After she spent the whole night reading to prevent herself waking up anyone else accidentally, Ruby was on her way to the lockers alongside her sister. Once there, they retrieved their weapons for the upcoming initiation.
"You seem to be way more relaxed this morning, what happened to cause that?"
As the half Grimm put her weapon in its resting position she gave it one last pat before she replied to Yang.
"How could I not be? After all today won't be filled with me talking to strangers. Today my skills can speak for themself.", she replied a small smile gracing her lips.
"And what about your new teammates? I heard the assignment of teams is happening today as well.", the elder sister continued, a woried frown on her face.
"Why did you even ask that? I'm going to be on the same team as you, so you can do the talking. I mean I did work day and night for the last few years so I could attend beacon with you." At this the smile vanished from her face, replaced by a more neutral expresion.
"Well I just worry about you Sis, you shouldn't rely on me so much. You didn't make even one friend in your time at Signal, it's time to change that."
"I did not, but why would I need friends if I can just hang out with you or-"
before she continued, Ruby looked around to see that they were surrounded by other students getting ready for the day.
"- in the forest."
When Yang just sighed in surrender, the siblings finished their preparations in silence and soon made their way to the cliff for initiation. Once they reached the cliff overlooking the Emerald Forest, they were greeted by Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch, both of them holding larger than normal scrolls.
"Most of you have spent years training to fight, some may even have experience from real fights, and today all of that will be tested in the Emerald Forest you can see below."
With the short introduction form Ozpin finished, Glynda stepped forward to address the students.
"Now as some of you already know, we will be assigning teams today. First, you will form a pair with the student you first make eye contact with in the forest. After Initiation is over, we will form teams of four consisting of two pairs each based on the results of this Initiation."
Giving the word back to the Headmaster, Ozpin spoke up.
"Now if everyone of you would step onto one of these platforms, I will explain your task."
Waiting until everyone took their places, he continued.
"Soon you will enter the forest using a landing strategy of your choosing. Once you have found a partner, your objective is to find the ruins in the forest, take one of the relics displayed there and then return here. We will be staying here, observing your progress through cameras set up throughout the forest. While inside the forest, don't hesitate to kill whatever stands in your way, or you may die. Good luck."
With those words, the platforms the students were standing on launched them towards the forest one by one.
Ozpin had his attention fixed on his scroll, where he was currently observing the students on their track through the forest. By now all students had found a partner and most were making their way towards the ruins. going through different video feeds, one caused him to stop switching from one to another, as it showed Weiss Schnee, on her own getting slowly surrounded by Beowulfs. This confused and intrigued the Headmaster, as the Heiress had partnered up with Ruby Rose shortly after both of them landed and, from what he had seen, were moving through the forest together.
Wondering where Ruby was in that encounter caused him to think back to another unanswered question he hd about her. After all if a small Faunus girl was burned so badly that she needed to wear a mask, surely he would have heard of it. Additionally, as far as he was aware, neither Summer Rose nor Taiyang were Faunus as far as he was aware. Another curious thing about the young huntress in training had been her weapons non-lethal option.
He pushed all those thoughts back aside, he refocused his attention onto miss Schnee, who was taking a long time to get ready to strike the Beowulf in front of her, seemingly trying for the perfect attack instead of dealing a deadly enough blow like many other students would have.
Just as she finally seemed ready to strike, her wolf eared partner ran her over and slammed her weapon into the Grimm's head. As the Beowulf fell down unconscious, Ruby took a look around at all the remaining wolf like creatures, which shortly afterwards began retreading, one grabbing the paw of the downed Grimm and dragging it along.
Making sure he had just seen that right, he replayed the last few moments of footage. What he saw caused him to type out and send a short message to one of his allies asking for contact at the earliest convenience. This was as he had not seen anything to give the Beowulfs reason to withdraw, but he had noticed that the young Grimm faced girl had used her weapons staff form which she herself had claimed she only used when she didn't want to risk injuring her opponent. Which raised the question why would a young Faunus or human want to spare a Creature of Grimm?
Ruby was sitting on the forest floor while Weiss was walking in circles around her, hoping to find a clue as to what way they needed to go. This may have been easier if Ruby remembered which way they ran after they met the Beowulfs, but, instead of paying attention where the slightly angered heiress had led her, the half Grimm had worried about the now ex-alpha she had hit over the head.
'Oh I hope the headache won't be too bad when he wakes up. I did howl out my challenge so he should have prepared himself, right? OH no, what if I caused a concussion?'
Those and similar thoughts had been circling around in her mind, that is until her partner had stopped in this small clearing. Ruby had realized at that point that Weiss hadn't had any idea where she was leading them, as she probably just wanted to get away from the pack, which caused their current orientation problem.
The younger of the two was just about to suggest that they find the Nevermore, which had left a few of his feathers around this clearing, and then take a ride on it to get to the ruins faster, when her canine ears picked up a faint scream of terror.
If she were to only have this short acoustic input, she would be hard pressed to give more than a general direction of the poor, frightened girl. Luckily for the two of them and, if they made it in time, the source of the scream, the frightened student was a bountiful wellspring of fear Ruby could easily track down. She sprung up from her sitting position on the ground, grabbed Weiss' arm and began to rush into the direction of fear, dragging her partner along.
"Weiss quick, this way!"
"And how do you suddenly know where the ruins are?"
The heiress asked, her frustrations spilling into her voice, while she tried her best to free her arm from Ruby's grip.
"I don't, but I heard someone scream over this way, they probably are in danger so we need to help them."
As she heard this response, the white haired girl began to run after her partner more willingly.
"Okay, but please could you let go of my arm?"
"Sorry", Ruby quickly replied before releasing Weiss' arm.
