*Awkward Cough*
Uhh… hi?

Now with the pleasantries over with I'd just like to thank you all for waiting to enjoy the next chapter. I've been doing a lot outside of writing including but not limited to improving my narrative abilities.

I am still very much looking for an editor or at the very least a beta reader, so if you'd be interested in that please, please tell me.

Hopefully I won't give so much radio silence again, and I can work myself back into the regular groove of spitting out these chapters.

Now, I've got a really good feeling that I'll finally get the kids out of the Emerald Forest this chapter. What say you, future Kamiro? Did I manage to do it?

…

Amazing, I knew I could.

Oh, and if you haven't yet done so, go back and read the new prologue and redone chp.1 if you accidentally missed that on your way to read the new chapter.

The Story Thus far:

Having arrived at Beacon Academy, Ruby Rose along with her sister Yang made acquaintances with their fellow possible peers. After an introductory assembly and a night's rest, the examinees geared up and ventured into the Emerald Forest in search of satchels to complete their initiation exam.

Ruby found herself paired with Weiss Schnee, a girl that she did not get along well with the day before. After some scraps with the local inhabitants and some harsh exchanges, the pair began to regroup with their other friends. They found a relay point, but there were not enough satchels for them all to pass the exam. In a show of solidarity, they all resolved to stick together until they could all pass.

Following an ambush by another group of examinees looking for satchels, the Ruby expended almost all her aura boosting her semblance abilities to quickly navigate the forest to the next relay point. With a pre-emptive scout from Blake Belladonna and quick identification from Realien Greyhawk, the team was able to catch the ambush from a tier-III grimm, a Drythd. As they only just fending off the grimm's attacks, Ruby admitted that they should cut their losses and retreat, therefore failing the exam for those without satchels. Disagreeing with Ruby, Rea made a rallying speech that worked to inspire Ruby once again, and despite her injuries and lack of aura reserves, she prepared to stand and fight…

/

Vale, Emerald Forest Hunting Grounds: 22/06/137M, 12:33pm

Ruby, Yang, Rea, Nora, Weiss, Black, Tharum, Pyrrha, Mars and Jaune stood back-to-back in a kill circle, not letting an inch of their surroundings escape from them. Ruby's injured leg was still shredded from improper aura use, and after a long day the rest of them had blown through most of their ammunition. The only exceptions from this were Rea, who could get more of her custom magazines through her rift semblance, and Weiss, who had an exorbitant amount of evocation dust strapped to her body in holsters wherever she went.

And that was all they had in their fight against the tier III floromancer grim, the Drythd. Whilst currently avoiding the groups' collective senses entirely, they knew that it was lurking just beyond them like a hungry shark. They were a fresh meal for it after all, even if it could sustain itself on shadows.

"So… do we have a plan?" Jaune asked.

"Step one; kill it?" Yang suggested over her shoulder. She held her gauntlets up before her in a boxing stance, protecting a good deal of herself due to the size of the metal combat gloves.

"I think we'll need more than just." Weiss criticized.

"We need to consolidate what we know so far on it to formulate a strategy," Rea commanded. Having shifted out of her typical shy and withdrawn nature, Rea had begun to take command of the scenario now that she was in her element.

"Well, I think it's obvious that it can control plants," Mars said.

"And Jaune did point out that it's an ambusher," Pyrrha added.

"And I can't do anything until I get more aura back." Ruby pointed out.

Rea nodded to all the points made. "From what the recordings of this grimm type have said, it's unlikely that it'll leave us alone now that we've engaged with them. We could still try and get the satchels and then evac, but we'll be doing it all the while it tries to attack us."

There were a lot of noises from everyone that expressed their disinterest in that plan.

"Yeah, taking it head-on may be harder but it's also simpler." Rea agreed. "But we're down a fighter, and one of our two main frontliners, too."

"I could try and meditate to return my aura quicker, but I'd be a sitting duck," Ruby informed. "And I'm pretty sure that's what this thing would like."

"I could guard Ruby, but that'd leave me mostly indisposed," Yang suggested.

