Your breath feels heavy. Even as you take in a good amount of oxygen, it seems to cling to your lungs rather than permeate through them.
You're nervous.
Of course you are. This is your first mission, after all. If things go according to plan, this will be the first time you fight a Grimm. You've only sparred up to this point, and while a blonde with her hair on fire charging at you was scary, she didn't intend on killing you. You've left the safety of your room, your school, Beacon, everything you've come to know since waking up in that crater, and replaced it with a bullhead.
The copter's rumbling does little to help your nervous twitching as you soar over a forest.
"A border town has been experiencing an increased number of low-level Grimm attacks. Requesting a team of Huntsman-in-Training to exterminate nearby population. Killing Grimm will assist with the attacks, and increased morale will lower future attacks. Difficulty: 1.5/5."
Everything about the above was simple. In a video game, that'd be a basic quest for newbies. Get in, kill a few monsters, get out. But it's not. Though you've trained and trained, this was life or death.
You take a breath and clear your head. No matter what, you weren't alone. As you look around at the much more collected Team RWBY, your heart rate decreases. The four of them were monsters in their own right. Even Blake, who specialized at hit and run tactics over raw strength, was leagues above you in terms of power and ability. No matter the dangers, you'll be able to make it through this.
And boy, solid ground really helps. As you touch down outside the border town. You feel gravel beneath your feet and suddenly love the process or erosion. It crunched under your boots, reminding you that the world didn't normally shake around fifty feet off the ground. Determined and refocused, you follow Ruby as she leads her team around.
"Good, you're here," said an older man aged further by a life outside the walls. He looks at the five of you, settling on Yang. He looks annoyed when the much shorter, much younger Ruby speaks up.
"Hello! We're Team RWBY! I'm Ruby Rose, Huntress-in-Training Extraordinaire!"
The old man locks eyes with you for a second, but you nod towards Ruby. Now that you think about it, a tiny girl in oversized boots really doesn't scream, "Savior," when compared to other people. "We've been keeping the Grimm at bay, but they keep coming back, and in greater numbers. Thin the heard and try not to die." His head tilts down as he reminds himself of Ruby's 5'0ft of bubbly. "If you can." Yang glares at him, but he doesn't seem to notice.
"We'll report back if we find anything," Blake says, much more Huntsman-like than any affirmation Ruby would give. "What's the best direction to start?"
The old man points towards a thick series of trees that continually grows tighter until you can't see past them. "They mostly come from there. Don't disappoint." He walks off without another word.
"I don't think he likes us," Yang says, scowling.
"All the more reason to shut him up," Blake replies. "Do his job, but ten times better, then make him thank you for it."
"That's what we do!" Ruby shouts. "Only with less spite."
"Altruism isn't a requirement of the job, especially if the guy is being a dick." Yang shrugs. "I'd enjoy the opportunity to watch him be forced to thank us."
"We'll just have to remind him why we're here," Weiss says. "Now, let's head out, shall we?"
"Agreed."
The five of you start heading towards the area where the man told you to go. You breach the trees and start exploring the thickening forest. Things seem light, with no signs of Grimm around. The mission brief did say increased attacks, but it seems that the people around were capable enough to take care of the problem. This was nothing more than clean up, which you guess makes perfect sense for why it's a mission for first years. You all spend a good half hour or so exploring with nothing happening.
After feeling most of tension exit your body from a lack of activity, you hear a "GrrrrRROOW," in the distance. Both you and Blake turn in the direction of the growl, alerted by your Faunus-enhanced hearing. Blake readies her weapon, taking an attack stance; feeling your inexperience, you take a moment to remember to ready yourself in the same way.
"Something's over there?" Yang asks, not questioning why you and Blake heard it first.
"Yes. If I had to guess, just a Beowulf." Blake relaxes her posture and lowers her weapon. "And because of that, I'm gonna sit this one out. Briar, why don't you prove that you're ready to be here?"
Ruby jumps up excitedly. "Oh, yeah! This is your first mission, right? You can show us what you've learned and we can back you up."
"And, as we all know, he'll be at full strength." Yang smirks. "After all, girls will be watching."
Ignoring the social anxiety that comes with having four women judge your combat abilities, you grip your blade tighter. You can hear the Grimm getting closer. Honestly, RWBY giving you the opportunity to solo it was a good idea; this would be a true test to see what you can do with a perfect failsafe. It's also a little celebratory, seeing as it'll be your first kill.
You start moving towards the sound. Eventually, you see it. You see the thing that shouldn't exist. You see the thing that you know didn't exist wherever you're from.
