RAVN
Chapter 4
The Emerald Forest
Yang was walking through the Emerald forest without a care, her hands folded behind her head and her face set in a lecherous grin. A while back she had the thought that she might not end up on a team with her sister, or even any girls at all for that matter.
Her mind subsequently dropped down into the gutter and stayed there. She was vaguely aware of her surroundings, and would know if she was attacked by a grmm, but the majority of her attention was spent focusing on the fantasy playing out in her mind.
In her mind she ended up with three hot boys, one with white hair, as teammates, each of them occupying one of her holes.
Yang let out a perverted giggle, and the girl spying on her from the branches sweatdropped in disbelief that this blonde airhead would choose now of all times to lose herself in her perverted fantasies.
She detected movement nearby and opened her eyes, filing away her fantasy for later.
Not particularly caring who heard her, she called out "hello?"
When a few seconds went by without seeing anyone she called again "is anyone out there? Hello?"
She stopped and when the silence continued she wildly gesticulated with her arms and shouted "I'm getting bored here!"
She perked up when she heard a rustling in the bushes behind her and turned to walk in that direction "is someone there?"
Yang placed her hands on the, hopefully, sturdy ranches of the bush to stabilize herself and leaned over to peek behind the brush. "Ruby, is that you?"
A large black form rose up from the brush, and she couldn't help wondering how such a large grimm managed to hide behind a couple of bushes.
Like most grimm, the ursa had a bone mask with red markings covering its face, as well as the bone spikes protruding from its stocky arms, back, and knees. Its hands and feet are also tipped with long, sharp, white claws.
Yang simply stood there, staring at the grimm for a moment, before pushing the thoughts from her mind and simply saying "nope!" These things were most definitely not Ruby. But she didn't mind, she could still have her fun.
Yang quickly rolled to the side as the ursa charged out of the brush. She rose to her feet and activated her Ember Celica, her breasts jiggling from the movement of her arms, and stared at the monster with a smirk before another ursa runs out behind her. She leaped over its head and its companion attempted to charge her again, but was knocked back by a fiery punch for its trouble, but got back to its feet seconds later and readied itself for another attack.
The second ursa charged at Yang, and she responded in kind, and Yang slid under its forelegs, jumped to gain upward momentum, and sent a fiery uppercut to its jaw, staggering the beast. Before the grimm could regain its bearings, she cocked back her arm and sent another fiery punch and a kick, sending the creature flying back.
"You guys-" she said when she caught her breath "-wouldn't happen to have seen a girl in a red hood, would you?" Whether the ursai heard and ignored her or not, they simply growled at her. Smirking, Yang said "you could just say 'no'."
One of the Ursai stood on its legs and swipes at her twice, and Yang dodged the first by hurriedly leaning her upper body back, but she had to jump away when the second swipe came uncomfortably close to her face. Force field or not, a strike from an ursa would still hurt like a bitch and would take a good chunk out of her aura.
Yang laughed uproariously "geez"she mocked the grimm, ignoring the close miss "you two couldn't hit the broad side of a ba..." her voice fades away as she notices a strand of gold falling from her forehead.
Her eyes crossed, and when the strand of her hair came into focus.
Anger had replaced the playful tone in Yang's voice. Her eyes were closed, her facial expression had become hard, and her entire body had gone rigid. Even the ursai seemed caught by surprise at the sudden shift in tone and missed a perfect chance to strike.
The sight of the two bear grimm looking at each other in confusion would have been comical if Yang had been of any mind to appreciate it.
Yang opened her eyes again, but gone were the gentle lilac. In their place was a burning scarlet faced the glowing red orbs of the grimm.
Yang brought her arms up above her head, her hands balled into fists shaking in rage.
"You monsters!"
She exploded in a plume of flame as her arms came down in force. A burning-hot shock wave spread out, singing grass and leaves alike.
Yang's spy came to her senses just in time and dropped down and slipped behind the trunk of her former host so she could avoid the shock-wave of heat, but even having passed her by she could still feel the blistering heat.
What she could hear painted a vivid picture. An angry war cry was followed by explosions and the sound of breaking bones and rending flesh. The blond's already insane strength must have increased considerably, if the sound of the impacts was anything to go by.
Blake peeked around the tree only to see one of the ursai tumbling helplessly through the air.
Yang wasn't done. She was leaning forward like a runner at a standing start with her arms held backward. Flames sprung from the soles of her shoes and the tips of her fists as she launched herself at the airborne ursa. A brutal flurry of blows, each punctuated by another explosion, was unleashed and the already defenseless grimm thrown even farther.
There was no doubt that it was finished, but Yang wasn't. She launched herself at her opponent, again, and unleashed another vicious flurry. Her weapon, no, her entire lower arm flared up in golden flames as she threw her final blow.
The ursa was turned into a burning projectile, cutting a swath of destruction through the forest.
Blake stared at the smoldering hole. Massive tree trunks had exploded into splinters, their crowns were coming down to feed the fires left behind, and somewhere far off at the end lie a dissolving ursa buried under a pile of crackling firewood.
Yang was strong. Far stronger than she had any right to be, and worse was that her temper was on a literal hair trigger. She could only imagine what would happen if some poor schmuck ever decided to involve her hair in a prank. Blake shuddered in thought, what if someone without aura to protect them ever messed with Yang's hair? A civilian, or worse, a child.
These thoughts were for later, anyhow. For now, they were still in their initiation. She would, however, need to work with her to calm that temper of hers.
