Next up is Yang and Blake, with the arrival of all the teams at the temple just to get things moving a bit. I hope you guys enjoy.

Chapter 6: Light and Shadows

"While knowledge must be shared, there are some truths that are best kept in the shadows." -Aurelius to the other members of the Second Triumvirate, defending his refusal to discuss his discoveries in regard to Dust

With Yang

Yang smiled as she flew through the air, firing of blasts from Ember Celica to propel herself forward toward the temple. Unlike the rest of the group, she had a more relaxed plan. "Most of the others are probably going to try to pair up on the way to the temple, so if I land nearby and wait, whoever I run into on their own near it has to be a decent fighter, right?" She saw a clearing a short distance ahead and flipped around, firing off a few blasts to slow down before tucking into a roll as she hit the ground with a grin. "Nailed it!" After a moment to dust herself off, she started jogging towards the temple ruins before a growl caught her attention.

As she turned around, she came face to face with a pair of Ursa, causing her to grin. "Oh, are you guys looking for a fight now?" She clenched her fists and stepped into a fighting stance, ducking under a claw swipe from one of the Grimm before throwing a punch at it, pushing it back before she stepped out of the way of the other. "Geez, you guys couldn't hit broad side of a ba-" Yang watched a few strands of blonde hair drift down in front of her as her vision went red.

With Blake

Blake jumped off a clone as she approached the ground, using it to get into a tree before looking around. "I need to be careful who I run into. The heiress, Weiss Schnee, is someone I will never work with, even though I've already left the White Fang. Working with that Yang girl might be manageable considering who her sister is… But working with a Rose is suicide if she finds out I'm ex-White Fang." She shuddered as she remembered stories from her time with the Fang about the family and their hatred for anyone who deliberately injured an innocent. "And with how widely the Fang attacked… It'd be a lie to say I haven't hurt people…"

Her thoughts were cut short by a scream and explosion before the tree under her collapsed, forcing her to jump out of it and take cover. As she looked into the clearing ahead she saw a single Ursa backing away from Yang. "Nobody fucking touches my hair and gets away with it!" She roared before slamming a burning fist into the Ursa's face, causing it to explode in a fireball, causing Blake to pale.

The cat faunus looked around nervously. "I-I should probably get out of here before she decides to level everything…" Unfortunately for Blake, she was standing between Yang and the ruins, meaning the moment she stepped out from cover the blonde turned, and enraged red eyes met nervous amber for a moment.

Yang blinked as she noticed the girl in front of her, or more specifically the bow on her head twitch. She smiled as her eyes returned to their normal lilac. "Hey there, kitty cat," she said cheerfully as Blake went wide-eyed.

"H-how-"

"Bow twitch, it's kinda easy to see when you spend enough time watching how a faunus' ears react to things. Not sure why you hide it though," Yang said with a shrug.

Blake let out a sigh before looking around. "L-look, I need you to promise that you won't tell anyone ok? I know you grew up around at least one Rose, so you have to understand that sometimes people don't like to talk about their past, right?"

Yang looked at her and let out a sigh. "Alright, fine. I don't know what your reasons are exactly, but I can respect that at least." She waited until Blake relaxed before continuing. "You'd better not eat all the tuna though, otherwise this could be the purr-fect partnership."

Blake glared at the girl. "Okay, that's enough."

Yang grinned. "Nope, I'm going to milk the cat jokes for all they're worth while I can. We're going to be the most paw-pular duo in Beacon!"

Blake sighed before rubbing her forehead. This was going to be a long four years.

Observation Area

"Seventh pair is confirmed: Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long. Eighth pair is confirmed: Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie," Bisman droned on, a look of acceptance on his face.

"I'm not sure who I feel sorry for the most. Ms. Schnee for being paired with someone as unpredictable as Ms. Rose, Ms. Nikos for being stuck with Mr. Arc, Ms. Belladonna for being paired with Ms. Xiao Long, Lie Ren for being stuck with Ms. Valkyrie, or you for having to explain to six individuals why you lied to them in a way that doesn't lead to your demise," Professor Goodwitch stated, glaring at the man as he stared at the monitors.

"Don't worry, I've already written out my will. I doubt there's going to be a body to find if they do kill me, of course…"

Ozpin took a sip from his cup. "Perhaps you'll learn not to do things like this to people who are training to fight the most dangerous creatures in existence."

