We had been walking at least ten minutes after fighting off the Beowolves and the Ursa Major, though to me it felt longer. Since the encounter with the Grimm we hadn't talked once. I was trying to forget about what happened by concentrating on finding the temple we were looking for, and sure enough we finally found it. Observing it from the treeline we could see that it was circular in shape, and ancient. The temple itself was in ruins, and only five of its eight columns remained standing, showing how old it truly was. The design reminded me of ancient Greek and Celtic structures back on Earth.
"I'm pretty sure this is it," I told Nila. "And I don't see any Grimm hanging around."
I looked at my partner, who happened to be looking for anymore Grimm. I noticed that she had one of her hand resting on her tomahawk. Not gripping, resting. She was probably playing it smart by having her hand near one of her weapons just in case some Grimm decided to pay us another visit.
Again...
It was getting closer to me and my body refused to move.
I pushed all of it to the back of my mind and concentrated on the task at hand: getting the relic and leaving.
"Let's go."
I started walking over to the abandoned temple, with Nila following me not too far behind. I was watching our surroundings, and I was sure Nila was too. Like I said before we didn't want another surprise Grimm. As we got closer I started to see what was inside the temple. There were around twenty pedestals, most of which had small objects on top of them. Looking closer at these objects I realized they were black and gold chess pieces.
"Chess pieces?" Nila asked out loud, looking at one of the gold knights. I was looking around at the pieces, and noted which ones were missing. Both of the black bishops, and one of the gold pawns.
"This must be how teams are determined," I thought out loud, "If we take one of these piece and someone takes another one of the same color, then we'll probably end up on the same team..."
I began looking around at the chess pieces, wondering which one my partner and I should choose. I didn't want to choose the remaining gold pawn, as I did not know who took the other one. But at the same time we had no idea who was going to end up on our team anyway, so taking any of the pieces didn't matter. So after some quick and careful thinking I used my semblance to call the gold king to my hand and caught it.
"Well, we have our piece," I said to Nila, who was still looking around, "Let's get out of here."
I was about to start walking away when I realized Nila didn't acknowledge what I said. All she did was keep looking around, as if she were looking for something.
"Nila?"
No response. Then I saw her hand move towards her tomahawk. I knew what was going on. I put the chess piece in my pocket and grabbed Janus off my belt and got ready to turn it on.
"Please tell me it's just another rabbit."
"I'm not sure what it is..."
I wasn't sure if what she said made me relieved or more concerned. I started looking around as well, trying to figure out if I could see what Nila was hearing. Then I heard something, something faint, and something that sounded like yelling. It also sounded it was coming closer, really fast.
"WATCH OUT!"
As I looked up above me to investigate the strange voice I realized what was about to happen. It was too late, however, as something resembling a human slammed into me, knocking the wind right of me and slamming me right into the hard ground. The back of my head hit the ground so hard my ears started ringing and my vision blurred. The person who landed on me started getting up, and I could hear them saying something, but I couldn't tell what.
"What?" I asked, hoping to be able to hear them clearly this time.
"I said next time don't stand there like an idiot."
Don't have to be a dick about it, I thought to myself. The person speaking sounded male, but Jaune was the only other guy here that I knew. My vision came back to me and I could make out the man's face. He was pale, almost as pale as Weiss, and had gray hair, which appeared to be just shorter than mine. His hand was outstretched, offering to help me to my feet.
"Well next time don't fall out of the sky." I said, taking his hand. When I got to my feet I got a look at him. He looked like he was just an inch or two taller than Ruby was. He wore a olive drab long-sleeve shirt and black cargo pants. He also had a green belt with two pouches on the left and a holstered handgun on the right.
"It's not my fault my partner's fucking insane." He said to me with anger clearly present in his voice. "She used me as bait for a couple of angry Grimm that she thought were in our way! And after that she used a tree to launch me over here!"
"I'm pretty sure that breaks the laws of physics," I quipped, "How hard did you hit your head?"
"Not hard enough." He replied under his breath.
That's unfortunate.
"INCOMING!"
Before I could even react another person slammed into me and I, once again, fell to the ground and hit my head on the ground hard. I could safely say at this point that is was raining men, but I didn't because not only did I have the wind knocked out of me a second time, but now I had not one but two concussions. I let out a groan as I tried to open my eyes and see who else had fallen from the sky and onto me. My vision may have been blurred but I made out who was on top of me. Blonde hair, eyes as blue as the sky, pale white skin, it was-
"Ash!"
"Azura!"
Immediately we enveloped each other in a tight hug. It was, however, a little awkward because we were still lying on the ground, but we didn't care. We were happy to see each other again.
"Fucking wait a goddamn minute!" Azura's partner yelled, causing Azure and I to momentarily cease our hugging. "You fucking know her!?"
"Yeah!" Azura said, wrapping her arms around my neck again, "He's my fuck buddy!"
A sudden expression of horror appeared on the boy's face as Azura finished her sentence. To be honest I found it hard not to laugh. Nila, however, looked concerned at what Azura had just said. At the time I didn't understand why…
"W-w-wh-w-wha-" Sounds came out of the boy's mouth but he struggle to make words with them, "What d-did she j-just say?"
"She means best friend." I said, correcting Azura and erasing the horrified look from the boy's face. A sigh of relief escaped Nila's mouth.
"Aw we've downgraded…" Azura said disappointingly as she got up off of me. As she got to her feet she offered her hand to help me up, which I took once again. I felt like falling over as soon as I got to my feet, which didn't surprise me considering how I hit my head hard on the ground twice now.
