They were ready to start. Each and every one of them.
"Excuse me, sir." Nova heard a timid voice calling out as Professor Ozpin started to launch students from specially designed jump-pads, designed to launch fresh first year Beacon Academy students into the Emerald Forest. Shaking her head, Nova felt the jump-pad releasing, just as she watched as Ray was launched in the forest. Ray, for reasons unknown had put on his face some sort of pix-elated shades. "Up yours, Gravity" Ray shouted as Nova was launched into the air.
Shaking her head again as Ray's behavior, Nova twirled her hands and both the small wheels, full of Dust, cycled through the spin, before they both landed, as predicted, on the green Dust that was known as Wind Dust.
Using her Dust enhanced gloves, Nova blasted twice in quick succession in front of her, causing her to both blast a few treetops from their trunks, and to slow her self down. She quickly grabbed her whip and sliced through a third tree, and used the loss of momentum to whip her whip around an older tree and landed on a branch that was strong enough for her to stand on.
"That was fun." The purple haired girl said as she started to jump around, getting lower and lower until she hit the ground.
"Now, where to next?" Novas asked herself as she pulled her wand out of her sleeve and casted the four-point spell that she had learned in the time between arriving at Beacon in the past, and riding the airships.
The wand-point pointed towards a certain direction, so Nova nodded and canceled the charm, placed her wand back in the wand holster that she had on her right arm and started to walk in the direction that the wand had pointed.
Walking through the Emerald Forest, Nova Heart saw many types of things that she had known from her time as Ginny Goodwitch. There was an old impact crater, from someone who had used his semblance, invincibility, for a short while to 'land'. Some old paw-prints from an ancient Ursa that both Professor/Doctor Oobleck and Professor Port had killed, while it was terrorizing a class in detentions. Some tire-tracks, and ….
"What?" Nova asked herself as she looked again at the tire-tracks that were in the ground. According to what she knew, there were no cars allowed in the Emerald Forest. Her curiosity got just enough of her attention to follow the tracks that were going through the Forest, leading her away from the route she should be taking to get to the temple. She walked for what seemed hours, but it was only five minutes later that she came into contact with someone.
"Hello." A voice called from above, and as Nova looked up, she spotted the blond hair of Angel Star hanging on a tree branch, her jacket held up by Vixen who struggled to hold Angel up. "What the hell?" Nova asked as she spotted the scene. "How did you get up there?"
Angel smiled slightly. "Well. It's like this, Vixen and I collided with each other, thus making us partners when we looked in each others eyes. We did it a bit to long, and before we knew, we were stuck in this tree. Can you help us getting out of here?"
While Nova started to help Vixen to get Angel out of the tree, Ray was waiting for his partner to show up, but she didn't. He was also waiting at the ruins of the Emerald Forest, where he has on the circle of stones that were still held up by several columns. Having looked at the relics that they had to pick, Ray had picked out the golden King and Queen. Knowing that he and his friends needed to stay together, Ray had cast a small charm on the pedestals, fooling everyone that there were still a golden King and Queen standing there. It was only a charm to let them see. The moment that someone wanted to grab them, they would grab nothing but air, and the charm would fail.
Now, Ray was watching as four students, that Ray knew were to be the future team CRDL, ran out of the forest, followed by a pack of Beowolves. It seems that both Russell and Dove each grabbed a black bishop, before they helped Cardin Winchester and Sky Lark who were holding back the Grimm. Shaking his head at the swing of Cardin's mace and the swings of Russell's daggers, Ray almost wanted to jump down and show them how to handle the Grimm.
But then again, this future Team CRDL could use the extra fights. Their form was weak, sloppy, and overly drawn-out. Ray shook his head. Not that anybody could see him though. As a extra insurance, Ray had cast a disillusionment charm on himself, preventing anyone from seeing him.
As Ray watched how the future team CRDL started to demonstrate to each other how muscular they were, Ray received a message on his scroll. Opening the device, he saw that he got a message from Ozpin, kindly telling him to stop fooling around and 'Get to these coordinates.'
Knowing better than to disobey his father/headmaster, Ray stood up and canceled the Disillusionment charm, allowing him to be soon by the rest of the world.
"Weak form and rusty." Ray called out as he waved to CRDL. The four boys looked at the voice, just as Ray activated his aura in his feet, causing the Dust crystals in his feet to activate, giving Harry a massive boost. This gave Harry the ability to jump explosively in the air. And so Harry did.