The second ursa came barreling towards Yang who had been inspecting her handiwork. She turned around. Glowing red met burning scarlet and the ursa stopped dead in its tracks.
Blake smirked and drew Gambol Shroud. A partner that could stare down a charging ursa was worth a dash of insanity.
"What! You want some, too?!" Yang taunted, but the still ursa fell to the ground, a black blade attached to a long black ribbon in its back. Yang's eyes followed the ribbon to its end, wrapped around the hand of the girl from the night before.
Panting heavily as the exhaustion hit her, Yang let her flames dissipate as the red bled from her eyes. Blake recalled the weapon back to her hand, the kusari-gama unfolding and becoming a black katana. She sheathed the blade in a large cleaver before she put it on her upper back, the sheath sticking to the magnetic plate there.
Yang, lilac eyed once again, crossed her arms and said in a confidant, albeit somewhat joking voice "I could've taken him."
Blake merely shook her head with a put-upon sigh in response.
Weiss withdrew Myrtenaster from its sheath at her side.
This was it, the moment of truth. She had trained hard using the best combat instructors and training facilities money could buy. She had studied the use of dust extensively in theory and in practice. Countless hours of her life over the past year had been spent honing her skills for this moment, and she had every confidence that she would live up to the challenge. After all, she had aced Beacon's entrance exams, proving that she had what it took to become a huntress.
Despite all that, meeting the real thing, finding herself surrounded by glowing red eyes, did not leave her unfazed. Winning a training simulation in a known environment with all manners of safety precautions in place and a top of the line medical facility next door was very different from being stuck in the wilderness, surrounded and without backup.
Almost without backup. "Ruby!" Where the hell had the little brat gone?
A beowolf jumped out of the underbrush. It bared its fangs in a vicious snarl followed by a bone-chilling howl. On command, the forest all around Weiss came to life, and lurking red eyes turned into the beasts of nightmares that were the grimm.
Weiss held Myrtenaster out in front of her in a defensive stance. For a moment that seemed seemed to stretch on forever, nothing happened. The pack seemed wary of attacking, and Weiss couldn't move one way or another without giving them an opening.
One adventurous grimm finally lunged at her swinging its vicious claws in a wide arc. Weiss brought up her blade blocking the attack. Her defense held, but she was pushed back several feet before she could steady her stance.
Even an ordinary beowolf was surprisingly strong, and those claws and fangs would do heavy damage if they caught her. Just waiting for the pack to take swings at her would get her nowhere but to an early grave.
Remember your training, Weiss. Head up, shoulders back, right foot forward - not that forward - steady your breathing, wait for the right time to strike and…
She brought her rapier up in line with her shoulders. The revolving cylinder above its hilt turned and locked into place, allowing the glowing red dust inside the chamber to spread throughout the hollows in the blade in an intricate pattern.
…now!
Weiss dashed forward, her movements fast and graceful like those of a dancer. She had aimed at the largest, the one she assumed was the leader of this pack, trying to cut off the snake's head in hopes of dispersing the pack. He was not ready for her assault. She had him dead to rights until a whirl of rose petals appeared in her path. It revealed Ruby swinging a massive scythe at the beast and shouting "Gotcha!"
But she hadn't. The beast had raised its spiked arm in defense. It blocked the attack and looked more annoyed than wounded. Even worse, Weiss was about to run her own partner through from behind. She barely managed to come to a halt in time.
Still stumbling forward, she lost control over the charged Myrtenaster and accidentally sent a large bolt of fire into the forest. A burning trail was left behind in its path before it hit a tree, which exploded and littered the area with burning pieces of wood and foliage.
Ruby, surprised by the sudden inferno, almost missed the alpha taking a swing at her. She managed to bring up her scythe to save herself from getting disemboweled but was thrown into Weiss who barely managed to keep on her feet.
"Hey, watch it!" Ruby complained.
"Excuse me! You attacked out of turn. I could have killed you!"
"You'll have to try a lot harder than that…" Ruby mumbled under her breath, insulted that her new partner thought her so fragile, as she got back on her feet.
Weiss almost wished she had run her through or gone with the scraggly blond boy instead, but it was not the time to quarrel among themselves. They were still surrounded by a pack of beowolves ready to tear them apart.
She positioning herself back-to-back with her partner and brought her rapier back up in a defensive position.
Ruby ejected a large red magazine from her scythe. It landed with a heavy thud, burying itself into the soft ground. The unwieldy weapon must use a massive caliber, not that it or the equally massive double blade at its head had done them any good so far.
She loaded a new magazine, swung her scythe around, and cocked the bolt-action mechanism to load a new round. The bladed head was standing out behind her ready to cleave anything that dared to approach them.
Weiss winced in disgust at the wasteful weapon. If a person's weapon was indicative of their personality, then that monstrosity spoke volumes of her partner. True, she could see legions of grimm falling to it, but she could say the same for her own rapier or Jaune's sword and shield. So much metal wasted, and on such an impractical thing as a scythe. Not only was such a weapon wasteful, but also overly specialized.
Such a weapon required great amounts of skill to wield properly, but such skill was specialized that it could only be called overspecialization... maybe even cripplingly so. Were the girl ever to find herself without her scythe, then she would be practically defenseless.
Weiss cleared her head of these thoughts and considered their options. They were surrounded, outnumbered, and on the defensive. Even worse, the fire was spreading fast, threatening to cut off their escape route.