"What we need most is for the enemy to show themselves," Tharum said as he adjusted his grip on the sword he carried. "Seeing as it apparently bases its theme around plants, I'd suggest some sort of fire."

"Except the plants in the Emerald Forrest are resistant to fire." Weiss echoed what Pyrrha had said earlier. "And I only have so much blazis dust, certainly not enough to both burn through the resistance and cover a wide area."

Yang pouted in thought. "Ruby's Buzzcut could do better, but we'd be revisiting old points there."

"Wait, buzzcut?"

"It's the chainsword one."

"Oooh, that's neat."

Mars took in what everyone was saying and contemplated it. She was trying to strategize before making any suggestions of her own, but something came to mind that may help them."

"Wait, I have a switching semblance…" Mars began to postulate "I can swap the location of any similarly sized objects. It's what I do with my bola and grenades. If we have something I can switch the grimm with, then we can just wail away on it."

"But we still need to drive it out to work?" Blake guessed.

"…We still have to get it in the open, yes."

"Well then, we better get started." Yang declared. She rammed her two steel-covered fists together before rearing them back and making a commanding leap into the air before unleashing a torrent of lead that began to rip apart the foliage.

"You dumb brute! We hadn't agreed on a plan yet!" Weiss complained. Nonetheless, she also got to work cutting down the surrounding area beside everyone else as they had followed Yang's lead. The greatest contributor was Nora, with her explosive hammer blast that she somehow forgot to mention earlier when they were strategizing.

Just beyond the first wave of destruction, the Drythd lurked and observed its prey. Unlike lower rank grimm, a tier III such as a Drythd boasted a certain factor that made it distinctly more deadly than the tier I or II grimm. True, it had powers, but the real cause for caution around such a level of grimm was their intelligence. Whilst only rivalling less sapient animals, they still could formulate and enact strategies. Like how the current Drythd set up an ambush in the location it knew prey would come. And now, it was using that very intelligence to recognise that the cover it was using to hide literally inside, was becoming further away from its prey. And that would make catching them off guard increasingly difficult.

So, before the Drythd lost the majority of its advantage, it poked the top half of its body out of the grass to stay low and unnoticed. With a wave of its inky black and bony hand, a spiral of incredibly barbed trunks of wood blasted towards the group of prospective hunters. Only one hit its mark, catching Yang square in the cheek and causing her projection to reveal itself in a flash of yellow gold.

Having still felt the blow through the skintight personal shield, Yang rubbed the bruise that had manifested on her cheek.

Meanwhile, the other two branches were seen coming and dodged effortlessly by Pyrrha and Blake. Blake herself landed back on the new plantlife and pulled the trigger of her weapon, swinging it around to aim towards the origin of their latest assault. But that was half the Drythd's plan, as it had summoned the spiny weapons from the direction opposite itself, completely drawing the attention away from where it truly lay. This allowed it to summon a log by growing one right out of the ground and having it launch itself horizontally towards the teens.

"Look out!" Ruby shouted in warning, already trying to draw upon the aura to manifest any of her weapons. All she got was the glowing lines that appeared before her builds begin to stutter before dying out. With her unable to intercept the attack in time, Tharum pivoted around in front of Ruby to do so instead. Raising his blade up with the point tipped towards the earth, Tharum held the grip in both hands as he caught the grand momentum of the log in the blade. The Drythd had seemed to soften the log to an extent that it wouldn't simply be cut in half. This made it exceptionally hard for Tharum to catch it, even going so far as to have to raise one of his boots to the blunt of the blade simply to put more force on his sword made of swords. With the momentum at last arrested, Tharum let gravity pull the log back down to the ground before tugging his own weapon out of it. Shifting his left hand so that it now held the sword upwards again, Tharum turned his head back to check on Ruby.

"You okay?"

Ruby nodded, determined. Turning back as well, Ruby spoke her decision.

"I'm going to meditate! I'll be even more of a hindrance if I didn't!"

"That would be a welcome change of pace…" Weiss said.

"Did… did you just make a joke?" Mars said with a smile touching the corners of her mouth.