Monsters are real, and you are ready.
You face off against the Beowulf. The gangly limbs crawl towards you, shifting as it neared closer and closer. It had red eyes, sharp fangs, and wicked claws. You have a greatsword and resolve.
You kick off. Your body really moves while your mind goes blank. Before thinking of a consequence, your legs shoot you forward as she you swing your sword. Using your main technique, you wait until your sword's arcing motion was set, then flip a switch. Your Synstylae clangs as the inner section of your blade slides out of the other like a sheath; the blade length doubles, the weight of the motion increased as the momentum carries everything forward–straight through the Beowulf.
Your senses return as you watch the former black beast dissolve into mist.
You did it.
You killed a Beowulf.
You killed a monster.
"Woo!" Yang cheers. "Da da da da daa duh duh da!" she sings, mimicking the level up theme from one of her games. "You're officially one the list of people that can flip off that guy who thinks we can't do our job."
You raise your middle finger towards the town. Screw that guy for writing you guys off just because your leader is a half-sized girl. Yang throws up her own.
Ruby cheers, Yang stands proud, Blake claps, and Weiss… does nothing. Blake speaks up and says, "So, how's it feel? Do you feel like a hero yet?"
"I feel like I killed a low-level Grimm that doesn't give me any bragging rights."
"Progress is progress, dude. There'll be plenty more to go through while we're here."
You hoist up your sword and rest it on your shoulder. "What are we waiting for, then?"
The very unenthusiastic Weiss says, "Nobody. Nothing. We're wasting time here."
"Lighten up, Ice Queen."
"No Yang, she's right." Ruby looks around. "We have a lot of ground to cover. I think it'll be best if we split into two teams and head different ways. Then, we can go ten times faster!"
"The math on that doesn't really check out," you bring up.
"Twelve times faster!" Ruby says, louder than before.
You all (except Weiss) laugh. Ruby then takes Weiss and turns around, heading to another section of the forest. Yang and Blake arm up and take the lead. Your squad starts wandering around, checking for noise. At the end of the day, dealing with the Grimm wouldn't actually amount to much. If there was a source, only then could this area receive proper protection from the monsters. Unfortunately, the only way to potentially find a source was to hunt the small fry, so it was… yeah, this was a low level RPG quest.
"If that's the metaphor you're going for, then yeah, just grind out XP," Yang says, laughing. "And Weiss says video games don't have meaningful lessons. The more you kill, the better you'll be, right?"
"I don't think doing a task repeatedly to improve is localized to games, Yang. That's called…"
"~It's called?"
"Ugh, yes, it's called, 'experience,' but games adapted the term and shortened it to something ugly."
"We can solve this. Yo, Briar, is it working?"
You finish slicing through a Beowulf and catch your breath. Of all the ways you envisioned your first mission going, having Blake and Yang argue about the value of video games while you worked through Beowulves wasn't a consideration. "Level up," you say in the least enthusiastic tone possible while lazily striking a pose. Yang pumps her fist, but Blake enjoys the sarcasm. "I definitely feel a lot more comfortable now that I know I CAN kill these things. Before, it was just… jitters, you know?"
Yang shrugs. "I couldn't tell you, to be honest. It's been years since I got gud." Blake nods her head in agreement. "But hey, if you're feeling like you can do it, then that's great!"
"It really is. There's never any way to know aside from–" Blake stops and looks a direction.
"What, another Beowulf?" Yang asks.
"No," you say, focusing your hearing like Blake. Your Faunus senses hear something far bigger than a Beowulf, or even an Alpha. "Bigger."
Yang cocks her gauntlets. "Alright then. If all else fails, this will help the town more than a few small fry."
"Multiple," Blake adds, better able to discern with her hearing. "There's at least two."
"Bring it!"
You, Blake, and Yang form up and get closer together for defense. Moving as a group, you head to the source of the sound. You happen upon a clearing standing before a small cave mouth. Aside from a series of trees and a few flower bushes, there was only one place the sound could be coming from. From the black depths comes a pair of white masks with red eyes. Two Ursa Majors lurch out of the cave, easily three times bigger than any of the Beowulves you've seen up to this point. You freeze for a moment, but calm down once you remember that you have friends on your side.
"Stay back, Briar. These might be a little tougher than Beowulves." You nod and let Yang and Blake step forward. "I'll take the ugly one," Yang says, cracking her knuckles. She charges forward and begins grappling with one of the bigger of the black bear creatures. "Careful," she calls back to Blake she the plays tug of war with her fists. "These ones aren't messing around."