Looking behind her, Weiss was shocked to see that her partner was almost vibrating in place. She wasn't shaking in fear, but in excitement. She was exited at the challenge, she wanted to kill each and every one of the beowolves without her partner getting in he way, fire or no fire.
She grabbed Ruby's arm and dragged her away. "We have to go!"
She didn't like running away, but it was the sound decision given the circumstances. Getting caught by a pack of beowolves on one side and a rapidly approaching wall of fire on the other would not end well.
Ruby looked like she was going to protest, but Weiss didn't give her the chance. She dragged the younger girl past the fire before it could trap them.
A couple of beowolves tried to chase them down but were caught in the fire. Pained whimpers were overshadowed by another bone-chilling howl from the alpha that signaled the pack's retreat from the growing inferno.
For the time being, they were safe, but the beowolves were unlikely to give up the chase that easily. They were bound to see them again soon unless some other unfortunate students crossed their path and provided enough of a distraction.
"Noooo" Ruby whined pitifully at being denied the chance to stroke her murder boner. Weiss looked back at the younger girl with a worried look in her eyes.
Ruby came to a stop on a hill overlooking the smoldering remains of the forest she and Weiss had left behind. There were no signs that they had been followed, and the fire was spreading the other way. It was the perfect time to confront her partner about their terrible performance.
Weiss was leaning over, trying to catch her breath. Their short sprint uphill had tired the rich princess out more than Ruby would have expected from a huntress-in-training. Stamina clearly hadn't been the focus of whatever training she had gone through before coming to Beacon.
"What was that? That should have been easy!"
It should have been. If she had been with Yang, the pack would be nothing but a bunch of dissolving corpses by now. The forest might still be on fire, but at least they would have won.
Weiss straightened and looked at her with narrowed, angry eyes. "Well, perhaps if you had exercised even the slightest amount of caution with the placement of your strikes, I wouldn't have set the forest on fire!"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Ruby scoffed.
"I am just surprised that someone who talks so much, would communicate so little during an encounter."
Ruby crossed her arms. "I'm sorry you need my help to win a fight. I'm just fine on my own!"
"Well-" Weiss said, rolling her eyes at her partners stubbornness, "congratulations on being the strongest child to sneak its way into Beacon. Bravo!" Weiss turned around and walked away, leaving her partner behind.
Ruby couldn't take the girl's attitude anymore. She grabbed Crescent Rose from her back and, with an agitated shriek, sliced a tree clean through.
If she had expected any reaction from her partner, she would have been mistaken. Ruby sighed. Arguing with the rich princess was futile. She should have known so from the start. She should have known after the last three times they had run into each other. Weiss had no intention of even trying to get along.
She should have left the moment Weiss had walked away. She had clearly meant to ignore their meeting and look for someone else. If she had run off and kept looking for Yang, Weiss would never have been able to catch up with her.
Her partner disappeared behind some bushes. No matter how much the thought of losing Weiss appealed to Ruby, it would only complicate things at this point. She put Crescent Rose away and followed.
She couldn't wait for the day to be over…
Neither one of them were in any mood to dwell on anything but their own anger with each other, otherwise they might have noticed the large black feather floating down onto the tree that Ruby had cut down.
Jaune was exhausted. He'd been following Pyrrha for a while now, who only hoped she new where they were going, and while he had his fair share of endurance from his upbringing on the family farm, he just couldn't seem to keep up with Pyrrha.
Jaune wasn't an outdoorsy kind of guy. He like reading comic books or watching movies when he wasn't working. Lazing around on the couch with an assortment of his favorite snack foods after a long bath to relax his muscles from a hard day's work, that was his kind of afternoon.
But he just wasn't a trained fighter. As a kid he had always chickened out of his father's lessons and now he was feeling the consequences. He had the misfortune of being the only male heir of a family that traced its lineage back through history, one great champion of mankind after the other, and the sword and shield he had inherited had been the arms of choice for the head of the family for generations.
He sighed in dismay. On one side, he truly wanted to live up to his families legacy, but on the other he was wishing one of his older sisters had been a boy so he could be lazying around at home, safe and sound, working in the fields and catching up on his movie backlog instead of trekking through a dangerous forest.
Pyrrha had arrived at another wall of green. He sighed in dismay, knowing what that meant. More thorny bushes scratching his skin and snaring his clothes, more slimy vines sticking to his face, more spider webs clinging to him, and more weird insects crawling all over him. What fun!
His red-haired guide pushed through without hesitation. Pyrrha was showing no signs of exhaustion or slowing down. Not that he had expected her to. She was well built, very athletic, could throw that spear with pinpoint accuracy over hundreds of yards, and was some kind of great tournament champion. She probably could keep up the pace all day without skipping a beat.
Jaune wasn't sure how much longer he could go on without taking a break. Still, the knight doesn't ask the maiden for a break. Though, he was starting to feel like their roles had been reversed. So far, he had been rescued twice, and Pyrrha was leading them on their epic quest while he was just tagging along.
Taking a deep breath, Jaune straightened his spine and hastened his pace.
They had barely merged into the underbrush when a couple of explosions echoed through the forest.
"Did you hear that?" Jaune asked.
Pyrrha looked over her shoulder. "Gunfire. It seems some of our comrades have encountered the enemy."
He wasn't sure what worried him more: that he had completely forgotten about being in grimm country and could be attacked at any moment or Pyrrha's lack of a reaction. She wasn't surprised or worried about a fight breaking out in the area and moved on as if nothing had happened.
