Here's another chapter for you, I hope you guys like it. First off, I've decided to just go with calling the Dragon Continent Draconys simply because it's shorter and I figure people will understand what I'm talking about. Expect references to it in chapter 1 and 2 to be changed shortly.

Chapter 4: Cloaks and Cold Starts

"There are three rules a Rose must always remember when it comes to their cloak, Adrienne. First, you must never let it fall into disrepair, but must ensure each tear is properly fixed. Second, you must not remove it or leave it unattended around someone you don't trust and never when you might expect a fight. Third, you must never give it to someone else unless you have absolute trust in them, and even then, only in dire circumstances. "Better to lose my weapon than my cloak!"" -Aurelius, lecturing his granddaughter

Beacon

Yang, Ruby, and Weiss watched Professor Ozpin walk off the stage before Yang spoke up. "He seemed kind of… Off."

Ruby sighed before taking her eyes of the headmaster to glance at the other professor leaving, seemingly more focused on the old paper scroll in his hands than where he was going. "W-well, he was talking to Professor Bisman-"

"Who?" Weiss asked, glancing at the duo as they looked at each other nervously.

"He's… Well, he claimed that he's "Professor of Ancient History and Mythology" but I thought it was just a joke since he said he was searching for places to land on Draconys…" Ruby started before swallowing nervously at the name. "…But it looks like he was trying to explain something he found, so maybe Professor Ozpin was distracted by it?"

Yang let out a sigh before patting Ruby's shoulder. "Maybe, pup, but I think we should head to the ballroom before all the good spots are gone." With that, she almost dragged her sister out the door. Weiss let out a sigh before following.

Beacon's Historic Archives

Arthur Bisman let out a frustrated sigh as he stared down at the parchment in front of him. "Of course it had to be there didn't it?" He thought as he glared at the map of Draconys that most of his work was focused on. He couldn't remember how many days he'd spent tracking down the books, scrolls, and other texts needed for what Ozpin had requested, nor the countless hours spent reading over them and trying to find where each site they mentioned was on a continent that hadn't been explored in over two thousand years.

All along the edges of the map were various notes and seven different points along the coast were circled, all but one having an X through them along with notes about the failed expedition. Some simply vanished while for others only a few came back, spouting panicked and almost incomprehensible warnings before either dying or being put into heavy therapy and observation. "Whatever forced the people of Sanctuary off the continent must have been terrible…" His gaze returned to the newest spot, Point Refuge, sitting in the middle of the dreaded Leviathan's Gulf. While many people feared the continent, the Gulf was known to be almost certain death to anyone who sailed into it. Along map leading from the point were three lines, each with a note referencing a different text. "At least one of these was used by the people of Sanctuary to flee the continent through the Gulf, probably water too shallow for the Behemoth Leviathans to cross…"

He let out a sigh before rolling up the map. There wasn't much else he could do and he could already feel a headache coming. His thoughts drifted to tomorrow's initiation and he smiled. "Maybe looking at different maps will help me calm down. I might as well head over to Records," he thought before getting up and leaving the room.

Beacon Ballroom

Yang let out a sigh as she dropped to the floor next to Ruby. "It's like a big slumber party!"

Ruby looked up from the letter she was writing. "I don't think dad would approve of all the boys though…"

"I know I do!" Yang responded before seeing Jaune walk by footie pajamas. "…Some not as much as others."

"Can you two try to keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep!" Came a shout from nearby, causing Ruby to cast an apologetic glance at Weiss. The heiress had quickly learned that she had a number of fans in their group that weren't as willing to leave her alone a Ruby was, but found that they didn't want to get near the strange, yet friendly girl for some reason, leaving few choices of spots where she could actually sleep undisturbed. "If only her brute of a sister would stop yelling!"

Yang simply rolled her eyes before she glanced down at what Ruby was doing. "What's that?"

"A letter to the gang back at Signal, I promised to tell them all about Beacon."

"Aww that's so cuuuute!" Yang squealed before getting a pillow to the face from Ruby while Weiss put hers over her head.

"Shut up! I didn't get to take my friends with me to Beacon! It's weird knowing hardly anyone here!" Ruby let out a sigh as her ears drooped, laying back down on her cloak.

"Well… What about Jaune? He's… Nice. And then you have Weiss over here-"

"I only see the two of you as acquaintances," She responded coolly.

"Oh… Well, that's still plus one friend Rubes! That's a hundred percent increase!" Yang said as Ruby rolled over.

"I'm pretty sure people like that girl from the docks count as a"negative friend." Back to zero," she said sadly, ears flattened against her head as she looked around the room. "it's not like being a faunus on its own is easy, I'm two years younger so just about everyone thinks I'm some kind of genius or something, and with my secondary semblance-"

"Rubes, overthinking. Calm down." Ruby looked over at her sister for a moment before taking a deep breath. Yang smirked at Weiss. "So, what's your secondary Ice Queen?"

"Don't call me that! And why would I tell you?!" Weiss shouted in annoyance.

