So, last chapter I did say I would explain the Semblances of team SALK, and also two new systems for the game. Well, forget the latter - I decided to actually add only one, which I'll call "Adaptive Difficulty." It will be shown in action this chapter, but I figured now would be the perfect time to give you an idea of our protagonists' powers.

Kirito - Light Blade: His swords are ethereal, right? Now, Kirito's Semblance allows him to summon one or two swords to fight, and yes, he's better with dual blades. The catch, of course, is that while using only one sword is of no consequence, dual wielding slowly drains Kirito's Aura. So he has to limit his aggression until he finds an opening, like I forgot to add when Kirito fought LLENN. My bad.

Asuna - Spectre: Asuna's Semblance allows her to summon a stationary specter - nope, they can't fight like Blake's clones - which persist for a while, and she can teleport back to the exact location of these specters. Do remember that only one Spectre can exist at a time, but nevertheless this Semblance gives Asuna some excellent combo potential.

Sinon - Deadshot: Sinon can use her Semblance to take control of the next bullet she fires and direct its movement. So her sniper rounds can zigzag and clear out groups of enemies even if they're not lined up.

LLENN - Rewind: And it had to be poor Kirito who was the first to see all his effort, blasted away in seconds by LLENN's Semblance. LLENN can rewind to a recent point in time and restore most of her Aura, repositioning her at the previous spot. Note that I said most - Semblances cost Aura, after all. It wouldn't be profitable for Sinon to control every bullet she fired, or for LLENN to Rewind every time she took damage. In fact, the latter using her Semblance when she has taken too little damage could cost her more Aura than if she'd just dealt with it.

And yes, Rewind is another version of Recall.

*start*

Kirito saw a tall tree amongst the thick of the Emerald Forest, summoned a sword, and stabbed it in the trunk of the tree, praying that the friction would be enough to stop his falling before he hit the ground.

"Your objective," Ozpin explained to team SALK. "will be to recover a single relic located in the ruins of Emerald Forest. You four will be dropped alone, each at separate places, and must regroup before you can collect the relic."

Finally, Kirito landed, and pulled his sword out. He managed to catch his breath for several seconds before he heard growling. A small group of Beowolves had surrounded him.

"Great." He thought. "Not a minute into this and I already have to fight."

*switch*

Sinon had the fortune of having landed nearest to the ruins, no more than a mile away. She decided to camp on a tree, with her sniper rifle out, to watch for any of her teammates, pick off Grimm and watch for signals.

Asuna, meanwhile, had more fortune than Kirito when it came to Grimm encounters, but nevertheless ended up meeting an Ursa after a short walk.

LLENN took off a moment after landing, having calculated her direction. She would run near the ruins, but not straight to it, to wait for her allies.

While she ran though, she spotted a red specter standing by itself. If LLENN couldn't have found it odd enough, upon closer inspection she saw that it resembled Asuna. Was this a horribly performed trap?

She got her answer when Asuna herself suddenly appeared, standing right where the specter had been. This caused LLENN to yelp in surprise, which in turn also made Asuna to turn and point her rapier at LLENN.

"Oh, it's you!" Asuna breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized LLENN. "Mind helping me out?"

"With what?" LLENN tried to ask, but then she saw the Ursa that Asuna was fighting crash through the bushes. "Oh."

*switch*

"What's going on in there?" Yang asked her team when RWBY walked by the ballroom.

"Apparently there's a new team attending Beacon." Blake explained. "Their Initiation is taking place right now, and of course not everyone wanted to miss it."

"Hey!" Ruby exclaimed. "That's the swordsman guy! And the girl he fought yesterday, and..."

"Well," Weiss said after Ruby had pointed out all members of team SALK. "if you're so interested, then perhaps we could go in there and watch it ourselves? Personally, I would like to see how good these...people really are."

*switch*

Sinon was surveying her environment - a whole lot of trees, a couple of Beowolves, an Ursa or two - when she heard a noise. She turned to see a tree falling down, and assumed that there was a collision between her team and Grimm.