Jaune tried to follow Pyrrha's example, but with every gunshot in the distance it became more difficult to ignore them. He kept peeking back, wondering if something was headed their way.
Not that it would make any difference. The thick underbrush limited his visibility to a couple of yards at best, and if anything came that close, it would take a bite out of him before he could draw his sword.
He forced his attention back to his partner. Pyrrha was strong. Someone with her reputation had to be. If anything happened, she would save the day. She had to…
Beacon so far hadn't played out how he had expected it to. He had thought that they would get some training before they would be thrown into any life-and-death situations. A survival trip through the wilderness on their second day hadn't been mentioned in the info material.
Another set of gunshots distracted him. Whatever was happening back there, was taking a long time. But at least it was a sign that whoever it was was still alive and the beasties were still distracted.
He barely spotted a brown flash before a sharp pain ran through his cheek, and he found himself sitting on his butt seeing stars.
Pyrrha turned around alarmed.
Jaune groaned and shook his head to clear his vision. Between him and Pyrrha stood a willowy branch exactly at the right height to hit his face. Pyrrha must have pushed it out of the way and it must have swung right into his face.
Great.
He tried to rub his cheek to ease the pain, but the moment he touched it, he felt another sting of pain. His fingertips were covered in blood.
Must have broken the skin, great.
Just great. If he could get hurt by a tree branch barely two days in, how was he going to survive the next four years.
"I'm sorry." Pyrrha apologized with a note of confusion in her voice. Why hadn't her partner's aura protected him? Has it already ran out or was it so weak that the tree branch cut through it? Or was it even activated?
"It's okay. Just a scratch, see?"
Pyrrha's frown deepened as she stepped closer to him. "Why didn't you activate your aura?"
Jaune's eyes widened at her inquiry, and he put on a face of ignorance. Maybe if he tried to pretend that if he didn't know what aura was then he would get kicked out, which he wasn't sure if he wanted right now or not.
"My what?"
"Your aura." Pyrrha pressed insistently, and Jaune winced. He wasn't a good liar, and this wasn't going as he had hoped.
"Gesundheit?" He tried to deflect.
"Jaune," Pyrrha asked with deep wrinkles in her brows, "do you know what aura is?"
Jaune scoffed. Of course she was being like that. The truth was that he hasn't found out how to activate his aura yet. He would just have to hide the fact that he couldn't use it until he could read up on it in the library later.
"Of course I do!" Maybe he could use this. He didn't know how to activate his aura, and if she could tell him how then he should just keep playing the ignorant party. He felt bad manipulating her like this, but he'd just tell her the truth later. She would be too mad at him, would she?
He pointed at Pyrrha. "Do you know what aura is?"
Pyrrha's frown gave way to a gentle smile. "Aura is the manifestation of our soul. It bears our burdens and shields our hearts."
Yeah, that didn't help at all.
"Have you ever felt you were being watched without knowing that someone was there?"
"Uh, yeah."
Everyone has had that feeling.
"With practice, our Aura can be our shield. Everyone has it, even animals."
"What about monsters?"
"No. The monsters we fight lack a soul. They are creatures of grimm, the manifestation of anonymity. They are the darkness, and we are the light."
Jaune nodded, "Right, that's why we fight them."
"It's not about why; it's about knowing. Understanding dark and light helps us manifest our Aura. Everyone has some of both"
"By baring your soul outward as a force, you can deflect harm. All of our tools and equipment are conduits for Aura. You protect yourself and your soul when fighting."
"It's like a force field!"
Pyrrha chuckled at his enthusiastic answer. "Yes, if you want to look at it that way."
She walked up to him until they came face to face. Jaune gulped nervously. He wasn't used to beautiful girl's getting into his personal space, and this was hardly the time to think about that sort of thing.
"Now," Pyrrha said as she raised her hand to cup his unharmed cheek, "close your eyes and concentrate."
"Uh, okay," Jaune complied. Did she know how to unlock his aura for him? His father always told him that it was something he had to figure out for himself so it never occurred to him to ask. Did he not read between the lines and not realize that he was supposed to ask for help?
He was an idiot.
Unseen by Jaune, a red glow outlined Pyrrha's body.
For a moment, nothing happened. A very long moment stretched out by anticipation and confusion. Suddenly, the skin Pyrrha was touching started to feel warm. He slight pressure on his chest, and he thought that she must have placed her other hand on his breastplate. It spread the same comfortable warmth throughout his body. Both streams converged at the center of his chest where they met and intertwined.
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death."
The feeling at the center of his chest changed, ever so slightly, before it started to grow rapidly, flooding every cell of his body.
"I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee."
Pyrrha's hands left his body, but the warm feeling remained. Jaune bathed in it. His surroundings and the danger they were in all but forgotten. Heavy breathing finally brought him back to reality. He opened his eyes to find Pyrrha standing hunched over, exhausted.
"Pyrrha?"
She straightened herself, but the exhaustion was still clearly visible on her face.
"It's all right, I used my aura to unlock yours. The energy that protects you now is your own."
Jaune looked down at his hands, noticing the white glow that seemed to surround his entire body. Little motes of white light were rising from his body only to disperse in the air before they could make it too far. His cheek was tingling. The pain was almost gone. He carefully touched the spot where he had been cut but found only his own pristine skin.
"You have a lot of it," Pyrrha said, impressed.
A barely audible "wow" was all Jaune could muster as he tried to take in the change he had undergone.
