Ciel yawned, stood on the edge of the cliff, and looked out over the vista before her. The Emerald Forest was beautiful, especially in the morning. The... very early morning. Classes had been going well, but apparently the faculty was discussing things behind the scenes and determined that team CPNE needed to at least go through a truncated version of the trial that everyone else had endure when they first arrived.
So here they were, the four of them, along with Ozpin, Goodwitch, and Schnee. The headmaster sipped at his coffee and reviewed some information on a tablet he was holding. "The idea is the same. Those panels will catapult you into the woods. You must land successfully, locate your teammates, get to the other end, and retrieve the relic. You will doubtless encounter Grimm along the way and it is up to you to determine when to fight and when to press on. Ms. Soleil, it will be your job in particular to ensure that everyone in your team works as one and you make it back here safely. There is no grade for this exercise, there is no judgment. It is a trial by fire, and you either succeed or you do not."
"Yeah, when you say 'land successfully'...?"
Emerald didn't get to finish her question as the panels flipped upward, vaulting the four of them into the sky on slightly different trajectories. Ciel watched with some small amount of pride as Neopolitan opened her parasol to slow herself, Emerald utilized the chain on her weapon to swing between trees, and Penny fired off the jet boosters from her blades, each of them reaching the ground with presumed safety. Ciel slowed her timestream and landed as gently as a leaf, immediately looking around to try and determine where the others would have landed. She couldn't call for them as that might alert a Grimm. So she would have to seek them out quietly.
She drew her weapon with the gun barrel constantly swaying in the direction of even the slightest sound. The hour was early and the forest was dead silent. Ciel forced herself to slow her breathing, certain that a single wrong move could easily spell death. That was when she heard a commotion not too far away and rushed to see what it was. Go figure Neopolitan was the one making so much noise. Ironic, but fitting.
Her teammate had the misfortune of landing right next to a beowulf who she was presently leaping at to kick in the face, then spinning mid-air to bash it with her parasol. The weapon remained shockingly dense and Ciel could never quite correlate that idea.
Before she could even get a shot off, the Grimm was already down on the ground taking a well-deserved coma and Neo was brushing her hands with a confident chuckle. "Hey Sunny. Thanks for all the help back there."
Things had been... odd lately with Neopolitan. Ever since their excursion into the city of Vale to get supplies for clothing repair, she had been acting strangely. Ciel had never had a perfect grasp of human interaction, and this was even more confusing. She was as cheeky as ever, but something in her mannerisms felt kinder lately. Ciel had simply put it down to a growing familiarity between everyone in the team. So why did their interactions stick out to her so much more?
"You seemed to have the situation well in hand. It would have been rude to interrupt."
"True. You can't cut in when the waltz is only half over. But I'll make sure to add you to my dance card," she signed with a wink. Again, it was puzzling. What Ciel normally took to be simple jokes, she now wondered if perhaps they were something else, like veiled truths. But that kind of thing was for someone with better social awareness to figure out. She was mostly focused on being a good leader.
Despite Ciel's best intentions, they had to fight through more than a few creeps and a few other beowulfs before they found anyone else. But she had to admit, there was also some method to the professors' madness. They hadn't really fought Grimm before, at least not as a team. Just as she had seen during the tournament, Neopolitan had a surprisingly good handle on playing the forward role against enemies. She moved fast and hit hard, and her parasol was basically indestructible. And with careful use of Dust and her semblance, Ciel provided plenty of cover fire to make life difficult for any monster unlucky enough to cross their path.
Suddenly, an ursa came flying through a tree nearby, pushed along by a massive green beam that Ciel couldn't help but smile at the sight of. Naturally, Penny could look after herself. A moment later, she came flying through the underbrush, swords swirling in massive arcs and cutting the bear down flawlessly. "My friends! I am glad to have found you! This forest is beautiful, but full of dangers. Oh, but Emerald isn't with us? We must locate her and get to the relic."
Neopolitan snickered and nodded. "Yeah, she's useless without me."
It was instantly clear how much more efficient they were with Penny around. The lesson was probably somewhat on-the-nose, granted. But even running into an entire nest of creeps posed absolutely no issue for the three of them together. Ciel had never considered herself much of a combatant, and even after achieving success during the Vytal Festival, she still knew that her fighting abilities weren't as great as her peers. However, when she had others around to carry the weight, it was that much easier to think and plan.
Just as they escaped from the area where the nest was, they heard a massive crashing sound and found Emerald in the midst of her own fight. She had a beowulf wrapped up in the chain of her weapon and she was throwing all her might into swinging it around like a flail, slamming it into a cliff wall. She turned and saw them approaching and gave a cheerful smile. "Hey, I appreciate the audience, but this bugger is giving me some trouble. Do you mind?" She grunted with effort as the Grimm struggled against the chains and she withdrew them before they broke.