The future team CRDL could only look at the flying youth as he flew away from them.
"Come on, we'll find the kid later, and show him what we can do" Said Cardin Winchester, as he lead the three others back to the cliff-side.
Meanwhile, Ray was jumping explosively in the air, using the momentum of the energy that the Dust crystals gave him to remain at a certain altitude. Each time that Ray used his aura, he would get another boost of energy from the Dust crystals. The funny thing about it was that this form on Dust/Aura manipulation didn't consumed any aura.
Holding his scroll tightly in his hands, Ray looked at it.
"Alright, this is the place." Ray said as he lessened his aura output, causing him to come lower to the ground. Ray looked around, and spotted Angel, Vixen and Nova working together, fighting Beowolves, and even a couple of Ursa minors. There was also an Ursa Major walking around.
"Not this time buddy." Ray said as he allowed himself to fall. During his fall, Ray pulled his two Tonfa's out of their sheaths, pressed a button on the handle of the tonfa's and two blades came from the end of it.
Still falling, Ray grabbed the shorter end of the tonfa's, giving him two short swords. Holding them in an inversed grip, Ray landed on the Ursa major, dealing a very hard blow to it, and slicing his two short blades in the Ursa's neck. The blow from Ray and the blades in it's neck, caused the Ursa to lose it's life. It created a large enough distraction for the other Grimm, for Nova, Vixen and Angel to jump into action. Twisting her wheels, Nova unleashed a terrible fire from her hands. Fire that burned through half the Grimm that had cornered them. With her semblance, Nova turned up the heat as she directed the heat directly into several Beowolves that were still standing, burning them from the inside out. Angel had used her hard-light generator to give her a heavy pistol, that she used to shoot any Beowulf that was standing. Her shots were powerful, and accurate, piercing every skull her weapon was aimed at. Falling back, Angel absorbed the pistol and created a short sword, a nanometer thick(*). She charged the last remaining Beowolf and jumped over it as the darkness lunged at Angel. Her blade cut the Beowolf right in half, splitting in two equal dead parts as she landed.
Vixen had jumped in the tree they had been at their back only a few seconds ago. With her bow, she was shooting at the several Ursa minors. Each arrow was filled with a high concentration of Dust, and Vixen shot them towards the area around the Ursai. As the arrows connected with the ground, they exploded, creating crystallize sculptures of the Grimm. Of course, it was much easier. The Dust the arrows had been in contact with, were of the Icy variant. So when exploding, they created a large area of ice Dust that froze everything it touched. In this case, the Ursai.
Vixen jumped back on the ground, folded her bow back into a blade and charged the frozen Ursai. With almost lightning speed reflexes, Vixen ran though the group of Ursai, cutting as she went along.
As she paused at the end of the group of Ursai, Vixen placed her sword/bow back into it's sheath that hung on her back, next to her quiver full of enchanted arrows. As the final 'click' was heard by the surroundings of the orange haired girl, the Ursai all lost their heads. Vixen had cut right though them, saving her the time that she had to fight the Ursai without ice Dust.
"So, got a message from the headmaster that I was needed here. What's this about?" Ray asked the three girls as he jumped of the Ursa major, and placed his Tonfa's back into the sheaths on his hips. The blades had been retracted before he even made a move to place them away.
"That's the problem" Said Nova as she pointed towards a large hunk of metal. Four wheels seem to be sticking out of it.
"A car?" Ray asked as he made his way to the hunk of metal. Looking closer, Ray could see several distinct features that made this car special.
The car was about fifteen feet long, seven feet in width and had a height of about six feet. It's wheels were monsters, each large enough to flatten a Ursa head in one go. It did seem to have seating for four, but with their frames, they could sit in it with five.
"Let's see what we have here." Said Ray as he walked to the front of the car and started to try and open the hood.
"Damn thing is stuck" Ray grunted as he let go of the hood. Grabbing one of the tonfa's from it's sheath, Ray activated the blade and was about to place the blade in the hood, when a small 'click' was heard. Ray looked up, and saw Angel bending over in the drivers side of the car.
"What?" She asked as she looked up from the drivers side at Ray.
"What did you do?" Ray asked as he held his weapon loosely in his hand.
"Nothing much, only helping you to open up the hood so we can see what needs to be fixed."
Ray blinked one, and then again, before he placed his Tonfa back in his sheath.
"Besides, I learned that from my father. He loves toying with cars." Angel said, as she took place behind the wheel.
