Jaune finally managed to find his weapons. Calming himself down, he walked over to the white-haired beauty, who happened to be talking with another attractive girl.
Confidence.
He stepped forward with a spring in his step, waiting nearby to seize an opening and leap into the conversation. He waited. And waited. Then there was a loud crash as someone knocked over a row of heavy lockers.
There! A chance!
"Hey there. You know what else is great? Me. Jaune Arc."
Weiss rolled her eyes as this Arc inserted himself into the conversation while Pyrrha politely held back a laugh as the gangly blonde appeared out of nowhere. The redhead found it interesting that this Jaune Arc went straight for Weiss. Most people targeted her, even if she was with someone rich; celebrity status and popularity usually outweighed monetary influence. Unsurprisingly, Weiss tried to avoid even looking at him as she shut him down.
Pyrrha felt bad for Arc; he was only trying to make friends. Well, maybe trying to get himself a girlfriend, but he seemed harmless. A lot like an uncertain blond puppy in a new environment. He visibly drooped after Weiss's cold rejection, so Pyrrha tried to cheer him up like the unbelievably-kind-angel-the-world-never-deserved she was.
"I think you would be a great team leader."
She stifled another laugh as he did a complete 180 and perked up. Wasn't he a little too easily cheered up? However, her good mood was spoiled by Weiss, as she tried to emphasize Pyrrha's status, using it to shame Arc for even thinking he was good enough to have the champion on her team.
"Actually, I would love to be on your team."
The look of aghast horror on the Schnee heiress's face was priceless. As was the exuberant look of joy plastered on the Arc scion's face. Still, the young man over-pressured and Pyrrha ended up nailing him to the wall with her spear. Maybe that was a bit rude.
Carolina watched as her counterpart chatted pleasantly with the white-haired girl before the blonde all but tumbled his way into the conversation. She didn't remember teenagers being this oversexed. Then again, she had to admit that Pyrrha Nikos was beautiful. Not to mention, she seemed to carry an aura of respect and dignity. Maybe she was some sort of royalty? That would explain her association with the apparently-elite white-haired girl. She snickered under her helmet as she watched the blonde guy display both masks of tragedy and comedy at a rate that would make Jekyll & Hyde jealous, though she did raise an eyebrow at her counterpart used her spear to "forcibly" move the blonde away when he got a tad too close.
"It was nice meeting you."
The teal freelancer practically melted at the sweetness in Pyrrha's voice. Did she ever sound that good?
Wash was taken aback by the unusually violent display from the Carolina look-alike, but it appeared that there was no ill-will given her body language and poise. Since meeting Pyrrha Nikos, he'd been suspicious and wary of her. Something about her seemed fake. Somehow, whatever it was, it didn't seem malicious. She seemed like a genuinely nice person, but something about her was wrong. As a result, he'd kept a close eye on her. He turned to take in the reactions of the rest of Blue Team.
Caboose wasn't even looking in that direction. No point in analyzing him.
Tucker seemed to have some sort of strange body posture. He was hunched slightly. Oh god, he wasn't turned on, was he?
He hurriedly focused on Carolina. Wash was most interested in her reactions. It looked like she was enjoying observing her doppelganger, and the gray freelancer could relate. Watching Pyrrha Nikos was like watching a dog play around. Innocent and pure. Still, Carolina seemed off. There was an emotion he couldn't quite place. Carolina seemed…
...envious.
Red team sneakily observed Pyrrha Nikos under orders from Sarge. He'd marked her as a potential recruit to bolster the ranks of Red Army and give them an advantage over the dirty blues.
"Did she just nail that guy to the wall with a spear?" Grif was surprised, to say the least. When they met the spartan, she'd been anything but rude. So when she used her weapon to instantly create some distance between the blonde and the snowy-haired girl, he was reminded of Doctor Grey. A seemingly nice lady who turned out to be a psychopath.
Apparently, Simmons shared his fears. "Yikes."
Sarge, however, was more confident than ever in his headhunting talent.
She's a natural. If only that spear could turn into a shotgun.
"Boys, if we get her on our side, we win the war."
Grif and Simmons turned to stare at Sarge like he was one of the cabbages the maroon soldier had grown on Chorus (grown a third head).
"Are you serious?"
"She'll kill us!"
Donut seemed to disagree. "I don't know. It doesn't seem like it'll be that hard."
Grif and Simmons rotated their visors to stare at Donut now, as Sarge eagerly awaited the plan his subordinate had created to recruit their future trump card.
"What? She seems nice. I sure that if we just ask her, she'll join us."