"Well, that's debatable…"

With Ruby and Weiss

Laughter filled the forest as Ruby stopped during her story to take a breath. Weiss, trying desperately not to smile, let alone laugh, was watching as her partner waved her hands wildly as she continued the story. "T-this was maybe the fifth time Yang did this too! When everyone found out, w-we all joked for a while about how she learned to speak mummy! B-but the best part was when she got home from school the next day a-and found out dad bought a big, industrial freezer for her to practice control of her semblance's flame aspect a-and told her if she didn't "chill out" she'd be in big trouble!"

"Oh god, t-that's insane. H-how much damage did she do?"

"I don't even know, dad refused to tell me and nobody at Signal was willing to talk about it!" Ruby burst out laughing after this.

Weiss took a moment to gasp for air before she glanced at Ruby. "Maybe the next four years won't be so bad after all." "S-so why the freezer?"

Ruby held up a finger and took a minute to catch her breath before responding. "Apparently if someone has a semblance that has to do with temperature manipulation or an aspect of it involves that, the best way for someone to train is to put them in an area that naturally has a temperature at the opposite extreme or something made to do that, like a freezer or sauna. The idea is that practicing in a freezer or a sauna lets you train longer with your semblance before you start to suffer from the effects of your semblance, such as heat stroke or hypothermia respectively. This gives you more time to work on both controlling what it does to everything else as well as regulate your own body temperature while you're using it. You could even do it in a normal room if the building has strong enough climate control."

Weiss nodded, filing the information away for later. "That's… Actually a good idea now that I think about it… The temple is this way, right?" Ruby blinked before looking around, causing Weiss to sigh.

"M-maaaaybe? Hang on, let me take a look, I'll be back in a sec." With that, Ruby jumped into the nearest tree, using her speed semblance to get up faster before looking around. "U-umm, don't get too mad Weiss, but we've been going the wrong way." She called out before dropping down next to her partner.

"Of course we were… It's going to take forever to get there now…"

"Actually… If you're feeling brave, I have an idea," Ruby said, watching a giant Nevermore circling overhead. Weiss looked up and let out a whimper.

"I'm going to hate this aren't I?"

"Maybe, but who knows, it could be fun."

"How long would it take to walk there?"

"About half an hour if we're lucky. Maybe ten minutes by Nevermore if it decides to cooperate or we manage to figure out how to make it move where we want."

"And let me guess, you think you can do that."

"Yep," Ruby grinned excitedly. "I'm sure it'll be fun!"

Weiss sighed. "Let's just go before I change my mind…"

With Jaune and Pyrrha

"I have no idea where we're going…" Jaune muttered as he wandered aimlessly through the forest, Pyrrha in tow.

"Jaune, relax, we can't be too far from the temple," Pyrrha said as they passed a certain cave. "There's nothing to worry about. We'll get a relic and then we'll officially be students of Beacon."

"That's easy for you to say, you're some national champion right? I-I can't compete with that. All I wanted when I came here was to learn how to fight, keep people safe, and maybe find a nice girl to settle down with… I mean, I was thinking of maybe that Weiss girl, but I think Ruby's mad at me for not knowing who Weiss was, and for some reason that's very, very scary…"

Pyrrha looked at him with a light smile. "Well, maybe you just need to look in a different place, or if you're determined, try to learn about her."

"Y-yeah… Maybe you're right Pyrrha. Thanks for the advi-" A loud crash echoed behind them before they turned around to see a massive scorpion behind them. "U-uh… Pyrrha, what's that thing?"

Pyrrha spins Jaune around before pushing him into the woods, weapon in hand as she started moving. "It's a Deathstalker. No matter what happens, keep moving!"

"O-okay!" Jaune cried out as he started running.

With Nora and Ren

"Reeen, are we there yet? I'm boooored…" Nora said with a dramatic sigh.

"Nora, we've only been walking for ten minutes."

"It feels like it's been so much longer though!"

"Nora… Try to have patience, the last thing we need is for you to be distracted and we get-" Ren was interrupted as an Ursa charged into the clearing.

"Oooh, an Ursa! I wanna ride it!" Nora cheered before jumping on top of it, grabbing the sides of its head and yanking it from side to side to force the Ursa to do what she wanted before directing it in the direction of the temple.

