"Alright punks, listen up. if you have strong ranged weapons, focus on the bird. If you have better close range stuff, hit the scorpion. Whoever finishes first is backup for the other."

The white themed girl started whining. Something about if there was a better strategy.

"The strategy is to hit it harder, and then hit it more. If that doesn't work, then you've done something wrong. Anything that needs something more complex just means you need better firepower or better aim, now let's finish this up."

His strategy, textbook from the U.S. Army guidebook on settling disputes, was impeccable, and the sheer munitions being shot down range was enough to make short work of both creatures. Stand out examples of hard hitters were the Orange haired girl with a grenade launcher and hammer, and the blonde chick with the gauntlets. The younger girl was pretty good with her sniper as well, but Pyrrha, the princess girl, the quiet boy, and the girl with the ribbon were all examples of poorer firepower.

Even with just half of the group having any effective weapons for dealing heavy damage, the bird fell nearly instantly, and the scorpion practically killed itself with how little effort the combined efforts of all of them took.

"We probably didn't need to use that much ammunition, and we could have developed an efficient strategy for dealing the minimum damage necessary to kill the Grimm." Princess girl griped.

"What's more efficient? Spending time and energy on something, or resources? If two more came up like this after we beat them, then maybe we'd need to focus more on strategy, but it's better to save people than ammo." Booker replied, finding himself at the unfortunate stage of having to explain something to someone. This was a poor position for him, as he knew that he was a terrible example for decision making, given the ones in his past, and it was rare that he could feel correct in something he'd done.

"I suppose you may be right. I'll... take that under advisement." the girl replied after considering his argument. He grimaced at her words, and silently turned to head back to the cliff.

"Does anyone else feel like we should get a posse? Somebody should be here to be like, 'Whoa! You guys killed that thing super easy!' or something." The hammer wielding girl gushed, bouncing around in a display of great energy and excitement.

"That'd be cool. Like a civilian or something? That way they could be like 'This is crazy, are you guys really going to get launched from the cliff?' and be impressed." the blonde girl agreed.

Booker snorted. "Kid like that would probably panic. Trust me, it's not worth the effort of protecting them."

His partner smiled at him curiously, crossing her arms behind her back. It rang a little false, as she seemed too prideful and competitive to assume a shy posture. "Oh? You seem experienced." she noted in a questioning tone.

Booker grunted. "Yeah, a bit."

He let the subject die, the silence grow awkwardly long, before "So, how exactly are we supposed to make it back up the cliff?"

~Line Break~

"... and Lie Ren. Led by Jaune Arc, they are Team Juniper."

Polite applause marked his dismay at being put in a position of leadership. He was a sorry excuse for a leader, and someone who shouldn't be put in charge of a hamster, nevermind a squad of teenagers in a combat school.

Still, at least it was just a school environment. He'd be more worried if he was in charge of something more heavy, but he probably just had to keep the kids on the straight and narrow. Keep the grades up and the teamwork good.

After the ceremony, if you could call it that, they were given dorm rooms and told where to find them, where Booker and his team immediately headed towards.


Sorry for the slow updates. Not only do I tend to have about 30 different story ideas that I work on a little bit at a time until I feel like they're ready to be published, I also have some difficulty with RWBY stories after the reveal with Salem being immortal. I basically lost interest in the show and haven't kept up with it since past that point, but I still like the setting and characters. Either way, I try to make it very clear that I don't abandon any of my interesting stories like this one, I just tend to do a lot of polishing and only write when I have a lot of drive for it. See you next time.