"No. Logically, she could take all of us on by herself. There's no reason for her to hold herself back by joining us." Simmons took it from a deductive angle. "She's just like Tex! What was it that Sarge said? Woman to woefully inadequate man?"
"Every redhead with green eyes has been absolutely terrifying and threatened to kill us at some point!" Grif protested as well.
Donut was somewhat confused. "Haven't we only met one person with that description? Only Carolina has red hair and green eyes and threatened to kill us."
"Yeah. And that's enough."
Simmons was indignant of this sort of reasoning. "Hey, you can't conclude anything from a sample size of one. That's not an adequate experimental group, that's just correlation, not causation."
"Do I look like I care?"
Little did they know, Donut was probably right.
Finally, they made it to the initiation grounds. They were directed by Ozpin and Goodwitch to stand on the evenly spaced metal squares. The teachers did not explain the function of the metal sheets, but everyone in the Blood Gulch crew (except Caboose) had a sinking feeling that it was probably some sort of launchpad. Things they didn't understand had the tendency to send them flying. Except for Caboose, he didn't understand what was going on ever. So if that tendency applied to him, everything would spontaneously combust.
Moving on, the colorful squadron took their positions. They received odd looks from the few initiates who hadn't seen them up close before, but most people seemed preoccupied. They'd probably reached the same conclusion as the BGC.
The sinking feeling in the former sim-troopers' guts solidified as Ozpin mentioned they would be falling. Wash and Carolina, having leaped from a one-hundred-and-ten story building and flown in space with jetpacks before, were fine with a little fall. The two freelancers mainly focused on the next parts of Ozpin's brief info dump: don't hesitate to kill everything in your way and the first person you meet will be your partner. Wash also tracked down Pyrrha, wondering how Carolina's counterpart would land. He knew Carolina would likely try to use her grappling hook to redirect her fall until she could safely roll. He would probably have to attempt a roll without any sort of slow-down. Depending on how high he was thrown, it was possible to use a grenade shockwave to slow himself down. He'd live. Probably.
Doc was conversing with O'Malley, discussing the probability of survival if he attempted to slow his landing by using the concussive force of his rocket launcher. Somehow, they hadn't run out of ammunition. Doc didn't know how.
Grey was considering how many of her armored companions she would need to put back together. Caboose would be fine, he always was. The freelancers were competent enough, and Doc would probably survive as well. Grif might survive because he had an explosive weapon. Lopez was a robot. Sarge was probably going to survive. That left Tucker and Simmons. If it weren't for the author's fondness for the characters and plot convenience, they would probably die. As for herself, she would make it. No one doubted the Doctor's survivability.
Pyrrha's eyes flicked over to Carolina's form. She felt slightly worried for several of her fellow initiates. Jaune looked like he was going to throw up. He was going to need some help. There was also the group of armored figures. Though they seemed competent enough, that dark blue one might have some trouble. She also doubted the durability of the teal man as well. However, she'd have to use her semblance to save them, but there was probably too large of a distance. Not to mention, she hadn't touched them and didn't intend to get remotely close to the aquamarine pervert. She'd save her spear for Jaune, she decided.
Her eyes flicked over to the other viridian form in the line. Noticing Carolina's confident and prepared pose, she felt herself calm down a little. She wondered if she should seek out her twin's company first. No, if she used her spear to help Jaune, she'd need to get Milo back first. Without her weapon, she'd only hold her doppelganger back, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.
Ruby crouched and readied Crescent Rose. This was going to be a piece of cake. She'd practiced in-air movement with her weapon to the point where she could do this in her sleep.
Weiss mentally prepared herself and decided which glyphs she was going to use. Air-walk first, then maybe an elastic one to direct her to Pyrrha.
Yang Xiao Long cocked Ember Celica, enjoying the satisfying sound of bullet shells. She wondered if she should plan her landing strategy. Nah. It'd be more fun to wing it. She was so glad she'd brought along the aviator sunglasses.
Lie Ren took deep breaths, preparing himself for sudden combat. He had already warmed up and loosened his limbs. His automatic pistols remained hidden in his sleeves, ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. His pink eyes flicked over to Nora's form. She seemed excited. Well, more than usual. His lips curled upwards slightly into a content smile. They'd be together. They always were.
Nora grinned and gripped her hammer. She couldn't wait to start smashing some Grimm into paste. Headmaster Ozpin was really nice, giving her this entire forest to play around in.
Blake calmed herself down. This was going to be easy, no different from the many raids she'd conducted as a member of the White Fang. Here it was, her second chance. Here was redemption.