"Well, I know Ruby told you about one of her semblances, don't you think it'd be fair to at least give a hint to what yours is?"

Weiss glared at Yang, trying her best to ignore the tail saying in the background as Ruby turned her attention their way before letting out a sigh. "Fine, but I'm only going to show it to you once!" Weiss reached out to a nearby glass of water and put a finger against it. Ruby let out a shiver as she felt the temperature drop suddenly, her breath almost visible as the water froze instantly.

"W-wow Weiss, y-you can freeze things?" Ruby asked as Weiss wrapped herself up in a blanket.

"W-well, I can make the t-temperature of things drop, so yes. It's much harder when I don't have frost D-Dust to amplify the effect," Weiss shivered.

"Oof, temperature manipulation semblances are always harsh," Yang commented. "If it has anything to do with fire, you have to watch out for heat stroke or dehydration. I guess you have to worry about your own body temperature dropping too low, eh Ice Queen?"

Weiss glared at the Blonde while Ruby stared at the two wide-eyed. "S-shut up! Don't c-call me that!"

"What? It's not my fault that I didn't expect someone who gives people the cold shoulder would also have a literal heart of ice. Maybe that'd explain your… Frigid personality?" Yang was trying her best not to laugh before Ruby chimed in.

"At least she doesn't have to worry about getting fireproof hair products and making sure she doesn't get within five feet of anyone wearing cologne or hair spray when she's in a bad mood," Ruby said with a smirk as Yang went wide-eyed and jumped up, glaring at her sister with red eyes.

"Ruby! You swore not to mention that!"

The sound of a lighter drew their attention to a corner where the cat faunus from earlier was sitting, reading a book. "Oh, it's her…" Ruby went to put her head down before Yang responded.

"You know her?"

"She's the girl from the docks that I got in an argument with. She probably hates me for being too "irrational" in her opinion," Ruby said, rolling her eyes.

"Maybe we should fix that!" Yang said before grabbing Ruby's hand and dragging her up, leading to perhaps the most confusing thing Weiss had witnessed since arriving at Beacon.

As soon as Ruby realized what was going on, she immediately went to grab the cloak from under her, but failed to do so before she was dragged away. Weiss watched out of boredom until a look of absolute terror flashed across the faunus' face once her cloak was out of arm's reach before she struggled in her sister's grip. "Y-Yang! My cloak, stop! I can't just leave it sitting there!"

Yang looked over her shoulder in confusion. "Relax, Weiss will keep an eye on it, right, Ice Queen?" Weiss nodded slowly, still trying to process the sudden shift in Ruby's personality, and could tell Yang was in the same boat as her. Ruby looked at Weiss almost pleadingly as Yang continued to pull her along, the panic and fear still in her eyes as Yang marched over to the secret cat faunus. "Hellooo!" Yang called out as cheerfully as she could, still shaken by the previous event. Ruby stood next to her, glancing over her shoulder nervously occasionally as she shook. "I think you two know each other?"

The girl looked up at Ruby. "So, are you here to apologize for earlier?"

Ruby managed to calm down enough to respond. "Look, I didn't know that was a soft spot for you, okay? Can we please just move past it?"

The girl continued to glare at Ruby for a moment before glancing down at her book. "Fine…"

Yang glanced between the two nervously. Meanwhile Weiss was glancing between the still-shaking Ruby and her red cloak. "So… What's your name?" Yang asked.

"Blake, now can I get back to my book?" Ruby tuned out the rest when she felt a chill go down her spine, making her turn around with a whimper as she saw Weiss grabbing her cloak. Her panic faded away as Weiss walked over, holding the cloak out for the faunus.

"Here, you're starting to-" Weiss was cut off by Ruby snatching her cloak back with a relieved sigh, hugging it against her.

"I-it's okay. It's okay…" She said quickly before muttering under her breath, low enough that she hoped nobody would hear. "I'm okay…"

"What do you mean by that?" Weiss asked, causing Ruby to squeak.

"N-nothing! I didn't say anything, nothing's wrong, thanks Weiss! I'm going to go to bed now, good night!" Ruby rambled for a moment before rushing back to her mat, folding her cloak back up and laying on top of it while Weiss and Yang looked at her in confusion.

Weiss looked at Yang. "W-what was that all about?"

Yang threw her arms in the air. "How should I know? She's literally never let it out of her sight before. Even when it needs to be washed she refuses to leave the room while it's in the washer or dryer. Her mom, Summer, was the same way, I just thought it was some Rose tradition that parents make their children cloaks and they become a security blanket kind of thing!"

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "We should probably get to bed too, we have Initiation tomorrow after all…" With that, Weiss went back to her own mat, trying not to think about the growing enigma that was Ruby Rose and her family.

Next day, at the cliffs over the Emerald Forest

Ruby was not having a good day. After listening to Professor Ozpin explain the rules of the Initiation, she swallowed thickly. "This isn't good, the chanced I get paired up with someone that doesn't like me are so high…" She was drawn out of her thoughts as Ozpin gestured for Professor Bisman to step forward.

