm like that." Spending time on the tournament circuit had given her a focus on human and faunus opponents instead.

"I doubt either of us," she gestured to her partner, "have weapons capable of damaging its armour."

"Then should we attack from beneath? No, it could crush you, even if you got past its claws. Um, perhaps we should take out its eyes?"

[]

"Curious," Ozpin commented. "From her experience I'd expected Pyrrha to be a lot more confident and better at planning an attack. As it is the pairs there may not form a team at all."

"I knew your 'Deathstalker solution' wouldn't work. I'm heading in."

Ozpin held up a hand. "Not yet. There's still one of them who hasn't tried to take control. It's only fair to let each member of the team have a chance to prove themselves capable of being the leader. And so often it has been proven that the quiet ones make the best leaders when they step up." He drank more of his coffee. "Besides, if we let the 'invincible girl' get kicked out during initiation Mistral would suspect sabotage unless we can demonstrate that we gave her a fair chance."

"So you risk her life for the sake of politics. What a wondrous civilisation humanity has wrought."

"You could help her survive instead of just insulting us."

"But it would hardly be fair for me to order Grimm not to kill someone unless I did it for everyone, in which case what sort of test would initiation be?"

"Not quite how I would have put it. Rather, as long as no applicants cause problems for each other they should all be able to survive. The appearance of danger serves to demonstrate to those that fail that they should choose a different career."

Somehow professor Goodwitch suspected that Ozpin had made this all up on the spot.

[]

The Deathstalker had chased them to a clearing and had now paused, giving them a chance to surround it.

Not that they had any hope of dealing it any damage. Against something with such armour, natural or otherwise, you really needed heavier, blunt weapons instead. Piercing weapons were only capable of inflicting damage if they were able to pierce after all, while blunt weapons worked just as well through armour even without the weapon penetrating.

The Ursa seemed to sniff the air before to starting to run in a seemingly arbitrary direction. There was a pause before the Ursa's partner followed, pursued by the Deathstalker.

Blake blinked. This was unexpected. Belatedly she realised that the back of the Deathstalkers tail was unarmoured, creating an opening for her to remove its strongest weapon.

If she could catch up with it.

"Come on," she called to her partner, and started to chase after the Deathstalker. She could only hope the other students weren't in such a stupid situation.

[]

Ruby hadn't worried about planning a way to the ground when the Giant Nevermore passed over the ruins. After all, how different was it from the way they were launched at the start of initiation?

It was only after she'd jumped that she realised Crescent Rose didn't have as much ammunition as she needed to land safely.

Her scream was an automatic response to hearing the click her baby made when empty while falling towards the ground. It only lasted until she thought to reload. With recoil to slow herself down again her scream promptly stopped. She gulped as she controlled her descent. She had been a bit too careless there.

Her partner had jumped after her, using weird glyphs to slow herself down. It was pretty cool how versatile those glyphs could be. Aside from her attitude her partner was awesome.

They reached the ground safely. "Nailed it!"

"Interesting landing sis," came a voice from nearby. Ruby spun and saw her sister, leaning against one of the pillars, throwing and catching what must have been one of the relics they were supposed to be collecting. Next to her was a-

"Beowolf!" Ruby readied Crescent Rose, preparing to attack.

"Hold on," Yang protested, getting between Ruby and the Beowolf. "That's my partner."

Ruby paused. It wasn't attacking and it did have one of those badges...

"Eheheh," she laughed nervously, holstering Crescent Rose again. Now that she thought about it there was no chance of the Grimm being an enemy. After all there was no-one else here and Yang wouldn't be collecting a relic without a partner, not to mention the chances of her being so calm around a Grimm under normal circumstances. "Whoops."

Yang shrugged. "Eh, your response is better than mine would have been if I found that your partner was a Grimm. I mean you stopped before you could get expelled after all. I guess this is your partner..." Yang trailed off, recognising the girl who had confronted her sister the day before. "Well, you didn't get a Grimm. Not that they are all bad," she hastily added, glancing at her partner, who didn't seem too concerned, "but a partner is an instant friend, right?"

"Me? Friends with her?" Weiss protested. "Even if I had friends she wouldn't be one. The only reason I accepted a menace like your sister is that even she would be better than a Grimm." She ignored the warning growl from Yangs partner. "What sort of person decides to hitch a ride on a Nevermore anyway?"

Yang glanced up and winced. "Yeah, about that... I don't think you thought the plan all the through sis."

"What do you mean?" Ruby bounced over with one of the relics clutched in her hand. "We got here okay, and with relics still available."

"Yeah, but you seem to have pissed of the Grimm."

Yangs warning gave them time to see the Nevermore turning to attack and scatter before its feather barrage could hit. The Beowolf whined as it dodged its share of feathers, sounding confused about the Grimm trying to injure it.

"I knew using the Nevermore to get here was a bad idea!"

"Hey, blaming my sister doesn't do any good. We should be focused on taking it down instead."

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

Much as she wanted to deny it Ruby had to admit Weiss had a point. She was about the only one there with any meaningful ranged capability. Her sister was all about hitting things and Weiss basically just had a sword. Meanwhile their foe was flying and could just stay out of reach. After all a sniper rifle was hardly a suitable weapon for a fast moving flyer. Even if the Nevermore wasn't moving all that fast at the moment, it still bobbed slightly in the air.

"Distract it," she called, "give me an opening."

"On it," came Yangs response. "Hey birdy, watch me." She readied Ember Celica and threw a series of shotgun blasts at the Grimm, being close enough to irritate it even if she was too far away to do any real damage.