Jaune focused on not throwing up. It was difficult.
Ozpin took in the line of initiates. Naturally, he had his eye on several. Nikos and Rose were obvious, especially as he'd let one of them in two years early based on skill. Still, Rose needed maturity, something Nikos had in spades. Perhaps it would be best if those two paired up. Then again, Nikos was probably going to partner with Arc. He knew Goodwitch was unsure of his decision to accept the Arc scion despite his poorly forged admission ticket. Ozpin knew he'd made a lot of mistakes, but taking Jaune Arc into his school was not one of them. The boy had potential, but he needed to think outside of the box and break away from the mold of a traditional huntsman. Perhaps he should push one of the two leaders of the spacemen to become Arc's partner. Freelancers, that was what they were called. He had no doubt as to whether or not those two would survive, but he suspected they would pass with flying colors. However, he wasn't so sure about the rest of their crew.
One by one, the initiates flew from their launchpads like human missiles. Immediately, the sound of gunshots filled the previously silent air as they employed various and awesomely-cool landing strategies. Initiation had begun.
Carolina's eyes flicked rapidly around, giving her a 180-degree view of her immediate surroundings. She took note of a clearing off in the distance, one with a stone structure. Was that where the relics were? It was worth investigating. Carolina instantly directed her attention back to employing a landing strategy. With a practiced hand, her grappling gun flicked up and the metal claw flew out. It bit in one of the sturdy trees, and Carolina felt the anticipated yank as she was redirected and slowed. She repeated the process again, before flipping upwards and landing lightly on a large tree branch. Her head turned as the freelancer stood up, surveying the area. A red blur crossed her sight as she saw her doppelganger smash through several trees and stand up without pause. Carolina wondered if she should try and pair up with Pyrrha, and have Wash pair up with another native of Remnant to gather more information. A gunshot alerted her to the trajectory of Pyrrha's spear, which appeared to be on intercept course with a flailing body. Judging from the colors and lack of coordination, it was probably Arc. The freelancer frowned. He was a little too incompetent to be here, wasn't he?
"Thank you!"
"I'm sorry!"
She was a little too nice to be here, wasn't she?
Wash realized he was thrown a lot higher than he thought was going to be. Oh well, time to improvise. This time, there was no Tex with a jetpack to redirect his fall. So, he'd have to make his own landing strategy. His hand closed around a fragmentation grenade, and he mentally calculated his speed, time until impact, and the grenade detonation. Seconds before hitting the ground, he primed and hurled the explosive, riding the shockwave upwards for a little before falling the last five meters. He neatly tucked and rolled coming up into a steady job. Carolina had landed in a tree in an 11 o'clock direction. He could cover the distance in two minutes at this rate.
Doc felt O'Malley take over and watched in awe as his body rocket-jumped to avoid a bone-shattering impact. Sometimes, it was nice to share a body with an insane artificial intelligence hellbent on murder.
Caboose smashed into the ground. He was fine.
Doctor Grey was fine, despite her lack of in-air movement. Maybe heaven and hell were too afraid of her to come and collect?
Grif fired his weapon wildly, trying to slow down his descent. He succeeded and felt himself slow down and bounce upwards slightly. That was until he felt a massive impact on his back as Simmons drove him into the ground.
Sarge clutched his shotgun, determined not to let it go. "You want a fight? Bring it on!" he shouted as the ground raced towards his face.
Lopez's launchpad somehow didn't launch him as far or high as the others, so he acted as a cushion for Donut. The two landed in a tangled heap of flesh and metal. Both worked to extricate themselves before they were slammed back into the ground by roughly two-hundred pounds of shotgun and pure red.
Tucker flew through the air like some sort of strange avian. He saw a tree rushing up to meet him, so he swung his sword. It didn't cut through the tree entirely, leaving less than an inch of wood to connect the two parts. He ended up smashing into the tree and instinctively wrapped his arms and legs around it. The thin piece of wood holding the top part upright snapped, and it fell to the ground with Tucker still attached. That counts as a landing strategy, right?
In various ways and with varying degrees of pain, the Blood Gulch crew found themselves back in the Emerald Forest. This time, they had a large number of near-professional Grimm ass-kickers with them. That was not to say that they were completely safe, as most Grimm didn't care about the number of prey. Humans were humans. They needed to die. The Grimm residing in the Emerald Forest came alive as one and moved to track down their hated enemy, who prepared to welcome their inevitable arrival with explosive violence.