From then on they set a quick pace towards the source of the fear the half Grimm was tasting. They soon arrived in a clearing, bigger than the one they had rested in, at the center of which stood the ruins they had been trying to find, there she could also make out Yang and Blake. Shortly after they arrived, Jaune came flying out of the forest, revealing himself to be the source of fear Ruby had been following. On the other side of the clearing, a redheaded girl was leaving the forest on Ursa-back, her mount quickly fell over dead as she arrived, it's corpse beginning to evaporate.
Ruby herself ran towards her sister, tackling her into a hug to greet her. When she arrived, she noticed the pairs of identical chess pieces sitting on stone pedestals. taking a step back, she took a look at her sister's hands, one of which still held a white knight piece. Hoping that the pieces played a part in team assignments, the half Grimm stepped up to the pedestal holding the remaining white knight, to increase her chances of being teamed up with her sister.
Just as Ruby had grabbed the piece and stored it away, another redheaded girl entered the clearing, this one followed by a Deathstalker. When the wolf eared girl saw the other Grimm getting ready to sink its stinger into the armor clad girl in front of him, Ruby activated her Semblance to rush over there, and barely managed to block the Deathstalkers attack with her Scythe. Instead of pulling his stinger back for another strike, as she had hoped, being deprived of its prey riled the other Grimm up enough that it pressed its attack against it's half blooded kin, pushing on with its natural weapon. It was about to imbed its stinger in Ruby's Aura, when Weiss came to her partner's rescue, encasing the beast's tail in a wall of ice, similar to what she had done to Ruby the day before.
"Please next time give me some warning before you attempt something like this, I don't like having to save my teammates at the very last second."
"I'll try my best."
When the red and white pair began to walk towards the rest of the gathered students, a giant Nevermore circled over head and noticed the heightened emotions of the gathered Humans.
Taking it's chance, it attacked the teenagers with a volley of its feathers before they saw it coming.
Later in the evening, Ozpin was still sitting in his office, despite the fact that he had finished all his work for the day. At the moment he was rewatching the footage of the fight between the Teams RWBY and JNPR and a giant Nevermore and a Deathstalker.
At first the fight had been rather chaotic, as each of the eight students just tried to do the best they could on their own. After a moment or two though, Ruby Rose took charge of the fight against the Nevermore, barking out orders to the students who would soon join her on Team RWBY.
Shortly after that, Jaune Arc started to give out advice towards the remaining three students, so they could fight the Deathstalker more effectively. While his orders came with much less certainty than those the wolf eared girl gave, they still were mostly based on good ideas and quick thinking, which soon left the Deathstalker Impaled by its own cut off stinger, and convinced the headmaster that mister Arc would be a good choice for team leader.
During this, the Nevermore had been forced to ground for a moment by Yang Xiao Long's relentless attacks, where a quick application of ice Dust by miss Schnee had it pinned in place. What followed was something the professor though was rather reckless but had proofed effective, Blake Belladonna and miss Xiao Long had used the former's chain scythe and a pair of stone pillars to form an improvised slingshot, which was quickly loaded with the team's leader held in place by a Glyph. After a moment to aim, Ruby was launched at the Nevermore, whose neck she hooked her Scythe's blade around, before she ran up the cliff, assisted by her partners glyphs once again, cutting deep into the Grimm, before the head finally came off just as she reached the top of the cliff.
What increased his desire to speak to the contact he had messaged earlier was the pose the young girl held atop the cliff. Where one would expect a student, who had just decapitated a Nevermore to stand tall in their triumph, the young 'Faunus' stood with her head hung low, as if she was saddened about the Grimm's demise.
Just as he was going to turn of the scroll he had been using for this, he noticed a red blur zoom across one of the live feeds from the emerald forest. going through the cameras they had yet to take down again, he soon found one depicting a familiar girl in a red cloak, a pair of animal ears holding up its hood while a wolf tail was seen once or twice swishing out beneath it. He decided to follow her movements through the forest, as they could very well give him another point of data to confirm his hypothesis about the young, probably not Faunus, girl.
When the girl stopped in front of a pack of Beowulfs, the headmaster got ready to wake up Glynda and Bartholomew, to rescue the girl if he was wrong. When the Grimm did not attack the girl, and instead laid down before her in submission, he saw his theory proven true, he now just needed to wait for Qrow to call him to confirm everything with him.
Soon his privat scroll rang, the caller ID belonging to the man he had wanted to talk to since the Initiation ended.
"What is so damn important that I need to call you back as soon as I can Oz?"
"Well Mr. Branwen I believe there is something you should have told me about your niece during the past 15 years."
"Realy?" , Qrow asked, "Now how did you get that idea?"
"Well I am currently watching her prowl through the Emerald Forest leading a pack of Beowulfs, which I presume is the same one that ran off from her and her partner during initiation earlier today, with out any blood spilled.", Ozpin answered before he brought his coffee mug up to his motuh, draining the last of its content.
"So you did find out, seems like Tai owes me a hundred Lien. Anyway See Summer thought it best to tell noone outside the Family about Ruby, in the hope of letting her have a normalish Childhood and may be keep her from turning out like the last person born like her."
"Well I do understand that idea, but if you had taken me into the fold earlier, I am sure we could have found a better cover story than", despite trying his best to stop it, a yawn interrupted the headmasters sentence, " 'burn victim Faunus' for her mask."
"Even so, Summer was very adamant about this, and when she passed away, we just couldn't go against her wishes. Will you at least let Ruby know you found out?"
"I will most certainly do so, after all I believe that if we can make show her that she is accepted here despite what she is will help her very much."
So as it has been pointed out more than once that the dialogue I wirte feels stiff and forced sometimes, I am currently looking for a betareader, who can help me smoothe those lines over to feel more natural. If you're interested send me a PM. And as always thanks for reading, any and all Comment and Critique are welcome.