"Oh, this feels nice." She said as she tested out the seating of the car. "I might get used to driving this."
"Don't we call dids on something like this?" Vixen asked as she looked at the car. For her, raised for the first eleven years in the wizarding world, as Nymphadora Tonks, a car was a creature of unknown power.
"DIBS" Angel shouted.
"Shotgun" Nova called. "Shotgun" Ray called. "Fuck." Ray said, as he was about half a second to late. Nova smiled at him.
"Maybe next time." She said as she winked at him. "Maybe." Ray said as he lifted the hood of the car and started to look closely at it.
"I can't make heads or tails of this. It seems like someone tore apart the entire engine compartment. If we're going to get this baby back on-line, we need to do so at Beacon." Ray shook his head. Without an engine for this baby, it was going nowhere.
"Ray. Come on" Shouted Nova as she followed Vixen and Angel into the forest, towards the temple ruins. Grabbing his scroll from his pocket, Ray pulled something from it and placed it firmly in the driver's seat. Looking at his scroll, he nodded before he ran to catch up with the three girls.
"What took you so long?" Nova asked with a slight smile, as Ray caught up. "Oh nothing really important. Just placing a beacon on that thing, so we can collect it later."
Nova was about to respond, when an Ursa jumped through the trees, a pink/white/black something holding on for dear life, laughing at the top of her lungs. Followed by a boy with black hair and a green coat. "Wait Nora." The boy shouted as the Ursa riding Nora vanished again. The group watched the scene with amazement.
"Yeah..." Said Vixen as she recovered. "That was weird."
"That's so true." Said Angel as she looked at the direction that the Ursa, the Ursa riding Nora and the Ursa following Lie Ren had run off to. "Shall we follow that path?"
"Might as well, it will lead us to the temple." Said Ray as he started to move. "Oh, before I forget, here are your relics." Said Ray as he handed over the golden King to Angel, while he gave the golden Queen to Nova. "You Idiot. When did you grab them?" Angel shouted as she pointed the golden King in Ray's face.
"Ehh... the moment that I arrived at the temple." Said Ray as he stopped to look at Angel.
Angel Star wasn't looking happy. "You held on to these relics for all this time, and you didn't say anything until now?" She said in a low and angry voice.
"Oh for fucks sake, Angel." Ray said as he looked at Angel Star. "What do you take me for? A fool who plays around? A person who doesn't give a shit? Need I remind you, that it was YOU, who agreed that the first one at the temple would grab two corresponding relics. When we were launched from the cliff, did you really think that you would be earlier at the temple than me? Thanks to Winter and her freaking painful dust enhancements, I can now fly. Of course I would use that to an advantage." Said Ray as his eyes peered in her own blue eyes.
"Not only that. But knowing you, you would grab the golden knights, the knights that both Yang and Ruby need to grab to become team RWBY" Said Nova as she looked at Angel. "And not to forget that team JNPR needs to grab the golden rooks."
"Fine, blame it on me." Said Angel as she started to flap her arms. "Blame it all in me."
"Listen to me, Hermione" Said Ray. Angel looked up at Ray at the use of her true name.
"We all have read the reports that our future self will write. Those two teams need to be formed, in order to save the world. If we don't allow that to happen, then the corrupt council of Vale might as well surrender to Cinder Fall. You know as well as I, that we were sent back for a reason. We were sent back to help teams RWBY and JNPR to survive and flourish. Ruby will learn that not everything is a fairy tale, it will turn her in to a more stable person and a better leader. Weiss will learn that her friendship with Ruby, Blake, Yang and team JNPR means more than her family name. Blake will find the acceptance of showing her ears to the world, not being bullied because of something as her heritage. And Yang will find the peace she has been searching, ever since her mother left."
Angel/Hermione looked at Ray's eyes. "Is-Is that true? Will all those things happen?" She asked, her voice trembling.
"My sweet sister in all but blood. I can promise you that I will always work for the best of the future." Said Ray as he held Angel close, kissing her forehead.
"I will promise you this." said Ray as he looked at both Vixen and Nova, both were looking at him with longing. "I will always work to bring balance to the world. Be it by being a Huntsmen, a simple farmer or, Monty forbid, a maiden. I will work to keep the world safe."
Before he knew it, Ray was surrounded by three girls, all holding him tight.
"Thank you" the three girls said, as they all kissed Harry's cheek, except Nova, who kissed Harry's lips.
