Chapter III: Flying Colours

The feeling of wind coursing over my body gave me intense deja vu. I cherished the memory of feeling the current around me as it kept me in the air for as long as it could. Slowly, I unfurled my wings and started to glide gently on the breeze. That's right, wings. Jet black, feathered wings capable of flight. That's what I meant when I confessed that I was a Faunus.

A few moments later, I saw Blake drop into the sea of trees. Circling around, I made for her location as fast as I could. On the way down, I forgot to tuck my wings in and took a couple of scrapes. Ouch. Remind me to take a couple of flying lessons.

Blake, on the other hand, was unharmed. I spat a couple of leaves out of my mouth, brushed some twigs out of my feathers, and motioned for her to follow. I think she was hiding a grin, but I'm not too adept at reading body language. "C'mon," I mumbled as I ran, eager to get going.

My black-clothed companion dashed after me. "Why the rush?"

"I just want to get a good grade on this," I confessed.

"That's the kind of thing Weiss would say..." Blake muttered under her breath.

"Who?"

"Weiss Schnee. She's a bit of a perfectionist."

"Isn't she the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company?" I inquired, calling upon my not-so-brilliant knowledge of current events.

"That's the one," Blake confirmed.

After a couple of minutes of constant running, I noticed that something was off. Ozpin did say that we would end up facing the Grimm. Yet, it was oddly peaceful. Where were they?

Almost as if on cue, I noticed a Beowolf in front of us a second before it lunged towards me. I used the momentum from running to draw my longsword, Windsbane, and slice it right in half in an upwards slash. Unfortunately, I must've alerted the rest of the pack, because more began to jump out of the bushes and chase after us.

I skidded to a halt. "Blake! We've got company!"

"Right."

Next thing I knew, we made a 180° turn and were both dashing straight at the wolfpack.

The battle was, admittedly, a bit tiring, but I prefer to think of it as a warm-up. Blake and I were slicing into Beowolves with ease, killing Grimm at about the same rate. One of my "awesome moments" was when I parried a Beowolf's strike, cut off the claw it struck me with and cleared about a four feet wide circle with a spin attack. Wanting to make things more interesting, I called, "Let's see who can kill more!" Soon, this massacre turned into a simple contest. Blake was doing pretty well, and I found it a little hard to keep up with where she was. When I thought I saw her somewhere, it turned out that she was already long gone from that spot. Could've been my peripheral vision playing tricks on me, but I swear I wasn't seeing things. At some point, I eventually realized that this was going to take a while at the rate we were going. It seemed as if two Beowolves took the place of one that was recently struck down. I was getting slightly frustrated and tried to think while I was fending off all of these attacks. Do I have a way to clear all of these Beowolves? I thought. Escape wasn't an option while Blake and I were severely outnumbered. I soon realized that I did have a way I could make this go a bit faster, at the very least. "Blake!" I called. "See if you can keep up!" I dashed and dodged over to a relatively clear spot on the edge of the battlefield and started channeling Aura through Windsbane. With each second, my blade became lighter and lighter, until it felt like I was swinging a feather. A feather that can rend flesh with ease, I thought, a smirk making its way to my face. All of a sudden, I became a moving blur. Beowolves were quickly losing limbs and lives. I passed by Blake a couple times, nearly colliding with her, but I was able to slip by and disarm (Heh, get it? Disarm, because I cut both its claws off-never mind.) a Beowolf as it was mid-lunge. I don't think she seemed fazed by my ability. How disappointing. Guess she's used to that, being from Beacon. Or maybe she doesn't like cocky guys? Well, that's me. Try to impress a girl and fail at every turn. Let's get back to the story before I turn into a teenage girl. Soon, we were finished with our massacre. The ground was a dark mist as all the bodies faded to dust. I headed over to my temporary companion but felt a sharp pain in my back and went flying right past her into a tree. As I processed my surroundings again, I noticed the lone surviving Beowolf that took advantage of my relaxed state. Fortunately, Blake dashed in to kill it before it could do any more damage. She casually walked over to me and offered her hand.

"I wasn't counting, but I think that last hit cost you the game," Blake remarked with a smirk.

I took her hand, a small look of surprise present on my face. "Did it? I thought I was doing quite well," I replied, confident that I had, in fact, killed more Beowolves than her.

"Well, at least they're all dead and no longer a problem," she said, totally skipping over how great I did. Buzzkill much?

"R-right," I stuttered, realizing the contest wasn't actually that important to her. I awkwardly steadied myself and motioned for her to keep moving.

It wasn't long until we found a set of circular ruins that could only be the place we were sent to look for. As we came closer, I noticed different relics resembling chess pieces scattered on various pedestals.

"Do we take all the artifacts back?" I asked.

"I think Ozpin only wanted us to bring one back," Blake recalled.

"Does it matter which one we get?"

Blake looked unsure of herself. "I wouldn't know."

I shrugged. She can keep her secrets, for all I care, I thought.

We were on our way back to the cliffs, black knight piece in tow. Blake didn't pay much mind to the fact that I wasn't dashing through the forest as I was before. I don't know why, but I just seemed to somehow lack the motivation I had when I started. Must be growing up, I thought. I shuddered as I remembered how that icky class scarred me forever. Suddenly, something hit me. No, something literally hit me. I fell to the ground with a thud, just barely keeping consciousness. The last thing I saw of my partner as I looked up was her form helplessly being carried away in the claws of a Nevermore. Talk about "snatch-and-grab."

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