"Nora, wait!" Ren shouted before chasing it down, having no choice but to grab onto one of the spikes on its back if he wanted to keep up. He spent the next few minutes hanging on for dear life, desperately trying not to get impaled on a spike as Nora wildly twisted the Ursa from side to side.

With Blake and Yang, at the Temple

"Looks like this is the place," Yang said as they walked into the ruins, Yang taking out her scroll to snap pictures of the walls.

"Do you really think anything Professor Bisman said was serious? He came across as a joker, so how do we know his extra credit promise is real?" Blake said as she looked around.

"Well, if he was going to mess with us, wouldn't he do something more complicated? A scavenger hunt or something? Not make up a "if you take pictures of this place you're going to anyways, you get extra credit, just don't get partnered up in these areas" lie…" Yang looked around as Blake started taking pictures too, grabbing a white knight. "How about a cute pony?" She shouted across the building cheerfully.

Blake rolled her eyes with a smile. "Sure…" At that moment a roar came from overhead.

With Ruby and Weiss

"Ruby! Do you even know what you're doing?!" Weiss shouted as she held onto the Nevermore for dear life while the cloaked faunus carefully moved along the back of the giant Grimm, occasionally hitting a spot with the end of Crescent Rose's handle to prod the creature to move how she wanted.

"It's fine! Don't worry! I figured it out a few minutes ago!" Ruby shouted, and it was true. Using her Analysis semblance, she had quickly learned where she had to prod the beast to make it move in any way.

"Are you sure?!"

"Positive! Just get ready to jump, okay?"

Weiss sighed. "I don't have a choice do I?!"

"Nope! Get ready…" Ruby glanced down and stopped to judge the landing area before deciding it was too small for her liking. "Hang on, this'll be safer!" Ruby shouted before grabbing Weiss and flinging herself off the Nevermore with the screaming heiress. "Focus Ruby, you can do this… Just focus on dispersing…" Her cloak disintegrated into a cloud of petals that surrounded the duo. "Cancel the air currents… And create an updraft to slow us down before we die." The petals swirled around them, the wind moving with them as they slowed to a stop before quickly returning to Ruby and rebuilding her cloak.

While a wide-eyed Weiss stared at her partner, Ruby dropped to her knees and took a deep breath, feeling as if all the air had been sucked from her lungs. "Oh gods, if that's what I'll have to deal with to master this aspect I'm going to need to use Analysis to speed it up. It's too risky to use that part of it in a fight right now…"

"Ruby? W-what was that?" Weiss asked as her partner caught her breath.

"P-part… Of my… semblance… is related to wind," the faunus gasped between breaths.

Weiss wanted to ask her partner about what she had seen, but hesitated. "Her cloak literally fell apart and turned into rose petals… What the hell is going on? But… She wants me to trust her right? Maybe this is just a Rose thing and if I'm lucky she'll tell me eventually…"

"Did your sister and Weiss just fall out of the sky in a cloud of rose petals?" They heard a voice asked before someone squealed and Ruby found herself crushed into a hug.

"Rubes! You finally did it didn't you?! You can finally say you've made progress on every part of your semblance now! I'm sooo proud of you!" Yang squealed, unaware of Ruby turning blue.

"Y-yang… K-killing me… Need…"

"You brute! She looked like she was suffocating when she stopped! Let her breath!" Yang paled and let Ruby go, causing the girl to drop to her side and pant heavily.

"I-I'm soo sorry Rubes! I got excited!"

"I-it's… Okay… Yang…" Ruby wheezed.

Shortly after Ruby managed to catch her breath and wander into the temple, a roar ripped through the forest before a Ursa broke through the treeline with a girl on its back. "Woohoo! Yeah!" The girl twisted the Ursa's head roughly to the side with a crack before it dropped to the ground causing her to jump off while a boy climbed off, panting heavily. "Aww, it's broken…"

"Nora…" the boy panted heavily. "Please, don't do that again…" He looked up to find his partner and longtime friend missing.

"Ooooh!" Nora quickly picked up a white rook she found in the temple before dancing around. "I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the castle!"

"NORA!" The girl was shaken out of her thoughts and grabbed the rook off her head.

"Coming Ren!" She skipped merrily over to her partner as Yang looked on, eye twitching while Ruby was more interested in the writing on the walls.

"Ancient Draconian…" Ruby said as Weiss walked in before turning to her, running her hand gently against the engraving. "This is the language the people of Sanctuary used, only a few people outside the Rose family even recognize it anymore."