Raven stepped out of the treeline, walking slowly and somewhat lazily with his partner Vergil just behind him with a more energetic gait. "Well, this must be it" the snake faunus said, seeing the ruins of what looked like a rotunda. An entire third of the rotunda was collapsed and open, showing off the symmetrically designed ornate stone floor with thirty-two short stone columns with a single black or gold chess piece atop of each, though one of them was missing. Three of the taller columns on the right side were broken and lying around the area in pieces, while the remaining five stone were still standing , supporting the stone walls and holding up a circle of stones.
In the distance behind the rotunda there were additional ruins, long stone pillar-lined walkways leading to what was once a large temple made of metal and stone all throughout the mist canyon.
"Wow!" Vergil breathed, taking in the sight before rushing ahead toward the rotunda and the chess pieces. "Wait!" Raven reached out to Vergil to try to stop him, but the kid was too far away by the time he got his arm up. "We don't know what may be awaiting us! There may be traps!"
Vergil had already made it into the rotunda by this point, so Raven sighed and followed after him. "Aww, we're not the first ones here!" the young faunus cried at seeing the missing gold king piece. "Oh well, second place is just as good."
"It's not a race Vergil" Raven said amused at the kids unending optimism.
"Do you think these chess pieces are the relics we're supposed to be looking for?" Vergil asked him, picking up a black king piece.
Raven stopped and looked around with narrowed eyes. "Something's not right."
"Huh?"
"You just ran in here and took a relic. Why are there no traps? Why are no grimm appearing?"
"Well, maybe there are none? I mean the forest was filled with grimm, maybe the professors didn't see the need for another test beyond that?" Vergil said, though the unsure look on his face made it seem like he was grasping for answers, and finding none, said the first explanation that came to mind.
Raven hummed in thought. His entire career as a mercenary was telling him that he was walking into a trap. But maybe he was just being paranoid? This was a school entrance exam, not another one of his jobs.
He sighed and dropped his arms to his side "you're probably right." Vergil looked up in surprise that he older and smarter teen would agree with him. "We have the relic, let's go back to the cliff."
Raven turned on his heel and made for the treeline again, and with a loud and enthusiastic "ok" Vergil ran after him.
"But wait," Vergil said, stopping just behind him. Raven looked over his shoulder at the boy questioningly.
"How are we going to get back up? They just launched us off and I didn't see any stairs or anything!?"
Raven narrowed his eyes in thought before shrugging and said "we'll figure it out when we get there."
At the same time, one Lie Ren stood atop the body of his enemy, a dead but not yet disintegrating king taijutu.
He pressed a button on the side of his weapons, causing them to collapse in on themselves, and opening his hands, they fell into his sleeves, attaching themselves to the spring loaded mechanism that would launch them into his hands when he needed them again. He brushed off any dirt that may have gotten on his clothes from his encounter when he heard a strange from the treetops.
Knowing immediately what it was he suppressed a grin as his best friend Nora Valkyrie hung upside down in front of him, hanging from the tree branches by her feet.
Ren shook his head in amusement and said in a deadpanned tone "I still don't think that's what a sloth sounds like."
Instead of saying something in response, Nora grinned playfully and poked him in the nose, saying her famous catchphrase of "boop!"
He backed away, playing along with her game with an endearing grin on his face.
"The last pair has been formed, sir." Glynda said to an absentminded Ozpin, the man half paying attention to her and half paying attention to his own scroll. "Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren. Those two are going to be needing a lot of counseling." She said, bringing up their dossiers.
Two children who only had each other to rely on for most of their formative years did not make for an entirely healthy mindset.
"Still, they're probably better off than Miss Nikos and Mister Arc." Before this she had likely never even seen a grimm. She was a tournament fighter, and everything in her skill set, even her semblance, was obviously for fighting human or faunus combatants. On the other hand the Arc heir was a complete unknown. He seemed to come out of nowhere, with only his family name and ancestral weapons to differentiate himself from his peers.
But from what she had seen of him...
"I don't care what his transcripts say. That Jaune fellow is not ready for this level of combat." That said, she deactivated her scroll and went to stand beside her employer. "I guess we'll find out soon enough. At their current pace, they should reach the temple within just a few minutes."
A thought occurred to her and she turned to her employer "speaking of which, what did you use as relics this year?" After a moment of silence from him she spoke up in a more insistent voice "Professor Ozpin?"
Ozpin doesn't answer, too busy watching his scroll with a contemplating interest as it showed the footage of Ruby Rose sitting irritably in the in the grass, picking stray leaves out of her hair and clothes while her partner Weiss Schnee walks in random directions, trying to find her bearings. Not an easy thing, as the girl was more used to more... wintry climes.
Ruby sat cross-legged on the soft forest floor, trying her hardest to forget where she was and who she was with. This whole thing would've turned out fine if she had found Yang instead of Weiss. Even Jaune would've been better, she probably would've had to take care of all the fighting by herself but that was fine with her, she liked fighting Grimm, it was fun.
She would have been the first to admit that she rushed ahead at the first sign of danger when she shouldn't have.
Plus he was nice and easy to talk to. 'Not like some people' she thought, looking at her partner with a sour look.
"It's definitely this way," Weiss said, pacing in one direction.
Ruby had found an almost perfectly almond-shaped leaf. She was reminded of the collection of dried and pressed leaves she had built up as a little girl on many a beautiful autumn day out with her dad and sister.
"I mean… this way! It's definitely this way," Weiss said, pacing in the opposite direction.