Pyrrha moved quickly through the foliage to retrieve her weapon. She encountered a snarling Beowulf. The red-haired huntress decisively hurled her shield at its face to stagger it. As it recoiled, she leaped up and snatched Akouo out of the air. Her lithe body twisted and her heeled boots came down onto the monster's skull. It's head smashed into the ground with a satisfying crunch as she rolled forward into a fighting stance, just in case it got up. It didn't.
She continued onwards rapidly. A flash of aquamarine caught her eye. Thinking it was Carolina, she altered course and jogged towards it.
"Ow! What the f*ck!? Stupid tree."
Pyrrha practically dove behind a bush as she realized it was not her identical twin, but the person she wanted to be paired with the least. Was she a nice person and willing to give most people a chance? Yes. Was she up for getting ogled for four years? Not if she had a choice in the matter.
"Ah! Tucker!"
"What the sh*t? Oh, f*ck, my partner's Caboose. Why god!? Why!? Literally anyone but him!"
Pyrrha decided to take advantage of the distraction to run for it. She was so eager to escape that she bowled over an unmoving figure in gray armor. As she rolled to her feet, she heard the tell-tale sign of weapons being raised. It was Carolina, and she had a very menacing handgun with her. Pyrrha relaxed and lowered her shield as she saw the gun being aimed in the direction she came from.
"How many?" Carolina's ice-cold voice floated over. It was clear she was in combat mode.
Pyrrha shook her head negatively. "None."
"Really?" The gray figure, the one that sounded like Headmaster Ozpin, seemed skeptical. Wash? That was his name.
"Yes. I'm not being chased."
Carolina lowered her gun cautiously, still staring at the forest behind Pyrrha warily. "I don't see anything."
Pyrrha realized that she probably worried her acquaintances with her terminal velocity entrance. "There's nothing."
Both freelancers nodded but were clearly waiting for an explanation. Carolina had a sudden realization when considering what could be in that direction and remember the trajectory of Tucker and Caboose's launch. "Did you run into Tucker? Or Caboose?"
The spartan was a little embarrassed to say yes, but both of the freelancers clearly understood her explanation.
Wash shuddered slightly. The poor girl couldn't catch a break. He still felt that something was off, but being an attractive woman paired with someone like Tucker was a fate none deserved. Not to mention Caboose. To be honest, he probably would have sprinted away from those two at Mach 10 as well.
He frowned thoughtfully. "Wait, are they paired together?"
Pyrrha nodded.
Wash practically collapsed in relief. The other initiates were safe. Not to mention, Tucker was going to be miserable with Caboose as his companion, and that was a definite plus.
He wondered if the redhead had other intentions when moving in this direction. "Hey Pyrrha, did you want to pair up with Carolina?"
She blinked in surprise but responded. "I wouldn't mind."
"No, um, I was asking if you wanted to be paired with Carolina."
"She seems like someone I would get along with, but if you already made eye contact and wanted to be her partner, I could go-"
Wash realized that it was difficult to hold a conversation with Pyrrha when you tried to determine her motives. This could have gone on for hours, but Carolina stepped in.
"Pyrrha, would you rather be partners with Jaune or myself? Wash and I aren't from here, so we wouldn't mind being paired with you or other students."
Pyrrha considered the statement for a while. "If the two of you aren't from around here, I think you should stay together. But I won't mind answering any questions you have. Even after initiation, you can talk to me about anything."
Carolina decided to take the offer. Based on Jaune's performance thus far, she was a little uncertain about leaving Wash to potentially become his partner. Still, at least they had an information source. Pyrrha seemed eager to help and also appeared very knowledgeable.
All of them almost broke their necks when they heard Tucker and Caboose moving in their general direction. They also heard the chatter of Red Team coming from another direction.
Carolina took in Pyrrha's shiftiness and deduced that she wanted to leave as quickly as possible. Wash noticed as well and took charge.
"Lina, you go with Pyrrha. I'll shepherd the others."
Pyrrha protested. "No, no. You two are partners, you should stay together."
Carolina insisted, pointing out that Pyrrha was missing her weapon.
Pyrrha still seemed reluctant to separate Wash and Carolina.
"If we leave now, we can avoid Tucker and Caboose."
That seemed to be the final nudge that Pyrrha needed, as the two redheads set off. Carolina contacted Wash through their helmet communications.
"Sorry."
"It's fine."
"I'll make it up to you."
"Don't worry. We just saw her smash through several trees without a care in the world."
"Yeah, I got it. I'll ask about that."
There was a hesitant pause.
"Thanks Wash."
"No problem."
Wash sighed. He steeled himself and went forward to greet the rest of the Blood Gulch crew. If Church could do it, he could do it. Probably.