Yang and Weiss looked at each other before Blake spoke up. "Um… I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention that, especially not a Rose." Ruby glared at her before sighing.

"I don't know much about my family's history, so I figure there's not much I can share that would do any harm."

Weiss stepped next to her before looking at the wall, scroll sitting forgotten in her hand. "Do you know what any of it says?"

Ruby hummed for a moment before pointing at a few spots on the wall. "There's a few names here. This word here is "Draconys," this is "Materia," one of the names for Dust. This is…" She paused for a moment, eyes wide before she took a step back. "…A-Aurelius, the Blue Rose…" She pulled out her scroll and set it to record, thankful that it had a high speed camera as she carefully swept the walls, getting what she could.

"Who?" Yang and Weiss asked simultaneously, the trio unaware of the Deathstalker that had just arrived.

"I've only heard his name once before myself, apparently he was one of the most knowledgeable of the Sages and a living legend for my family…" Ruby glanced to the side at her companions, a look of wonder in her eyes. "He was the first Rose, and if the way my mom sounded when she mentioned him, he was truly incredible."

Before anyone could say another word, Blake stuck her head into the building, followed by a panting and terrified Jaune. "We've got a problem," She said while Jaune grabbed a chess piece.

Ruby sighed and nodded before grabbing a piece. "I've got all of it, let's just get out of here before things get any worse!"

Observation Area

"The white knight and white rook chess pieces have been collected. White knight team pairs: Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee with Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long. Assigning team designation of RWBY. White rook team pairs: Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos with Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie. Assigning team designation of… JNPR." Bisman said, watching the chaos that was ensuing around the temple with interest. "I have no idea how two Grimm of that size were able to get this deep into the Emerald Forest though. I might need to redesign the models to come up with an explanation."

Ozpin nodded before turning toward the door. "Very well Mr. Bisman, just remember to inform team RWBY, as well as Mr. Arc and Ms. Nikos of your deception before the team assignment ceremony."

Bisman sighed. "I'll remember… Even though I hate this part of the joke…"

I was originally planning to make the trip to the temple be part of next chapter, but if I did that this one would have been about 1100 words long, counting the initial notes at the top and bottom. It didn't feel right to just make this one so short to me, so I decided to keep going.

For anyone curious, the freezer thing is meant to establish that Yang actually has full control over the temperature-manipulation aspect of her semblance, making her and possibly Blake (who probably uses her semblance far more often than the rest of their group) the only people on team RWBY that have a good enough mastery of their semblances to not suffer the downsides… Which may have a part to play later. It also obviously gives Weiss a way to practice her secondary. Expect a few fun moments from her in Volume 4.

At this point, Ruby has about the same control over the speed aspect of her Rose semblance as in canon at this time, but other aspects are at various points of mastery. The most dangerous aspect of her primary will be the wind aspect, which will leave her short of breath when she uses it. What Yang and Ruby think is a single aspect is actually two: control over wind/air currents, and the petals themselves.

The name "Aurelius" will have major power in this story. The fact that many of the quotes are tied to him in some way isn't a coincidence.

The title "Blue Rose" will have come up twice now, once in the quote for last chapter and again in this chapter. The Rose family puts a great deal of symbolism in the colors of roses, using them to deliver messages and their cloaks are always a color that represents their character and what drives them. While the Rose family is able to grow them, blue and black roses aren't found in nature and appropriately only one individual has ever had a cloak of either color.

There's going to be a few more bits and pieces added to the lore of this for semblances (such as the impact of elemental aspects in a semblance, what the difference between a semblance and an "aspect" of a semblance is, a general classification of them, and the strengths and weaknesses of each type) while many will be getting names, even ones from canon that are left mostly the same, so long as they didn't already have a name.

I'd like to apologize in case this isn't uploaded within a day of the last chapter. I'm afraid I might have crushed my thumb helping someone lift something before I started working on this. As far as the doctor saw, nothing's broken, but I've got it in a splint. Luckily, it's only one thumb and I've practiced typing with one hand in case I broke an arm or something, so when it comes to this (writing helps me calm down) it's only a minor inconvenience. Being able to write with both hands and this are useful skills to have honestly. Still, don't be surprised if I decide to take a break today or tomorrow. Once it heals up, my plan is a chapter every day if possible.