"Wha- I- No! Get back to fighting, you thug!" Wiess denied, mimicking a certain species of frontier reindeer and going red.

"Yeah, yeah, sure." The blonde fully smirked as she inverted her grip on the duel tonfa.

The impromptu team stood ready in a defensive position around Ruby as she meditated to produce more aura than the usual trickle that all Hunters generated automatically. But the appealing target of an entirely unmoving and unalert foe was too great a chance for the Drythd to pass up. And so, the entire forest exploded into pandemonium.

Attacks began to erupt from every direction; lashing vines, striking thorns, swinging logs, tangling grass, and even exploding puffballs at a few points. It came from everywhere, and the team as only just keeping up with the onslaught. Slices, blocks, punches, skewers, and many, many bullets were the only defence that the would-be students had against their imminent death by plants. Every so often the wave of attacks was punctuated by the destructive force of Weiss' refined element dust attacks or some of the flashier semblances on display. Weiss' glyphs, Rea's every so often rift, and shadow clones manifesting from Blake's semblance all began appearing more and more frequently as the battle grew longer. Yang's semblance, a retaliatory one, was being held back to be used to grant the best leverage, and Mars used her semblance in far smaller increments than the others. None of the teens were familiar enough with one another to suddenly and unexpectedly swap places.

More than one attack tried to snake its way around the team's defences and strike the vulnerable Ruby, but this never succeeded as more than one of the comrades were keeping an eye out for such attacks. They were usually deterred by a swift buckshot from one kind of shotgun or another. But each time they made their attempt, they got ever so closer to their prize.

"Ruby! I hope you're done soon because these weeds are getting a little too close for comfort!" Yang called to her sister. She said this whilst sidestepping a ramming branch and reducing it to splinters with a punch before it could release any more attacks.

"I'm almost done!" Ruby replied, her face scrunching up in retained focus.

"Uh, I'm going to have to agree with your sister, Ruby." Jaune panted. "These things are getting a little too unfriendly for my liking!"

"Understatement of the generation!" Mars shouted. She brought both tonfas down on a vine that had wrapped itself around Nora's ankle.

"Ah! Thanks, Blonde girl two!" Nora thanked, still having not bothered with the effort of learning anyone's names. Mars just rolled her eyes as Nora returned to blowing up the animate plants with her hammer.

"Okay, I'm ready!" Ruby quickly announced, having finished her meditation and gathered enough aura not to have to worry about running out in the upcoming battle. Immediately after saying this, Ruby's arms began glowing with green circuit-like lines. With the clanking of heavy metal together, mechanical forms began to burst out of the red girl's arms. Everyone that was expecting the girl to use her usual opener of BDGs were immediately surprised when two matching scythe-like weapons were attached to her arms in place of her hands. These were the weapons ruby had been developing far before she had ever even obtained her semblance, and were one of her most precious creations.

They were her Crescent Roses.

To be more accurate in their appearance, they mimicked something akin to mantis claws. The blade heads could extend and rotate as needed when used to slash and slice whatever they were put towards. They were an incredibly flexible weapon from the point of attacking, being able to manoeuvre into just about any position that was needed to get past one's defences.

With Ruby back in the fight, the slowly turning skirmish performed an almost complete flip in tides. As before, the resources of the hunter teens was being slowly whittled away by the Drythd's unending attacks whilst in turn, the teens had no opportunity to return favours. Ruby, now no longer pushing the limits of her strength and abilities, had a far vaster pool of resources to dip into. She immediately got to work, repowering the mechanical improvements she had made to her own body that had lay dormant when she was bordering on complete aura exhaustion.

…what? Ruby was never told that she couldn't make machines inside of her body. It was only logical.

But with now all pistons firing, Ruby hacked and slashed through the animate shrubbery that had almost appeared to redouble its efforts, to little effect. Not to sit idly by and twiddle their thumbs, the rest of the group didn't even falter in their work, not stopping for a moment in their wide and varied forms of attack. Their own resolves empowered now that their previously vulnerable ally had finally returned to the fray.

