Pyrrha looked around the locker room. People were still coming in, but fortunately she wasn't being mobbed by a bunch of fans. Moving to Vale had been the right Idea apparently. She turned around and began to punch in the code to her locker. She removed her weapons and what parts of her armor she wasn't already wearing. She was in the middle of tightening her arm guard when she caught a flash of white in the corner of her eye.
"So Pyrrha, have you given any thought as to who's team you'd like to be on?" the girl, who Pyrrha recognized as Weiss Schnee. 'Oh boy, here we go' Pyrrha thought to herself 'I can see where this is going.' "I'm sure everyone must be eager to unite with such a strong well-known individual, such as yourself."
"Hmm, I'm not quite sure," Pyrrha said, "I was planning on letting the chips fall where they may."
"Well, I was thinking maybe we could be on a team together." Weiss said.
'Aaaand there it is' Pyrrha thought, 'why am I not surprised?'
"That sound grand!" Pyrrha lied.
"Great!" Weiss said excitedly.
'If there is anyone up there, a little help? Please?' Pyrrha silently prayed. At that moment a Faunus girl with a hoodie vest that hid most of her face and a wolf tail stepped between the two.
"Excuse me." she mumbled before turning around and shouting, "Jaune! I found it!" A blonde haired boy in a jeans, a hoodie and armor rushed up.
'Thank you, I'll never doubt you again!' Pyrrha thought. She looked at the two newcomers, they hadn't cared who's conversation they were interrupting. Perhaps they just didn't care about titles or accolades? "Hello there, ?" Pyrrha said asking the two for their names.
"Oh! Hi, the names Ruby, and this is my friend Jaune!" The red hooded Faunus girl said. The boy Jaune awkwardly waved from behind her, before turning and opening his locker.
"I'm Pyrrha, It's a pleasure to meet the both of you." Pyrrha said. Then there was a huff from behind two newcomers.
"You again." Weiss said, practically glaring at the Red hooded girl. Pyrrha was honestly surprised at the animosity coming from the Schnee girl.
"Oh, Hello." Ruby turned and said to Weiss, "Is there a problem?"
"'Is there a problem?'!" Weiss practically screeched, "Just who do you think you are?"
"A huntress in training." Ruby replied, "that's all that matters any title or fame you think you have matters none to me." Pyrrha could see that the boy, Jaune, had finished getting his equipment out of the locker and apparently Ruby had seen it too, because she turned to Pyrrha. "It was a pleasure to meet you Pyrrha I look forward to studying alongside you."
'Is that her asking me to team up with her?' Pyrrha thought. Apparently Weiss had a similar thought.
"Nice try but Pyrrha is already teaming up with me." She said haughtily.
"Actually I believe the teams are comprised of four people each." Pyrrha interjected. Weiss looked at Pyrrha with wide eyes, as if she couldn't believe that the champion would be willing to team up with these two pleblans. However Ruby's reaction was even more interesting. She got a confused look on her face.
"Teams?" She asked Pyrrha.
"Yes we're supposed to be training and working together in a team for our time at Beacon." Pyrrha answered.
"Oh, he didn't mention that." Ruby's mumble was barely audible but Pyrrha was close enough to hear it.
"How could you not know that!" Weiss on the other hand was getting louder the longer the conversation went on.
"I only got asked to come here a few days ago." Ruby answered, "I'm sure there is plenty that I will need to pick up along the way." Pyrrha was about to ask Ruby who she was talking about and what she meant by being 'asked to come here' when the loudspeaker came online.
"Would all first year students report to Beacon cliff for initiation." The voice of Glynda Goodwitch said, "again all first year students report to Beacon cliff immediately."
"Oh, that's our signal, see you guys out there!" Ruby called as she began to walk towards the exit.
"H-hey! Wait for me!" Jaune called out before taking off after the red hooded girl.
"It was nice meeting you!" Pyrrha called out after them.
00000000
Ruby could hear the heavy footsteps as Jaune caught up to her.
"Sooo," he began.
"So?" Ruby raised an eyebrow at his attempt to start a conversation.
"Teams." Jaune said.
"Yep." Ruby said.
"Want to be on the same one?" Jaune asked, "i'm thinking you and me would make a good one." Ruby considered it for a moment. She had no idea about Jaune's skill level or academic prowess. Then again she hadn't planned on having a team anyways.
"Sure." She said, "It will be interesting to work with someone else for once." Ruby finished as they reached the cliff. Professor Ozpin and Goodwitch were already there, though Ozpin was busy with something on a scroll.
"Please pick a platform and stand on it." Professor Goodwitch said. Ruby and Jaune both picked an open platform near the two teachers. Ruby felt some slight give in the platform beneath her.