"If he has brain damage it's your fault." Her partner said angrily. I didn't know what Azura did between falling from the sky and right now, but regardless it pissed off her partner. And I did silently agree with him that my head trauma was her fault.
"Oh I almost forgot!" Azura said loudly, "Ash this is Lloyd. Lloyd this is Ash and-"
Azura stopped talking when she finally noticed Nila.
"Wait who are you?" Azura asked the blue haired girl.
"Oh right." I said, "Azura this is my partner Nila. Nila this is my best friend Azura."
"Hello!" My partner said happily.
Azura said nothing, instead choosing to stare at Nila. After a few seconds of making my partner feel uncomfortable, the blonde nudged her elbow into my ribs as if she were trying to get my attention.
"What?" I asked her.
"She's pretty cute." She whispered, a grin clear on her face. Whenever I was with another girl I had known for no more than an hour she would behave this way. I usually ignored her, but sometimes she made that kind of difficult.
"Yeah I noticed," I replied with a slightly annoyed tone. "Your point?"
"I'm just saying fifteen minutes is more than enough time to have some fun-"
"You know I can hear you right?"
It didn't come to me as a surprise that Nila was able to hear Azura speaking. From our limited knowledge of the Faunus we knew that it was common for them to have heightened senses, like night vision and better hearing. Azura seemed to have forgotten about the latter, or maybe even both.
"Aren't we supposed to take one of these chess pieces?" Lloyd asked, examining one of the gold bishops. With his back turned to me I could finally see the rifle in his back. It appeared to be a bolt action rifle with a sniper's scope mounted above the action. It had a straight grip shoulder stock with a cheek riser mounted on it. Most of the rifle and the scope itself was black, with all metal parts of the rifle, mainly the bolt, being a dulled and worn silver finish. This made me believe that it had been used for a while.
"Yeah I think it's how the teams are determined," I explained to Lloyd and Azura, "We take two pieces of the same color and we are on the same team. I have the gold king, so if you take the gold queen you will be on my team."
Lloyd nodded his head in agreement and was about to walk over to the queen until we realized Azura had already taken it.
"Well she already has it," I said to myself, "Now let's get out of-"
Once again I was unable to finish my sentence as someone jumped onto my from behind and wrapped their arms around my neck, causing me to fall forward onto the ground, again.
That day just wasn't my day.
"Ashie!"
Yet another voice I recognized. That voice belonged to Yang Xiao Long. On top of her voice I knew it was her because she was the only one who called me "Ashie."
Hello third concussion…
"Hi Yang..." I said weakly. Luckily I didn't get the air knocked out of me like the other two times people came falling from the sky onto me. But that didn't mean I was going to have one hell of a headache after initiation.
"Wow Ash I'm impressed," Azura joked, "Usually you have to go to Vegas to get this many successive blows to the head."
I would have said something among the lines of go fuck yourself, but before I said anything I realized what Azura had said. We had both agreed that if something like this were to come out accidentally while we were speaking to anyone then we would just bullshit an explanation or say that it was none of their business. Luckily this was something we could easily make up an explanation for.
"What the fuck is Vegas?" Lloyd asked confused. And this is where the bullshiting came in.
"A village me and Ash lived near when we were younger," Azura explained calmly, "It was known for it's prostitutes."
Nice save.
"Vegas seems like a nice place to live." Yang said, finally removing her arms from my neck and standing up. I started getting up when yet another hand was offered to help me up. Looking up at the owner of the hand I realized it belonged to the girl with the black bow on her head. I gladly took her hand and got back to my feet with her help.
"Blake Belladonna." The girl said. She seemed mellow compared to the other four people here, and she had only told me her name.
"Ash Krieger." I replied. I didn't notice anyone else around besides the six of us so I assumed he was Yang's partner. Blake appeared just an inch shorter than the blonde and wore a white and black outfit which matched her dark hair and pale complexion.
Blake averted her gaze to something behind me and walked passed me as if to get a closer look. Turning around to see what she was looking at I noticed that her attention was fixed on one of the black Knight pieces.
"Chess pieces?" She asked, seemingly to herself.
I'm gonna have to explain it again aren't I? I thought to myself. In all honesty I hated having to explain the same thing to different people multiple times so I did not want to explain the reasoning behind the relics a third time. I was also slightly concerned that explaining it to people was causing other human beings to fall from the sky and onto me and I didn't want a fourth concussion.
"The relics determine who's on who's team," Lloyd explained to Blake, "If you have the same color piece as another pair of students then you are on the same team."
Thank you Lloyd.
"Well, I guess we should pick one." Blake told Yang, who was studying the gold knight. She then picked up the knight and showed Blake the piece.
"How about a cute little pony?" Yang asked her partner.
"Sure." Blake replied, rolling her eyes and smirking. The pair rejoined Nila, Azura, Lloyd and I at the center of the temple, Yang holding onto the gold knight piece.
"That wasn't too hard!" Yang chirped.
"Well this place isn't exactly hard to find," Nila told her. No one was able to say anything else, however, as a loud and unexpected scream pierced the air and my eardrums.
"Some girl's in trouble!" Yang exclaimed, activating her gauntlets, "What should we do?"
Before I could react I felt someone tapping my arm trying to get my attention. I looked at the person responsible and realized it was Blake. She was looking and pointing at something above us. I looked up at what she was pointing at and saw something falling towards us. Something red and black…
Red and black…
Ruby?
"HEADS UP!"
You've got to be fucking kidding me…