"Wow, Ruby. Mind if I get a five-minute siesta?" Mars asked, using the Callian phrase for rest.

"Ngh! I'd love to Mars, but I think we're a little busy." Ruby grunted back. She pushed a vine away with the doubled effect of cutting it to ribbons.

"I'll be honest, I'd love a shower right now. There is too much sap in these things." Yang complained as she.

"Uh, not to ruin the party, but can we get back to how our only plan so far is; to catch it in the open and then use Mars' semblance?" Jaune pointed out, his restrained panting not unnoticed.

"Good point," Rea admitted. "This is just a war of attrition, one that the Drythd has the clear advantage by avoiding direct confrontation."

Ruby nodded in agreement. "We can last a little longer now that I'm back in. But we need to flush it out – I'll need to use BackBlast."

"Backblast?" the majority of the group instinctually asked in confusion. This confusion did not abate even when ruby called back Crescent Roses and instead created a rectangular backpack with a pipe coming out of it that connected to a bulky, cylindrical arm cannon that formed around Ruby's left fist.

"Fire in the hole!" was all the warning Ruby gave before she began to fire grenade after grenade into the forest just beyond their recently expanded clearing. Explosions of scarlet fire appeared shortly after where the grenades landed, the slight delay in their timers giving brief pauses between eruptions of noise and force. As Mars could vehemently attest to; Using an explosive ordinance was typically the best way to weed out hidden enemies. And weed out the plant using grimm it did.

When a manifested grenade of Ruby's came a little too closely for the Drythd's comfort, it determined that the battle was soon going to turn out of its favour. It would retreat for now, giving the teens a reprise and sense of safety before returning to finish them off with another ambush. Before it immediately fled, however, it made sure to unleash one of its deadlier attacks to cover its tracks. A barrage of raking claw slashes from all directions would do it.

"There! Over there!"

With but a moment of pause and confusion, the Drythd found itself almost directly in the middle of all of the to-be hunters. The only clear absence was the blonde boy. Reacting as quickly as it could, the grimm twisted around the weapons being swung towards it. Or, it would have if the massive swords sword of Tharum leafcutter hadn't bitten into it, already in motion before anyone even reacted. It was such a speed that it even surpassed typical superhuman levels that were common among hunters. But even such a blow by a weapon of that size did not wound the tier III grimm enough to kill it.

Neither did the crunching uppercut courtesy of Yang's Krono Prometheus that sent it arcing in the air to the far side of the clearing.

"We've got it now! Come here, Mr Planty!" Nora grinned like a maniac. She raised her blast hammer and charged forth.

But the Drythd wasn't done yet, not by much, but still not yet. It began by confusing the examinees and sinking its body back down into the grass, allowing the charging Nora to fly over it. But the prior confusion soon turned to worry when a titanic fist of wood pulled itself out of the nearby dirt.

"Uhhhhhh… Rea? What the fuck?" Mars asked as she stared, transfixed by the next part of the wooden body uprooting itself.

"I-I, u-u-uh… i-it looks l-like it's m-m-making a g-golem body for itself?" Rea returned to stammering. Not that she was scared, mind you, simply because she was so utterly embarrassed that she never predicted this when she was the only one with any sort of knowledge of the creature. The friends had to start backing away from the emerging body as it just kept coming, the construct revealing itself to be even bigger and bigger.

It took a whole minute for the full body to emerge from its earthy origin. Now towering over its enemies and rising about the forest canopy, it leaned back and let out a screeching roar to emphasize its new power. It was not even close to the tier IV grimm and their nickname 'titans', but it certainly cut an imposing figure as it cast its shadow over the emerald-green leaves of the likewise named forest. Finished with its intimidation, the Drythd moved to offensive tactics and swung its right arm like a wrecking ball with the intention of bringing it down on top of the squad.

"Scatter!" Pyrrha called to her friends.

✇ARwIT✇

"Whoa there!" One of the on-duty hunters exclaimed. He along with many of his fellows was contracted to be the monitors to the annual Beacon City Academy initiation. It was a routine activity that more than most hunters were happy to do, honouring their roots and remembering when they had to take the exam, some more than a few times.