Ruby hadn't thought about her collection for years. It had been Yang's idea, really. Ruby had found a funny leaf—it had holes in it that made it look like a smiling face—and had shown it off to her sister. She had told Ruby, that they could make it last forever if they put it in a book. Something big and heavy.
After they had gotten home, Yang had stolen a large encyclopedia from their father's study. He hadn't been happy about it, but after Ruby had proudly shown off the first specimen of her collection, he had let Yang off the hook, provided she would ask before taking his things in the future.
Naturally it was a conversation that occurred again and again over the years.
Ruby sighed and let the leaf drift to the ground. Collecting leaves was a pastime for little children, not for a huntress-in-training, and no matter how pleasant the memories they weren't helping her current situation.
Weiss stopped in front of Ruby. "Alright, it's official; we passed it."
Ruby couldn't take it anymore, she growled and sprang to her feet. "Why can't you just admit that you have no idea where we're going?"
"Because I know exactly where we're going! We're going to… the forest temple!"
Ruby groaned. She had reached the point where she felt like smacking the princess, not because it would help their situation, but simply because it might make her feel better. If she was Yang, she would probably have done so half an hour ago... repeatedly. But Ruby was a less firm believer in the problem solving power of a strong fist, and her relationship with her partner was strained enough already.
"Oh, stop it! You don't know where we are, either!" Weiss said.
"Well, at least I'm not pretending to know everything!"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're a big, stupid jerk," Ruby stamped her foot, "and I hate you!"
Weiss groaned. She spun around and started walking off, again. "Just keep moving!"
Ruby, fed up with her partner's attitude, resorted to the next best thing to slugging her: a mocking imitation. "Oh, just keep moving! Hurry up! Waaaah!" She rubbed her eyes to pantomime crying, "watch where you are going!"
When Weiss didn't respond to Ruby's taunts, she took a more direct approach. "Why are you so bossy?"
"I'm not bossy!" Weiss continued in a much less confrontational tone, "Don't say things like that."
Ruby, unfortunately, hadn't caught the hint of self-consciousness in the girl's voice. "Stop treating me like a kid!"
"Stop acting like a kid!"
"Well, stop acting like you're perfect!"
"I'm. Not. Perfect!"
The fight came to a crashing halt. Ruby and Weiss were staring at each other. Neither of them seemed to have expected Weiss's admission.
Weiss was the first to recover. "Not yet." She took a couple of steps backward. "But I'm still leagues better than you."
Ruby just stood there watched her partner walk off yet again.
"You don't even know me…" she mumbled to herself dejectedly as she watched Weiss walk away.
Another set of partners emerged from the treeline.
Yang Xiao Long and Blake Belladonna stepped out into the clearing.
"Think this is it?" Yang asked her partner absentmindedly.
Blake gives Yang an incredulous look in response, as if to say what do you think and headed down the hill with her partner following close behind. Blake walked slowly across the floor, carefully observing the items on each pedestal. 32 pedestals, a gold or black chess piece atop each one, albeit with a few missing, and since obviously their were quite a few pawn pieces, there were numbers carved into their sides.
"Chess pieces?" She said confusedly, expecting something more... more. She didn't know what she was expecting, but this was not it.
These were the relics? Was there some hidden meaning here? Were they booby trapped? Was there some kind of technology hidden inside the pieces?
Blake began look around for traps or anything else that might spring out from behind cover when they grabbed a piece. I could not be this easy, nothing ever was.
"Some of them are missing" Yang pointed out carelessly, looking over her shoulder at Blake. "Looks like we weren't the first ones here."
Blake blinked in thought, "well, I guess we should... pick one?"
Jaune and Pyrrha, having since cleared the brush, were standing at the mouth of a dark cave. There were what looked like chalk drawings surrounding the opening of what seemed to be armed men against giant beasts.
"Think this is it?" He knew they were supposed to be looking for something, and a spooky looking cave was as good as anything else, right? Plus, Ozpin already launched them off of a cliff, he seemed like the type of guy to hide the relics, whatever they were, inside of a dark, creepy cave... likely filled with dangerous traps and monsters.
Oh well, he already came this far, no path left now but the one that leads to the end.
The cave had not been a good idea. It was dark, damp, full of weird insects hiding in the shadows, and even though Ozpin seemed like a total troll, they seriously doubted that this was part of the test.
Jaune wasn't ready to give up on it, though. It had been the first decision he had made since he had met Pyrrha, since this mess of a day had started in fact, and he wasn't ready to admit defeat. Luck was on his side, after all.
Or it seemed to be. He was still alive after all, even when he was the only student hopeful who couldn't use his aura.
"I'm not sure this is it," Pyrrha said, unsure of herself even as she said it. Who knew what kind of test a sadist like Ozpin (though she was far too nice to ever say that out loud) would devise?
His partner had been dropping vague hints about her doubts ever since they had arrived at the cave, but she was too nice to complain directly. He suspected that that was going to become a trend.
"Pyrrha, I made the torch" he was rather proud of that one, having never needed to build one before he was rather too happy with that admittedly meager accomplishment, "could you at least humor me for, like, five more feet?"
She didn't have to as it turned out. Sure, she clammed up when he said it, but looking over his shoulder to talk to Pyrrha while moving ahead turned out to be a bad idea. He slipped on the wet stone floor and fell face first into a large puddle of stale water... at least he really hoped it was water.
He grumbled as he got up very carefully, making sure that he wouldn't take a second dip. Luck might have finally forsaken him… it had already forsaken his torch, pride goeth before the fall, huh?