Blake wordlessly slips forward, peppering the other Ursa as it aimed for Yang. The smaller of bears turns its attention to Blake and begins charging. The cat effortlessly flips over it, leaving behind a copy…cat (seriously?) in her place. The Ursa swipes away shadow and only realizes its mistake when Blake starts peppering it again. She jumps up to the cave entrance and loads in Dust ammo.
Yang, tired of grappling, headbutts her Ursa and tosses it into a tree. She chases after it, throwing several shells into the beast before it can get up and block them. She starts going back and forth, dodging swipes and throwing in her own.
You watch the scene before you, driving it into your mind that you're far from being truly ready. You may have been able to take one of these Ursa were it alone, but Blake and Yang were keeping pace and overpowering them, albeit with effort. You watch Yang parry and punch a giant bear while Blake readied her kusarigama to guillotine the other.
And just as you were watching a well fought victory, things turned. There was a massive earthquake out of nowhere, as if the ground itself came alive. Blake lost her footing on the mouth of the cave and fell hard, bashing against the stone and onto the ground, where she took a blow from her Ursa, sending her flying. The same quake tripped Yang up, leaving her with her own strike from her Ursa.
Not thinking, you rush forward towards Blake as she slams into the ground. You see her quickly stand up as you remember that there's an Ursa between you and her. The bear backhands you into a tree, knocking off a good portion of your Aura. You recover in time to see Blake take advantage of the opening you created and lodge Gambol Shroud into the Ursa's back. She then fires a shot, killing it. Yang finishes her Ursa with a barrage of punches mixed with shotgun blasts.
"Briar!" Blake calls, pulling back Gambol Shroud in front of the cave entrance.
"I'm fine," you yell back, letting your Aura heal you. You stand, weakened but totally fine. "Are you?"
"Just a few scratches. What was that? Some kind of–"
Blake's next words don't reach you. Everything crawls to a standstill as you look past Blake into the cave. Cutting through the darkness was a shape. The pure black managed to be clear through the cave shadows, revealing a great, massive thing rearing back great, massive claws.
The two Ursa Yang and Blake had fought weren't the cause of the increase in Grimm attacks.
This one was.
"BLAKE!"
An absolutely gigantic Ursa Major poured out from the cave entrance. One thing you picked up in Port's classes was that Grimm grow smarter and stronger with age; this Grimm was gigantic, covered in bony spikes, and knew to hide. Now that its den was threatened, it was set to destroy any person near it. That person was Blake, standing right before the cave entrance, unaware that the true danger had yet to be faced.
You feel your body move forward without your input. In slow motion, you see the Grimm arc back, ready to attack Blake with claws as big as Gambol Shroud's blade. Even in your heightened state, you feel in your heart that you can't make it. You can't save Blake. She was stronger than you in every way, but not even she could take a strike like that and walk away with Aura left.
There had to be a way.
There had to.
Everything freezes as the scene before you stretches out. Every synapse focuses on every detail, painting the picture of Blake's impeding attack. There's the cave. There's Blake, unaware. There's the massive Grimm. There's… flowers. Red flowers.
It was a rose bush.
What else could it be?
It was the same type of rose bush that had given you your name in this world. It was who you were. It was your identifier. It was the symbol you chose to be the face of you.
It was your awakening.
When you first woke up, you had new senses. Your Faunus ears allowed you to hear far better. Your Aura tried to heal whatever damaged you sustained in coming to this world. Your soul protected you.
And now, there was another sense. One of life, of protection.
It was a rose bush.
What else could it be?
Thorns erupted from the ground, infused with life energy–your life energy. Like serrated snakes, they twisted upwards from the dirt, wrapping around the Ursa's arm as it tried to break away. The thorns augmented by your Aura sloughed off black flesh, tearing into the beast's arm and stretching it at the perfect angle.
With a great sweeping strike, emboldened by both your extended blade and a gout of flame, you sever the Ursa's arm before it can strike Blake. Your newfound thorns had prevented the limb from moving, making it the perfect target for your heavy blade. The arm hit the ground with a thud and began to dissipate. You stood over it as it did, looking at Blake for confirmation that you did what you did. You had done the impossible and awakened your Semblance to save her.
All of your thoughts go blank as your feet leave the ground. The blow meant for Blake had now met you. Your Aura shatters immediately as you go flying and meet a tree.
The last thing you hear are two voices shouting, "Briar!"