But every year there seemed to be some kind of unexpected event in one form or another. One year it was an all-out war between two sides of examinees, another it was a surprise population boom in the local Forgefruam. These events did on occasion include something grimm-related but seeing as how regulated their population was in the Emerald Forest, it was a far rarer type of thing to happen.

When a Drythd suddenly created the organic equivalent of a mech suit, it was something that was a certain surprise to all watching.

"Uh, should we step in for that?" Markis, a first-timer to the duty of initiation monitoring, asked his squad head.

The squad head in question, Damerius, waved a hand in declination. "No, ol' Oz is clear that we only intervene if it is clear that the students' lives are in danger or they send up their flares." He paused to grunt. "On that note, we should probably bring the ship in, we might be getting the latter soon if they're smart."

Nodding his acknowledgement, the pilot turned back to the controls and set a course towards the new living landmark.

✇ARwIT✇

As much as everyone tried to adhere to Pyrrha's warning, it wasn't enough time for them all to move before the arm of redwood size was impacted. Dirt, plants, and teens went flying everywhere like an explosion had just gone off directly under them. Fundamental aura projection techniques dealt best against small-high impacts, and slashing attacks. One giant blunt attack was significantly more difficult to mitigate with the forcefields due to how the field itself could potentially harm the user if enough force was applied, therefore bludgeoning its own user.

Tumbling across the ground, it was only Pyrrha, Tharum and Blake who managed to land upright. This was due to how they prioritized the more acrobatic nature of the enhancement techniques. This still left the larger part of the group battered, bruised, and what some could certainly feel, broken.

"Ahhh... My rib." Someone complained from a faceful of dirt. The blow certainly did its job and scattered the team, clearly establishing that the fight had shifted into a new phase. One where the cat and mouse had exchanged places and the grimm had established itself on the sturdy offence, rather than a thorny defence. Its giant form was definitely a deadly tool on the battlefield, as the teens quickly found out how it retained the abilities of its pilot, sending out lacerating vines from the torso just as well as it swung its arms like a spilled train car of lumber.

"Okay!" Mars shouted as everyone resumed fending off attacks, "This might be a problem!"

"It might be one?!" Blake, Weiss and Jaune all shouted in incredulity.

"Fine! It's definitely a problem!"

Across the clearing and with Buzzcut raised, Ruby studied the new situation. The altered form of their enemy had traded its dexterity and stealth for far greater attack and to some extent a defence. It was much more of an easy target to both hit and shoot, but its primary wooden body of it proved to be highly regenerative. In fact, it didn't even seem grimm, the only part of that left was the disproportionate head that sat atop the massive body.

"Guys! The head! If we can get up there, we can attack it!" Ruby shouted in revelation.

"How would we do that?" Tharum asked.

"We could try climbing!" Nora suggested. As if to try and prove her point, she used enhancement to strengthen her legs when making the next leap onto the leg of the Drythd armour. Nor then began to scamper up the body like she was some kind of lizard or gecko, making a few observing her wonder if she was a faunus or not. But in the end, she didn't get very far when not too long after she had begun her endeavour, a bundle of vines grew out just above her, blocking her path before swatting her violently back down to the ground. "Owww…" Nora complained, feeling that she had probably broken another bone.

"So probably not climbing then," Blake said dryly.

"What we need is to get up there fast," Mars said. "Ruby, you can fly. How about you get up there?"

Ruby shook her head. "I can't accelerate fast enough in so little space; I'd get caught before reaching it and that's if I could even land. Not to mention that even though I'm topped off, I've still got to conserve my aura a little bit. What we need…" She glanced around "...is a mancannon. One of us can get launched up to it with enough speed to land a big attack and then get out. Me or Yang would be the best bets with Krono Prometheus and Beatdown Gauntlets, maybe Mars or Nora too."

Yang tapped her chin in thought. Looking around at her friends swiftly, (her main focus still on staying alive,) the gears in her head began to turn. Looking back to Ruby she nodded and made the decision she had quickly debated over.