'Huh, a springboard?' Ruby wondered internally.
'They're probably going to launch us into the forest with them.' the voice commented.
'I would hope so, any other directions just going to result in a painful faceplant.' Ruby replied.
'True but maybe that's the intention, it would be rather funny.' the voice said with a bit of mirth.
'Why do you always take pleasure in the suffering of others?' Ruby asked.
'Uh, hello, Grimm.' the voice answered, 'it's kind of our thing.' Before Ruby could retort again professor Ozpin began speaking.
"For years you have trained to become warriors, and today your abilities will be evaluated in the emerald forest." Ozpin said.
"Now I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams." Goodwitch picked up from where Ozpin left off, "well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates, today."
"Makes sense," Ruby said under her breath, "if they're going to be working together they'd want to get started as soon as possible."
"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well." Ozpin explained.
"Again makes sense, why are they dragging this out?" Ruby mumbled again.
"That being said the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years." Ozpin finished.
"Oh." was all Ruby could say.
'Well that seems counterintuitive.' the voice commented.
"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest." Ozpin instructed, "you will meet opposition along the way, do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you will die." Jaune gave a nervous laugh besides Ruby. "you will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene, you will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics, each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. We will guard that item as well as your standing and will grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?" Only Jaune spoke up.
"Uh, yeah, sir?" he said.
"Good now take your positions." Ozpin expertly ignored the young man.
"Uh, sir?" Jaune tried again, "I've got a, um, question." As Jaune was talking the pad's started to activated, launching the students one by one into the forest. Ruby saw this and blocked out everything else and focused on how she was going to land this. Ruby began unraveling her wristbands and wrapping part of them around her hands, they would need a little extra protection for her landing. She suddenly felt a laugh coming from her other half.
"What?" She mumbled.
'I'll tell you later focus on landing right now' the voice responded, 'you're next to launch' Sure enough Ruby found herself sailing through the air not a second later. Ruby pinned her arms to her side for the first bit of flight and engaged her semblance as she wanted to capitalize on the momentum the launch pad provided. As soon as she felt that she was starting on the downward portion of her parabola, Ruby spread her arms wide and began to use that to slow her descent and direct herself. As she got close to a particularly dense portion of trees she flipped mid-air and curled in on herself to minimise the damage she would sustain by striking the branches of the various trees. At the same time her other half formed some bone armor to help make up for her Aura being much weaker than a normal human or faunus. After she felt the branches had slowed her momentum sufficiently, Ruby reached out and grabbed a nearby branch. Using her momentum Ruby swung around the branch until she brought herself to a stop on top of the branch. The remains of her cracked and broken bone plated dissolved as Aura took over and began healing the bruises on her arms and legs. Thankfully while her Aura was weak because of the Grimm presence within her, it would recover much quicker than a normal human or faunus. As soon as her Aura was back, Ruby began a quick survey of the forest beneath her. Using her senses of sight, hearing, smell, and emotions Ruby found it relatively easy to locate the other students nearby. She immediately noticed Weiss who was nearby, that was one partnership Ruby wanted to avoid. She noticed Jaune apparently in a tree but she saw Pyrrha was already almost to him. Seeing that most of the good options in the area were quickly being taken, Ruby decided to move towards the temple through the trees and hope she saw someone along the way.
"So, what was so funny?" Ruby asked her other half.
'You're friend was asking what a landing strategy was on the launch pad.' the voice answered.
"Friend? Who?" Ruby started to ask, however when she began to think about it she thought of Jaune. The more she thought about it she couldn't deny that she had unknowingly come to think of him as a friend. "Huh, when did that happen?"
'You really are clueless' the voice chided, 'It's not a bad thing human and faunus always find their strength in numbers, you'll need friends to survive'
"That's oddly supportive advice coming from you." Ruby said.
'I'm stuck with you remember I'm just looking out for my own skin' the voice defended, 'besides for whatever reason I can't feed from your negative emotions, so I have no interest in you continuing to fear betrayal from others.' Ruby paused at his words. She could still feel an ache in her chest whenever this subject came up. She was about to say that the voice may be right, when it suddenly spoke again.
'Heads up, someone's following us.' the voice quickly said.
"From below?" Ruby questioned as she began scanning the forest floor below. Feeling a negative response from her other half Ruby looked up. Following a good distance behind her in the trees was the little bundle of emotions that could only belong to a human or faunus. They weren't close enough to see and the wind was blowing the wrong direction for Ruby to scent who it was. Ruby decided she would circle around and try and find out who it was that was skillful enough to follow her through a forest.