"Do you feel that?" Pyrrha asked, helping him up with a hand on his arm.
"Soul-crushing regret?" Jaune asked sardonically, his shoulders hunched in depression.
"No, it's... warm" she narrowed her eyes, looking around them. They were in a cold, dark cave.
What could possibly be warm down here?
Well other than Jaune and her own cheeks.
Back at the temple with Blake and Yang, Yang was walking in circles, her eyes roving over the relics one by one.
"Hmmmm..." she hummed in thought, staring at the golden knight piece, weighing the pros and cons of picking it up. But in the end she just shrugged and took it.
"How about a cute little pony?" she yelled to her partner, lifting the piece up for her to see. Blake smirked at her partners enthusiasm "sure." She turned and made her way to the opening of the temple, where Yang was also walking, albeit with more of a skip in her step.
"That wasn't too hard!" Yang exclaimed happily with a grin, folding her hands behind her head.
"Well, it's not like this place is very difficult to find." She reasoned, this was a school initiation after all, it should have been too hard aside from having to face a forest full of grimm. She was just being paranoid after all.
Neither Pyrrha nor Jaune were looking for the relic anymore, not that there was much to look for in total darkness. Mostly, Jaune was wondering how long he would have to continue on before he could head back outside without looking like a complete idiot. Pyrrha was humoring him, occasionally looking out for what had made that warm sensation she felt before.
Just as he was about to declare their cave expedition concluded and turn them around, the wall he had been hugging vanished and some golden, bulbous… thing appeared in front of him, emitting a faint yellow glow.
Jaune blinked owlishly for a second before grinning and exclaiming "that's the relic!" His luck hadn't left him, after all. Pyrrha, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. She readied her weapons in case this turned out to be a trap. Who was she to say that this wasn't the relic and that she wasn't just being paranoid.
Jaune tried to grab the glowing bulb by the pointy bit at the bottom, but missed. That was odd, it looked like it dodged his hands, but it was pitch black and his eyes were only just adjusting to the light emitted by the relic. He must have misjudged the distance.
He tried to grab it again and it moved out of the way again. Had to have been an optical illusion. Relics didn't move on their own.
"Bad relic!"
Not taking any more chances, he jumped it and grabbed it with both hands. This time, it didn't get away. "Gotcha!" he said, hanging from the glowing bulb.
Wait, how could he be hanging from the relic?
"Jaune?" Pyrrha asked.
The relic moved on its own, revealing two rows of glowing red dots. Jaune squinted his eyes, trying to make out what he was looking at. The dots were glued to something, like, a big rock maybe? A big rock with red squiggles painted on it.
Right, a moving relic attached to a big, painted rock… that had just moved.
The rock hissed threateningly before it started to move some more, as did the floating relic whose very pointy lower bit was pointed right at him.
A terrified shriek brought the cave to life…
"Some girl's in trouble!" Yang shouted upon hearing a loud shriek echoing from the forest. "Blake, did you hear that?"
Blake didn't answer her, instead she was staring at a small black in the sky, a small black dot that was getting larger.
Pyrrha was running, fast. She was running a lot faster than she had ever expected to have to run through a slippery cave in total darkness. But what choice did she have? She had never even seen a grimm before today, and now a giant scorpion grimm was chasing her! This was not an enemy for a huntress-in-training to face on her own on her second day at Beacon at all, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
She slipped on a wet stone and stumbled. A minor setback, but enough for her pursuer to take a swing at her with its giant pincers. It missed thankfully, but was still too close for comfort. Pyrrha could feel it glance off the round shield she kept on her back.
The huge scorpion grimm was getting too close for comfort. Rescuing Jaune would have to wait until she got out of the cave and had some room to maneuver. At least he was holding on steady. Turning around to check on her partner was not a luxury Pyrrha could afford, but the last time she had seen him he was hugging the side of the bulbous stinger, thankfully well away from the sharp tip.
If his continued hysterical screams were anything to go by, his position hadn't changed.
The monster took another swing at her. She managed to feel it coming this time. It was even closer than before and forced her to drop into a roll hoping to avoid getting smashed into the wall. Back on her feet, she could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Literally, not figuratively, much to her relief. The blow had missed and she was about to leave the grimm's domain behind.
The daylight seeping into the cave through the entrance allowed her to run faster and put some much-needed distance between her and her pursuer without the risk of a broken neck curtsy of the slippery cave floor. The effect on the grimm was the exact opposite, not because it shied away from the light, but because the cave had been steadily narrowing down towards the exit.
Feeling the sunlight on her skin was a welcome change, but there was no time to get distracted. She put some distance between herself and the entrance before she turned around and unfolded Miló from its sword into its spear form.
The small cave entrance acted as a muffler, casting an eerie silence over the scene. She wondered if she had gone too far. The scorpion might have given up its pursuit and focused on Jaune, who was in no condition to face a grimm of that level by himself. She had to save her partner somehow, which meant going back inside. Suicidal as that was, it was the only available option.
Just as she was about to hurry back, the cave portal was shattered. Large pieces of rock were flung outward as the monstrous scorpion burst through. It brandished its giant pincers and let out a bone-chilling roar unlike anything Pyrrha would have expected from a scorpion.
Finally able to see the grimm in its entirety, Pyrrha could only think of how unprepared she was for this. She had only ever fought people before, and even then only in an arena surrounded by thousands of screaming spectators. Now she was faced with a giant scorpion grimm in the middle of a forest. Plus, after all the time they had wasted in the cave, there was likely to be no one else in the forest to come to their aid.