"While this is nice and all, please keep up the pace. We prefer not to stand all day here, waiting for our students." Said a voice from every direction. Nova, Vixen, Angel and Ray released each other and formed a tight circle, their weapons out and ready to attack at a moments notice.
"Good reaction, nice form. Now get going." Said the voice again.
"Where is that coming from?" Vixen asked, her arrow pointing at everywhere. Ray and Angel looked around. They couldn't find anything either.
"There" Nova said as she pointed to a hidden camera. Ray looked at the camera and shook his head.
"Dad" Ray said as he pointed his weapons at the camera. "Spying on students now, are we?"
"Well, you'll better get going and 'collect' your relics. Then come back to Beacon. We have a lot to discuss." Said Ozpin's voice as the camera turned around and looked like it went off-line.
"He's right. We need to move." Said Angel as she started to walk towards the temple ruins. Shaking his head at Angel's behavior, Ray, Nova and Vixen followed Angel through the forest.
It took them almost ten minutes on a fast walk to get to the temple ruins. There, they could see the remains of what seemed to be a Death stalker walking into the forest. Shaking his head to ignore the Grimm, Ray led his team to the ruins, where he used a small charm to place the chess-pieces back on their pedestal. Then, Angel and Nova grabbed their chess-pieces, and nodded to their partner before they started to run towards the cliff-side, where they found the future teams JNPR and RWBY fighting a Death Stalker and Giant Nevermore respectively.
As the Death stalker fell into the ravine, Ray and his friends exited the forest. When they reached Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Nora Valkyrie and Pyrrha Nikos, the had a good view of Ruby Rose cutting of the Nevermore's head. "Wow" Jaune said , in awe of Ruby's performance.
"Yeah, she's not bad." Ray said. Jaune and his friends jumped around, shocked at seeing four students on this side of the ravine.
"So, any idea how to get across?" Ray asked as he looked at the ravine, knowing that in a couple of months Harry Ozpin, Ginny Goodwitch, Hermione Granger and Dora Tonks would help teams RWBY, JNPR and CFVY with repairing the bridge. "Sorry, who are you?" Pyrrha asked. Ray smiled.
"I'm Ray Star. This is Angel Star, my cousin. That's Nova Heart, my girlfriend and that's Vixen Jones, she's one of Nova's best friends." Said Ray as he introduced himself and his friends. It felt strange to introduce himself and his friends to those he knew. "Oh, well nice to meet you." Said Pyrrha.
"Nice to meet you as well, Pyrrha Nikos." Said Vixen as she shook hands with the mistral champion.
"Vix" Nova said as she shook her head. "Don't even dare to do it."
"Ah, come on. I never get to have any fun." Said Vixen as she let go of Pyrrha's hand.
Before there could be an argument about what Vixen had planned to do, they were distracted by Ray.
"Hey. How do you get over there?" Asked Ray as he took a running jump and at the moment where he would jump into the ravine, Ray activated his aura and shot like a bullet over the ravine, and landed next to Ruby, who looked at him with open eyes. "Hello." Ray said to Ruby as he waved at the others.
After a Bullhead had collected them from the other side, the twelve students walked inside the Amphitheater, where they took a small time to find some peace, before they were called on stage for the team forming ceremony. Ray remembered well as Harry Ozpin that he looked at the students from up high as they were placed in teams. Now he was here, to be placed in a team. "Before we begin, I would like to say a few words." Ozpin began as he looked over the gathered students.
"This year, I found a student that showed exceptional skill in handing a situation. I personally invited her to become a student of Beacon, even when she was only fifteen years old. I later found four other children, each with a special skill that were able to handle their own situation quite well.
With consultation of the other primary combat schools around Remnant, I invited them to Beacon Academy. These four have shown that they have the skills necessary to be come huntsmen and huntresses a couple of years earlier than normal. So, will Ray Star, Angel Star, Vixen Jones and Nova Heart step forward please."
Ray was leading his friends forward, until they were standing before the Headmaster.
"Ray Star, Angel Star, Vixen Jones and Nova Heart. You collected the royal pair of the relics. From this day forward, you will work together as team RAVN, let by Ray Star."
Ray smiled at the headmaster. 'Finally' Ray thought as he placed his armed around his teammates. 'We're going to have a great time.'
A/N (*). Think Mass Effect Omni-blade.
And here's a question. What is the Semblance of Vixen Jones/Nymphadora Tonks? Vote in the poll for your answer.