0000000000
Blake silently swore. She had lost the girl in red again. The girl had first caught Blake's attention with her little incident in the courtyard. Blake figured that it might be good to be on a team with another faunus, especially one who was brave enough to walk around with her faunus trait on display. It would also help to distract away from Blake's own hidden traits. When the girl began to use the same tactic Blake did, sticking to the trees to find a good partner, Blake decided to follow the girl. A task she found to be much more difficult than originally anticipated. 'She's wearing red in the middle of a green forest' Blake thought, 'how can she be this hard to find?' Blake continued to move in the same direction as before in the hope of catching the trail of the other girl again.
"Hi!" Blake jumped back as the girl she had been trying to follow suddenly appeared in front of her, hanging upside down from a branch above them. "My name's Ruby, What's your name partner?"
0000000000
'I'm too sober for this' Yang thought as she could practically feel her flask burning a hole in the pocket she had hidden it in, after all they couldn't confiscate what they couldn't find. Yang was about at her limit with her new 'partner' Weiss Schnee. It had taken all of a minute for Yang to decide she didn't particularly like the girl. By five minutes Yang had determined that one of them wouldn't survive the next four years. So Weiss's constant insistence that they were heading the wrong way was not helping the situation at all.
"Are you even listening to me?! Or are you just going to continue ignoring me?!" Weiss demanded.
"Yes, and Yes." Yang said as she gave in to her cravings and pulled the flask from within her jacket and took a swig of the burning liquid.
"What was that?!" Weiss screeched.
"Whiskey." Yang answered, she held up tiny flask and shook it slightly, "not the best I've had but it was cheap, and the guy would sell it to me." Faster than she thought the white haired girl could move Weiss had snatched the metal flask from Yang's hand and was scowling at the golden reaper.
"It is hardly appropriate for a huntress in training to so willfully violate a school rule," Weiss was scolding Yang now, "And for such a vile thing as alcohol!" Yang glared at Weiss and Weiss glared back. Red eyes bore in blue and vise versa, if anyone had been with them they might have seen sparks flying between the two girls.
"If you don't give that back," Yang said slowly, "You're gonna have a bad time."
Weiss huffed, stowing the flask in the pouch she kept at her back. "You'll need to learn how to listen to me if you're going to be on my team for the next four years." Weiss said, she then drew her rapier from her side. "I might as well give you that lesson now."
Yang sighed, "Y'know It's a beautiful day today, the sun is shining, birds are singing," Yang reached up and grabbed Brimstone from it's spot on her back. "Days like these, brats like you, should burn in Hell!" With that Yang swung Brimstone in it's greatsword form, at the same time she pulled a trigger on the handle sending plumes of flame jetting in an arc away from the reaper and towards the heiress. Weiss jumped on a glyph to avoid the flaming slash coming at her. She leaped off of said glyph in order to strike at Yang with Myrtenaster. When Yang blocked the blow, Weiss activated the ice dust she had readied and froze Brimstone to the ground. She then struck Yang across her face with the flat of her blade.
"Now are you going to listen to me or do we need to do this again?" Weiss asked, smirking, confident in her victory. Yang gave her a deadpan look and pulled the same trigger she had earlier. The ice on her sword cracked, then shattered, then exploded outwards.
"Fire, remember?" Yang reminded the girl as she swung her flaming greatsword around with one hand. Weiss spun her dust chamber, landing on a red dust type this time.
"Fine, I suppose I must fight fire with fire then." She said before charging at Yang, who in turn charged back. The following fight was grand and explosive, it would have continued on for quite some time had it not been for both combatants hearing the sound of growling behind them. They turned to see a creature shaped like a fox with nine tails, as tall as a horse, with pitch black fur and white bone plates.
"What is that!?" Weiss wondered aloud.
Meanwhile Yang had frozen, her grip on Brimstone tightened until her knuckles were white. Her answer was barely more than a whisper. "It's a Kumiho."
000000000000
A/N: alright sorry to end it right there guys but this chapter has gotten way longer than I intended it to be. Also we had a funny conversation when Irlr did some proofreading of this chapter.
Irlr: (reads Yang saying Weiss was gonna have a bad time) You know you made an accidental undertale reference?
Rekr: (smirks) are you sure that it was accidental?
Irlr: (keeps reading) Oh! you made a very intentional reference. That's almost word for word.
Rekr: Uh huh.
Anyways hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I'm thinking of putting descriptions of the weapons into the next couple chapters for anyone who is interested in more details of them. Also on the less positive note, I will be starting school again soon and will have significantly less time to write. I will return and finish my stories once school is over but the next few months may be very sporadic in when I am able to update these stories.