Kirito had seen it, too, and was running towards the fight. The ruckus had stopped by the time Kirito arrived, and when he emerged from bushes he saw Asuna and LLENN standing triumphant over an Ursa, which dissolved not long after.

"Kirito!" Asuna noticed Kirito, ran over, and to LLENN's surprise, hugged him.

"Wha...A-Asuna!" Kirito stuttered. "This isn't the time to be showing affection!"

"Oh!" She released him. "Sorry, I get excited sometimes."

LLENN was still surprised as they made their way towards the ruins. "You two are lovers?"

Kirito shrugged. "We met in a game that we played for two years. Things escalated from there."

"...OK."

Unfortunately, when the team neared the ruins, they ran into another pack of Beowolves. "It never ends." Kirito muttered as the trio readied their weapons.

But then the Grimm started dropping, one by one, from a bullet that seemed to be moving between the Beowolves, eliminating the entire pack.

Asuna knew at once who did it. "Sinon!" She called out. "Are you there?"

Sinon dropped down from her tree. "Finally! Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting here?"

LLENN raised an eyebrow. "You've been camping?"

"Well, duh. I'm a sniper, after all, and it was just my luck that I landed nearest to the ruins. So I decided that there was no better option than to wait."

LLENN shrugged. "Words from the Bullet of Bullets co-champion, I guess. Anyway, the ruins are just right up there, so I suppose we should hurry."

*switch*

When team SALK arrived at the relic site, a stone-floored clearing beside a small mountain, Kirito spotted a knife, stuck into the base of a pedestal. "Hey!" He cried. "I think we found it!"

"Really?" Sinon said. "I thought the so called "relic" would look a bit more... interesting than a knife on a pedestal."

"Oh come on Sinon, don't spoil the fun. I doubt anyone would randomly go out of their way to stick a knife on pieces of stone like this. Not to mention put it out on an open field for everyone to see... Definitely our goal." Kirito replied, pulling out the knife.

"OK, so now we just need to shoot up a flare for extraction..." LLENN said. "Oh, and by the way, anyone noticed how suitable this place looks for a boss battle?"

Just then, a rumbling shook the ground beneath team SALK's feet, and a loud roar was heard. Kirito, Asuna and Sinon all shot LLENN looks.

"Uh..." The petite gunner stuttered. "I...didn't mean to jinx us!"

Soon, their opponent emerged from a large cave opening at the bottom of the mountain.

It was a Death Stalker. A huge Death Stalker.

As if to confirm its' status as the final boss of the Initiation, a large health bar appeared at the top of team SALK's HUDs, labeled "Death Stalker".

"Well, nothing's truly free, I suppose." Asuna said as she and the other team members drew their weapons, staring down the scorpion Grimm.

*switch*

"Go, team SALK!" Ruby's yell startled her team, who all turned to look at her.

"I didn't think you would be..." Blake commented. "...enthusiastic."

"Well, I just thought that since Kirito is going to start studying here with us, we might as well cheer for him while he's at it, tackling the Initiation challenge. Hey, who doesn't love having more friends?"

"But...there aren't exactly a lot of people cheering for them..." Weiss pointed out.

"Don't be silly, Weiss, that's because there aren't a lot of people who are watching this!" Ruby suddenly grabbed the heiress' arm and raised it. "Come on, guys! With me! GO, TEAM SALK!"

"Ow, ow, ow, Ruby you're hurting me!"

*switch*

"Hey, I got it!" Kirito yelled over the chaotic noise of battle. "Cut its stinger loose! Drop it on the Grimm's own head!"

"Oh, now you tell us?" Asuna snapped. "We've been here getting our asses handed to us and it took you, the most experienced with RWBY in our group, a full minute to find this thing's one sore weakness?"

Indeed, while the Death Stalker had sustained quite a bit of damage from team SALK's efforts, the huntsman-and-huntresses group had taken several hits themselves - LLENN, notably, had lost nearly half her Aura, due in part to a slightly reckless initial approach.

"Just..." Kirito sighed. "Try to distract it, and I'll slash its stinger off,OK?" Then, swords in hand, he charged.

It was a long and slightly hard battle, but eventually the golden stinger fell and crushed the Death Stalker's skull, ending the boss battle and team SALK's Initiation challenge.