"To make this easier on everyone, I have been assigned the job of monitoring what happens and recording who each of you get paired with. If you try to cheat and keep looking after making eye contact with, I will know." He glanced around before continuing. "Now then, a bit of history and information about the area you will be traversing. The Emerald Forest has, as far back as records exist, been in a state of perpetual summer. It's believed that the ruins at its heart, which you will be traveling to, are part of the cause, leading to several other anomalies in the area, such as the repulsion of most larger Grimm. We don't know much about them and very few are alive who can translate the writing on it. As such, for the safety of Beacon and Vale, it is advisable you don't do any damage to the structure or area surrounding it."

He gestured at a screen nearby before an image of the ruins appeared. "However, any pair that is able to bring back seven or more unique pictures of the writing will be given extra credit worth a five point increase on your final grade for this semester. Anyone who somehow manages to bring back a correct translation, even partial, will get the equivalent of an A on a test added to their grade instead." He gave a subtle smirk as the screen changed to show an overhead of the forest with two areas highlighted, causing some confusion in Ozpin and Goodwitch. "Also, it might be worth noting that you want to avoid entering these areas before you have a partner. The only pairs that have been made in these areas have gone on to fall in love with each other and it's possible that this is another anomaly related to the ruins." The panicked cries of the students made him smile brightly before Ozpin sighed.

"Are there any questions?" Ozpin said before Jaune raised his hand. "We need to get the test started before Bisman can do anything else to stress this group out…" "Good, take your positions!" The first few students were launched off the cliff.

"U-um, so this landing strategy thing… Are you going to fly us out or something? D-do we get parachutes?" Jaune asked nervously.

"No, you will be falling and we expect you to use your own landing strategy." Before Jaune could respond he was flung into the air, screaming as Ozpin took a sip from his cup, following Professor Goodwitch into the observation center. "I hope you have a good reason for that, Arthur."

"You know that it takes too long or me to translate everything, too many steps to it. The only people who remember exactly what every word and glyph on that wall means are people who've been passing the knowledge down for generations. With a Rose here, we might actually have someone who could do that, and if that's the case we could accelerate the process greatly."

Ozpin sighed. "I don't disagree on that. I meant why did you make up that lie about there being two sectors in the forest that cause people who meet there to form a deep romantic attachment?"

Bisman shrugged, watching Ozpin take a sip from his hot chocolate. "Technically I didn't lie. The only people who ever got paired up in those areas in the entire history of Beacon were the members of team STRQ, and I'm sure you know how that went." He winced as Ozpin, caught completely off guard, sprayed his drink over two of the monitors. "Right, not like I need cameras 5 or 8 anyways…"

Ozpin rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Just get to work, and why do you have that meaningless poem here?"

Bisman shrugged before gesturing at the touchscreen monitor that took up most of the wall, tapping a few camera feeds in succession. "Ruby Rose, last living member of her family, haunted by memories of a departed mother. Weiss Schnee, a girl who carries a weight on her shoulders and hides her loneliness under an icy demeanor. Blake Belladonna, a cat faunus shrouded in mystery since she literally came out of nowhere and even you admitted to having no records of her. Yang Xiao Long, a girl with blonde hair that walks with a confidence many lack and has a semblance that could ignite anything she touches if she so chose… If she didn't use the strength aspect to turn it to rubble. I know you don't hold these obscure ancient writings in high regard, but I think we have a team that fits it."

"Any other predictions then?"

"Well, from what I can tell Nora Valkyrie seems drawn to Lie Ren, so most likely she'll go out of her way to hunt him down. As for Pyrrha Nikos…" He stopped to bring up a camera feed of her throwing her spear, saving Jaune from certain death. "…She may need to pair up with Jaune Arc in order to even recover her weapon, which may or not be intentional on her part."

Ozpin sighed. "Very well, but if any of them meet up in either of those areas, you will be the one to explain to them that you lied." He turned to watch the monitors. It was going to be a long day…

Well, this chapter's done, it was a bit tricky to write, so please give feedback.

For anyone that's looked at a map of Remnant, what I call the "Leviathan Gulf" will, for this story, be the body of water just south of the dragon continent of Draconys. In this, the area is teeming with Leviathans, hence the name, with a few relatively safe ways through.

Part of the sleepover scene is actually written to drive a point home: the little quotes at the top aren't just there for show, and not everything is as it seems in this story compared to canon.

Bisman might seem like a jerk, but it's worth noting that not everything is what it seems with him, as future chapters will show. His antics aren't meant to be malicious and each one is designed to teach a lesson while giving him a chance to unwind from his primary project.

I'm sure people will be able to guess what the STRQ reference was about. A few things in this, actually based off old writings tied to Sanctuary that were used as an opening for a song ("Red Like Roses," naturally) and the basis for another just because I thought it'd be interesting.

Let me know what you think with a message or review.