The Nevermore turned in the air, and Ruby took her shot, blasting a series of shots into its wing, destabilising it even if they weren't enough to do any real damage.

The shots caught the Nevermore right as it was about to fire its feathers again, a distraction that upset its balance, bringing it to the ground.

"Weiss, ice," Ruby called to her partner, too rushed for a full sentence as she prepared to finish the Grimm off before it could take flight once more. "Yang, head." Commands given she prepared for her own part, charging one wing with both Crescent Roses scythe and her semblances speed, even as the other wing was buried in ice and frozen to the ground. Seconds later Yang and her partner joined the assault, her punching more shotgun blasts directly into its mouth even as the Beowolf launched itself at the Nevermores eyes.

"This isn't working," Weiss complained at Ruby, showing the strain of keeping the Nevermore frozen to the ground.

Ruby was forced to agree. For all the work she'd put into Crescent Rose she was still unable to do more than cut into the wing rather than remove it completely as she'd intended. Even more than that however, after her speed had worn off she had been unable to do any damage.

"What do you suggest," Yang demanded. "If we stop it'll just take flight again. And I doubt it'll fall for the same trick twice."

Ruby pulled Crescent Rose free and glanced over at the head, to see a disappointing lack of damage. That wasn't good. Her plan had been to keep it grounded and for them to wear it down while it was unable to escape. Of course, that wasn't going to work if they couldn't do any damage in the first place.

"New plan, Weiss, can you boost my speed?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Not without dropping the ice."

"That's fine. We needed a new solution anyway."

Weiss nodded, spinning Myrtenaster as she dropped the glyph beneath the ice and placed a new, different one beneath Rubys feet. "Your target?"

"The neck," she responded, dropping into a ready stance as her partner placed further glyphs on the direct path. "Yang, get back."

Yang grabbed her partner, firing one last shot into the Nevermore to keep it stunned and retreat at the same time, getting out of the way as Ruby launched herself at greater than full speed, catching the Grimms neck with Crescent Roses scythe. There was a moment of resistance before the Nevermores neck started to give way, and Crescent Rose cut deep.

Once again there was too much resistance to sever the body-part from the Grimms torso completely, but it didn't matter this time, the Grimm already starting to fade to nothing before she could retrieve Crescent Rose.

She returned her baby to its holster, and turned to face the others. "Well, that went well."

"You have to be joking."

[]

"It seems we have been very fortunate with some of the applicants this year," Oz commented.

"Yes, I seem to recall that you were supposed to deal with the giant Nevermore. Now can we focus on the Deathstalker situation?"

"You do recall my semblance? I'm sure I explained how it works."

"Being able to mess with time doesn't mean you should."

"In any case we should have the new team RWBY collected. It wouldn't do to lose such a promising group so soon after it formed. Huh, that's interesting."

Back with the team dealing with the Deathstalker things were getting interesting.

[]

Pyrrha didn't think she'd ever understand quite how her partner had managed it, but the Deathstalker was pinned under a number of trees, probably not for long admittedly, in such a way that its underside was exposed and vulnerable to attack.

That didn't mean it was defenceless however, the sting was still able to flail about, capable of inflicting damage if they were careless.

There was the sound of rushing feet, which slowed to a halt as the other pair saw what had happened. "How..?"

The Deathstalker lurched again, but failed to free itself.

The Ursa growled, drawing Pyrrhas attention. Her eyes widened as she caught what it was trying to indicate to her.

"We need to move," she reminded the others, shifting Miló into sword mode as she prepared to strike at the tail, severing the stinger.

The others caught her meaning, and launched their own attacks at the Grimms unprotected underside.

[]

"I do believe we have the seen the member of that group most suited to the leadership role," Oz commented. "One who managed tactical thinking, luring the foe into a trap and giving the team an opening." He took a drink from his mug.

Salem burst into laughter. "Shouldn't I be the one to suggest a Grimm as team leader? Still, that proves my point about you accepting the suggestion."

[]

"You'd have thought there'd be more Grimm around," Ren commented as they followed the Nevermore into the ruins. "I'm not complaining, but it feels odd."

"We already fought a number getting here," Jaune reminded him, panting slightly. He wasn't used to so much exercise. "And we're clearly not the first here. Maybe they cleared out the Grimm nearby."

He shrugged. It didn't really matter anyway. They grabbed their couple of relics, turning at the sound of footsteps as another team made it to the ruins, two girls a guy and an Ursa.

It seemed that initiation had come to an end.

AN: Apologies for the delay in releasing this chapter. It started with a powercut, then a few more minutes later. Each time OpnOffice took 2 tries to open. Until I gave up on writing for the day, which allowed me to break the flow of writing. Then I had someone working from home, due to illness, next to my computer which didn't exactly encourage me to write. And then when I finally had noone working next to me, no powercuts and OpenOffice working a cat stole my chair. Hopefully I won't have so many problems with later chapters.

This chapter marks the end of initiation and so my attempts to write things happening at about the same time. Given how badly I messed up the timing, and the lack of Ozpin canon semblance, I chose to give him a time manipulation ability to justify the segments. This will only be used in service of comedy.

The first reason for the Beowolf is also revealed; there is still team RWBY! And on a related note, those concerned about Pyrrha becoming leader need worry no more. The Ursa is team leader, as I planned from the start.

Omake:

"Actually, I just remembered that Ursas name."

[]

"Pyrrha Nikos, Blake Belladonna, Russel Thrush and the Ursa form team SNBR or Sinopia. And Stevie will be in charge."