"Well then, it's up to you little Red!" Yang smiled. Grabbing her little sister, she hoisted her up with both hands and positioned Ruby in a crouching position level with her own shoulders.

"Wait! Do I get a choice?!" Ruby asked hurriedly.

"Not anymore! Get ready everyone!"

Yang heaved like she was launching a vertical shotput, pumping as much aura into enhancing her arms and putting her gauntlets into overdrive. The result was like a cannon from an airship had gone off, firing Ruby off towards the target. Seeing it coming rather easily, the Drythd began to swing its arm with the grace of a giant in an attempt to swat Ruby away like it had done to Nora when climbing. Ruby was about to brace for impact, almost bringing up a build to cushion the collision, when a crack like glass appeared in the air. Out came Rea, twisting in the air for her feet to meet with Ruby's, without even needing to communicate they both crouched as they met one another and then each of them pushed away. This launched Ruby at an angle far enough to continue climbing as well as avoid the incoming hammering of wood. Rea fell back into another one of her rifts, safely extracting herself.

Not done with Ruby, the Drythd began growing even more thorny vines to thwart her ascent. This time, somewhat surprisingly, it was Weiss who offered her assistance to Ruby. Summoning a barrage of glyphs, three of them stopped the vines cold as they bundled against the solid barriers. One more glyph apparated along Ruby's trajectory and gave her a new springboard since Rea's helpful intervention right before had unfortunately taken out some of Ruby's momentum. This new platform allowed Ruby to make a pair of Big Kicks and use them to launch herself even higher, since just a regular jump wouldn't have helped her even with aura enhancement.

Through, the second swing from the other arm of the Drythd turned out not to be as easily dodged and came as a far greater surprise. Without any help from Rea this time, Ruby was forced to tank the attack with both the pre-existing Big Kicks and a new pair of BdGs. Ruby held tight as she rode the arm until it reached the climax of its swing, where she then leapt up and away from it like some kind of cyborg frog person. Now that she was in the air and away from the grimm Ruby could consider herself relatively out of danger, but on the other hand, she was now horribly out of position and had no way of launching herself back in at such a speed that the Drythd would not have time to react.

Her scrambling mind was silenced, however, when a log about the size of a person shot up just beside her. Before Ruby could process just why there were suddenly flying logs for some reason or another, the log blurred for a moment before it turned into Nora. 'Mars' Semblance!' Ruby exclaimed in thought. Next to her, Nora was flashing the biggest grin Ruby had ever seen.

"Batter up!" the redhead called, turning her blasthammer around so that the discharge barrel faced away from Ruby. Ruby's eyes widened when she realized what Nora was about to do.

'She can't be serious!' Ruby thought.

Nora clenched the lever for discharge.

'She's serious!' Ruby screamed internally. Not having any more time to waste, she shifted around and prepared to get smacked by Nora and get shot directly at the Drythd's prime body. The tell-tale sound of the explosion was accompanied by a concussive wave of force, swiftly after the hammer Ruby had been ready for collided with her feet. Ruby crouched her legs as the hammer swung into her, lessening the impact to a point that wasn't just going to break her legs.

The desired effect was accomplished, however, when Ruby went straight for the regular-sized head of the beast that had been harassing them for the past, what was it? Hour? That didn't matter to anyone right now. All that mattered was the sight of Ruby's raised fist, coated in the devastating gauntlet of red and silver metal, colliding straight into the bothersome grimm. It was a glorious sight, as wood splintered all around and the Drythd could be clearly seen to be hit like it had collided with a runaway train. The only noise was the victorious battle cry Ruby had let out as she punched the Tier III grimm with all her might. It had been a combination of just the right people, just the right skill, and an incredible amount of luck, but they had pulled through in the end, and had accomplished an amazing feat of overcoming an enemy far tougher than any could brave alone.