Jaune was still dangling from its stinger, frantically calling for help. Free of the confinements of the cave, Pyrrha could finally try and figure out a way to get both of them out of their predicament alive.
"Help! Pyrrha!" The grimm forcefully swung its tail back and forth, but Jaune, realizing that he was actually safer clinging to the tail than letting go, managed to hold on. "Pyrrha, this is not the relic! It's not!"
Pyrrha's eyes darted back and forth, looking for any weakness she could exploit. But she only knew how to fight humanoid opponents, she knew nothing about grimm. For all she knew the scorpion was invulnerable to anything she could throw at it.
"Pyrrha! Do something!"
She tightened her grip on her spear and began to search its body for a weak spot, but being ignorant about grimm created the downside of not knowing what was armor and what was soft flesh. The only thing that looked like a weak spot was the glowing stinger, but that could've been it's strongest point for all she knew.
"Jaune!" She didn't know what to do here, but at least she could reassure her teammate. "Whatever you do, don't let—" the grimm whipped its tail to from side to side, and after just a few seconds Jaune was thrown off into the distance, "go…"
Pyrrha looked on in dismay as Jaune disappeared into the forest. As long as he didn't break his neck on landing, he should be safe for the time being now that he was far from the giant grimm.
The snapping of massive pincers brought her attention back to her opponent. The scorpion towered over her, the bulbous stinger alone was the size of a person, and the pincers were even bigger. It bared its mandibles in a vicious hiss.
Swallowing the lump forming in her throat with wide fearful eyes, she finally understood why everyone was so afraid of the creatures of grimm.
Pyrrha took a moment to consider her options and ran for her life.
Blake is still staring at something above them and at the growing dot in the sky, but Yang is focused on the forest where she had herd the shriek.
"Blake, did you hear that?" Yang asked, but when she didn't get a response she turned to her partner with a pleading look. She wanted to help whoever it was who screamed, but she wasn't going to rush ahead and leave Blake to fend for herself. "What should we do?"
Blake didn't get a chance to answer as the next second a scream of "heads uuuuuuuup!" was heard, and when Yang looked up to see what Blake was so focused on she gasped as she saw her baby sister Ruby falling from the sky.
"Look" Raven said, gripping Vergil's shoulder with his left hand and pointing at the side of the cliff with his right. "Yeah I see, someone carved some stairs into the cliff!"
He frowned and turned to the older boy "do you think it was the professors?"
Raven hummed in thought, curling the fingers of his right hand to his chin in a thinking pose. The temple ruins, these stairs, those cave paintings they passed by...
"No they look too old, like they were here for hundreds of years. I think there was a town down here once."
"Really? Then what happened to... oh." Vergil started to ask before realizing what had likely happened, and his voice left him as they stood in a depressed silence.
"Well come on" Raven said, walking toward the base of the stairs, "no point dwelling on that which cannot be changed. We have an initiation to finish."
"Uh sure" Vergil said, his usual energy gone from his voice.
Author's Notes
Sorry about the wait.
Okay, so I have officially made the first changes to the story outside of team RAVN. Jaune knows what aura is. This is because it makes more sense for him to know what it is than for him not to. Aura is public knowledge in Remnant, not something that is secret among hunters, otherwise none of the initiates would know what it was and would need to have it unlocked by a teacher.
Also, Glynda's comment in canon about doubting Ren and Nora's ability to work together was royally stupid. Doesn't she have the prospective students histories on file? She would've known that those two have been together (but not together-together) for all of their lives. Having Glynda comment instead on their mental states would make more sense since she is a molder of young minds and would thus be concerned about them going for so long without proper supervision.
No, I didn't make Pyrrha into a wimp. Pyrrha is a tournament fighter, her fighting style is geared toward fighting human (or faunus) opponents, and her semblance is useless against grimm who don't use metal weapons or armor. Semblances form early on, and are given form based on what you need at the time. Ren needed to hide from the grimm invading his village, Yang (presumably) needed to be stronger for her sister, and Ruby (presumably) needed to be faster to get away from the grimm. In that fashion Pyrrha must have needed to win more fights in the arena, probably so she could support a financially struggling family. As a tournament fighter, she would have never have seen a grimm before and only went to Beacon on a whim or because she reasoned that she could put her strength to greater use.
Having never seen a grimm before and being suddenly faced with a giant scorpion grim she was understandably frightened. She was used to fighting opponents that she could understand and had the same weak points she herself had, but a giant scorpion was a complete unknown. She didn't know where the gaps in its armor were and as such she ran away rather than fight something she was not sure she could win against.
In case you were wondering, the first team to arrive was Agni and Nefartem, then Raven and Vergil. RWBY and JNPR were dead last. So no big temple fight for the early birds, that was only there in canon to remind the audience that it was an action show. Didn't have much purpose otherwise, except to show that the teams were capable of working together, even though it was stupid that Ruby just said 'cover me' instead of telling Weiss the plan, and even stupider that Weiss just guessed what the plan was by watching the back of a girl who she had spent an entire two days arguing with.
Ruby was never that great of a leader, taking every chance she got to run on ahead and fight the enemy herself instead of as a team. Even later on in team JNRR (come at me RNJR fans) Jaune was the one coming up with all the strategies and generally playing the traditional leadership role. Keeping the team optimistic and high spirited.
That is all.