As it swung for her with its massive claws, Penny jumped in and blocked the attack with her circle of swords before launching all of them into its chest and pinning it to the ground where it dissolved in a mass of black goop. "Salutations, Emerald! I hope you were not having too much trouble without us."
"Nah, I was doing fine until this uppity jerk decided to become more trouble than he was worth."
"Strange, Neopolitan said that you would be "useless" on your own..."
"I was being facetious!" Neo stopped signing suddenly, a look of shock crossing her face. "Okay I'm clearly spending too much time around you people if I'm using words like 'facetious'. Ugh, kill me..."
Emerald clapped an arm around her shoulders, laughing brightly. "It's our penance, dear. The price we pay for our wayward past."
Finding the ruins actually turned out to be relatively easy. Based on the position of the sun and a general idea of where the ruins were, Ciel knew where they needed to go.
The trouble, unfortunately, was in the shape of a king taijitu Grimm. A massive snake, but instead of a tail, there was another snake. In some way, the poetic part of her mind knew that this was oddly karmic. Two beasts of opposing colors, stuck together, that had to work as one in order to survive. But Ciel was less worried about poetry and more concerned with living to tell the tale afterwards.
She also knew that this was ultimately her time to shine. Yes, they could no doubt make it through this fight by the skin of their teeth. But she deeply believed that with clever strategy, they could do more than simply get by. The massive snake hadn't seen them yet, which meant they had a chance to get the drop on it.
"Penny and Emerald, I need the two of you to work together. Emerald, distract it with illusions, and Penny, you boost her. Get it to wrap itself around and around the pillars. Neopolitan, they'll be needing you on defensive duty. If either head catches on, I want a wall between it and them. If things get dire, I'll provide some time bending and cover fire to give you all the edge you need. Those fangs can pierce steel, so don't play any games. Have each others' backs. Team CPNE can do it." Surprisingly, everyone just nodded and got to work. For some reason, Ciel still expected her teammates to give her some measure of push-back. But they really did trust her judgment. It was a startling experience.
Penny and Emerald fired off their semblances as one, and while Ciel couldn't see it, she could still witness the effect as both ends of the snake roused and started sliding off in different directions to investigate something encroaching on its territory. She and Neopolitan stood nearby, weapons at the ready, prepared to move and shift tactics if need be.
She hadn't accounted for the fact that the pillars they were working with were finely aged and rather brittle. As the taijitu realized its predicament, it began coiling and uncoiling its myriad muscles and the pillars crumbled to dust. "Damn... That's alright, they still haven't-" Just as she was about to mention the fact that they were still incognito, both heads turned simultaneously to look in their direction. "Damn! O-Okay uh...!" The four of them had to dodge out of the way as the twin maws fired out and snapped at them. Ciel threw up her hands and brought the snake Grimm to a crawl. "Em! Neo! Pick a head and split up, get this thing pulling in opposite directions!"
They did as commanded and, with only a nod of communication between them, ran off creating as much of a distraction as they were able.
Still holding the Grimm, even as her nose began to bleed, she looked over at her partner. "Penny! Full charge on your beam cannon, cut it in half!"
Penny drew her swords and swung them around in a circle as the green ball started to glow in the center. "Exactly in half? That kind of precision may not be possible..."
"Just eyeball it, we don't have to do this perfectly..." Ciel grimaced as her power began to fade and the snake started fighting itself more viciously to attack one of the two pests invading its personal space.
"O-Oh! Of course, sorry..." A bright green glow filled the area and the taijitu was severed.
Ciel released her hold on it, suddenly passing out as green faded to black.
When she came to, Ciel found herself lying in the middle of the ruins with her head resting in Penny's lap. Emerald and Neopolitan were nearby, and all three of them were watching her with serious concern. "Ciel Soleil, you gave us all quite a fright!"
"Yeah, what the hell, kid? I know we all appreciate the backup you gave us, but we're not really gonna make it very far if our captain collapses because she was overloading her damned semblance!" Emerald was being harsh, but Ciel knew it was from a place of love. Or at least... something resembling love.
"I swear, I'm gonna cover you in bubble wrap if I have to." Neopolitan's eyes looked a little bit misty, and again, somewhere in the back of Ciel's mind, she had a few questions. But now was most definitely not the time.
Ciel groaned as she sat up, her head pounding but otherwise unharmed. "Thanks, everyone. It was foolish, I know. But I didn't want to give you such dangerous orders and not be prepared to help you." She noticed that Emerald was holding something and nodded at it. "Did we find our uh... relic?"
She held it up with a satisfied smile. "Yeah. A black bishop. Not sure why, but it feels... right. Appropriate." Emerald passed it off to her and Ciel hefted it in her hand for a moment or two.
"Yes. It feels... fitting."