*switch*

"And yet the system considered that one 'Easy'." Sirius commented when he met up with team SALK. "I think the system decided to implement Challenge Bosses early."

"'Easy'?" LLENN wondered. "There's a difficulty system in this game?"

"'Adaptive Difficulty', if you will." Sirius said. "You've got 5 difficulties:Beginner, Easy, Intermediate, Hard and Expert. The system assesses your skills to automatically pick the most suitable one, though of course you can always go and pick one yourself."

"What about that Death Stalker?" Asuna inquired. "You sound like it was harder than it was supposed to be."

The co-developer shrugged. "Yes, well, I suppose Remnant Online hasn't been out for very long, so I admit there are a few bugs here and there. I'll have that version of the Death Stalker boss packed off to Normal difficulty, where it belongs."

"Wait," Kirito chimed in. "So I defeated team RWBY so easily back there because the system thought I couldn't?"

"Mm, something like that. It's always the easiest difficulty when you first play. Anyway..."

They arrived at team SALK's dorm. "Here's your room. Gotta go now, bye!" Sirius raised a hand, hurrying off in the other direction.

"You guys unpack." Kirito said. "I've got someone I want to visit." This merited eyebrows being raised by the rest of team SALK, but none of the girls seemed to care much.

The swordsman soon found himself accosting another student - whom he swiftly recognized as Jaune Arc, leader of team JNPR - to ask him for directions to RWBY's dorm.

"Excuse me, J- uhh, do you happen to know the way to where team RWBY are staying?"

"Huh?" Jaune seemed surprised. "Oh, actually, you're lucky - it's just straight down that way, take the first right, and 3rd door to your left."

"Thanks." Kirito blurted out and resumed walking.

Eventually he reached the door of team RWBY's dorm, and he could faintly overhear a conversation inside.

"...and the way he just zipped around slashing that Death Stalker and cutting its stinger off, it was just like when he beat us yest-"

"Ruby," Kirito heard a voice interrupt the reaper, which he assumed was Weiss'. "please do not berate our own team in the name of admiration for a new student."

"She has a point." Blake added. "We've only known him through watching him fight, between our battle with him and the Initiation challenge. Though to be fair... team SALK are all pretty formidable."

"Yeah, especially that little pink girl with the gun." Yang said. "She's almost as fast as our Ruby, maybe even as fast, and that Semblance she had felt a bit unfair. LLENN, I think that's what she's called...weird name..."

Knock knock. The sound at the door made team RWBY jump.

"Wha...who's there?" Ruby asked as she approached the door.

"It's Kirito!" RWBY heard on the other side of the door. Immediately Weiss, Blake and Yang shot each other looks, but Ruby flung the door and, to everyone's shock, embraced the swordsman.

"Kirito!" She squealed. "You were AWESOME! We saw your team's Initiaton!"

"Uh,thanks...?" Kirito replied, having been unaware that SALK had an audience.

"Ooh, my little sister, hugging a boy..." Yang said slyly.

Ruby flushed furiously, released Kirito, and jumped back. "Y-Yang!"

"OK, uh... can I come in now?" Kirito asked. "I hope you don't mind if I wanted to know team RWBY a bit more."

"Oh, it's fine." Blake replied, sitting down on one of the bunk beds. "Actually, we want to know more about you."

*switch*

Kirigaya Kazuto lifted the VR headset off his head. It was getting close to dinnertime, so when Kirito returned to his team's dormitory, they decided to call it a day and log out.

He had, however, made a suggestion - that all of team SALK, in real life, would go out for dinner tomorrow evening, so that he, Asuna and Shino could be introduced to the real LLENN - and vice versa.

Now looking forward to the next evening, Kirito walked outside of his room.

*switch*

And AVADA KEDAVRA to chapter 6! I've been upping my standard lately - 2k words instead of 1k, which was inspired when I saw the word count of the last chapter.

Next time: Team SALK meet each other in real life! Woo! Karen! Height surprises! Life outside the game! And a legit narrated fight! (I hope...)Also yes, I'm still writing on a tablet. Been traveling a lot lately.Stay tuned!