But they still had to finish the exam…

✇ARwIT✇

Vale, Beacon City Academy: 22/06/137M, 07:05pm

The microphone atop its stand crackled as Professor Ozpin approached and tapped it a few times to test the quality. Satisfied, he launched into his speech to his brand-new students that had passed the entrance exam.

"Congratulations! Everyone! For making it through this year's entrance exams! And becoming the next generation of students at Beacon City Academy! I truly have the highest of hopes for each and every one of you, that you may become the greatest defenders the likes of humanity have ever seen. There are now many paths before you, and we here at the academy will do the best it can to help everyone here to achieve the best possible path for them. Now, as many of you have been anticipating, your teams have been decided!"

An eruption of both cheers and murmurs flooded the packed auditorium. All voices rang with anticipation as to who would be assigned to which team.

"But I think I'll let you all discover that on your own. When you were asked to retrieve your satchels, you were asked to preserve the items inside. You may have also noticed that upon completion of the exam, we never asked anyone to hand them back. In fact, we indicated you to keep a hold on them. I'd like you all to take out the contents of your bag."

Doing as they were told; the new students took out a firm card that looked as if it were made of either sturdy glass or extremely reflective plastic. Many students turned the card around and over in an attempt to inspect what it really was. Surprised gasps began to pop up around the room, reacting to the sudden transformation of their cards.

Ruby was standing towards the back. With her was most of her new friends; Yang, Rea, Mars and Jaune stood together and were just as surprised when their cards rippled and changed appearance. Ruby followed suit and looked down at her own. On it, an image of her shoulders up sat to one side of the card whilst the other held a small variety of information listing what Ruby deciphered to be her personal details.

'These must be our student IDs!' Ruby realized at just about the same time everyone else began to.

"As you can see, these are your new identification cards," Ozpin confirmed the collective thought of his students. "If you happen to break or lose these, then you may request a replacement at the front office. Now, how does this relate to your team assignment, you ask? Well, on your cards it should say the team you are assigned to. Since no formal names have been given out, all of yours will be listed as a number for now. There are five members to a team, and I would recommend getting to know each other well since they will become your comrades for the remainder of your life here at the academy, and even possibly beyond. Team reassignment will be extremely rare, and only a handful of reasons will call for such action, so please refrain from asking just because you didn't get everyone you wanted on your team.

"I should also mention that team captains will have the appearance of their cards to be slightly different than the rest of their peers. If you were selected as a captain, then I expect you to hold the mantle high, as it will be you who your team looks to when the hardest decisions must be made. I will now leave you all to get to know your new teammates! If you have trouble finding your entire team, I suggest moving to your shared dorm rooms and rendezvousing there. The last few things I shall say is that tomorrow will be an extended orientation day, followed by the weekend. I expect you all to use this time to prepare as proper classes begin the following week. You may also submit team names before the end of next week, please think hard about this as these names will be with you for possibly a long time. If you do not submit a name, you will be left with the team names you already have."

A grin bloomed across Ozpin's face. "I look forward to seeing how high all of you soar."

And with a wry smile and no fanfare, Professor Ozpin walked away from the mic and off of the stage. With his absence, the auditorium once again erupted into noise.

"Sooo… what did you guys get? I'm on Team Seven." Yang asked, breaking their group's little silence.

Ruby looked down at her card and let out a whoop when she saw the number 7 in the description of her assigned team. "I'm on Seven too!"

"U-u-uh, I-I am t-too…" Rea stuttered. She had begun to resume her usual habit as soon as they had disembarked from the Emerald Forest.

"I'm on team eight. Sorry girls." Jaune said.

"Hey, I'm on team Eight too. Can't escape me that easily, scrub." Mars teased. Then she flashed a feral grin to her friends and showed them her card, which had a red border on the top. "And looking at this, I'm pretty sure I made team Captain!"

"Aw, way to go Mars!" Yang congratulated.

Ruby would have congratulated her new friend too, but a pit in the bottom of her stomach had suddenly appeared. Her card also had a red border on the top.

Ruby was the captain of the currently named Team 7. She gulped.

Oh no.

If you see any mistakes I've made, please tell me so that I can fix them.

Till next time!