Four Is A Crowd
Initiation Test: Cleared!
Sieg laid slumped on the wall as he faked unconsciousness.
He had taken a drop-kick to the head and decided it was a good time as any to break away from the three-way-fight.
'Alright... Let's wait it out and take down the winner.'
It was a bit of a cheap tactic but if he wanted to be the last person standing then he would use every dirty trick as he could think of.
Going from the sounds he heard, it was the icy-haired girl with the upper-hand in this fight. He couldn't say he surprised at that, because she had a lot more finesse than either him or the faunus-girl. Still, upper-hand or not, the fight continued to last well to half-an-hour and more.
'They're running on fumes. They're running on fumes. They're running on fumes.' He repeated to himself, his patience running quite dry. There was no way for the two girls to keep this going, not unless they actually planned to kill one other.
"I'M GOING TO ENJOY RIPPING OUT YOUR SKULL AND GUTTING IT INTO A SOUP BOWL, YOU FUCKING CUNT!"
"I'll mount your decapitated head on my wall!"
'Okay, maybe they will!' This was getting out of hand. Sieg opened his eyes, quickly assessed the situation, and then made his move. He charged, arms wide open, "Calm! The! Freak! Down!" and tackled both girls down to the ground with his bear hug. They struggled but neither of the two could muster any real strength to break out.
The faunus-girl was furious. "AH?! ...I thought... Hah... I'd... Hah... knock you out...?!"
The icy-haired girl was equally furious — at herself and him — as she silently glared daggers.
'Now what?' Perhaps he should have thought this through more. 'Okay, so I've stopped them from killing each other... now how do I stop them from killing me?' The three remained awkwardly immobile for sometime before a thought of sheer brilliance — if Sieg could say so himself — struck him while he was looking longingly at the exit. 'So close... so close...! If I only I could jus- Wait a sec, I can!' He realized that he had the two girls restrained, so long as he exited the ruins with the relic in his pouch then he would neatly pass the test.
He would have to leave his weapons behind but it was a quick jog back to retrieve them.
There was a slight difficulty getting back up due to the reptilian-girl's struggle and the high-class girl's glower which promised sweet vengeance for this humiliation but he eventually managed to stand up and waddle away.
Soon enough, Sieg crossed the threshold — the shift from dark to light momentarily blinded him — and heard clapping.
"Congratulations! The three of you have passed the Initiation Test!"
A confused 'Wha?' and squinting revealed that the portly professor was in front of him. "We... passed?" The two girls were equally confused, though they grumbled when they dropped and fell forward because the boy had suddenly let go.
The icy-haired girl was the first to recover. She sent one last glare at the boy before focusing her attention on the elder gent. "Sir, I don't understand. How could the three of us passed? You had stated us that only those who returned with the relic would pass. He," she nudged her head and begrudgingly admitted, "has the relic. Not me nor her."
"Tut, tut!" the man wagged a finger, "You have misinterpreted my words, Miss Whitestorm. I never said that you would not pass without a relic, only that you would score better if you had come back with one!"
"WHHAAATTTT? Are you kidding me?" Sieg groaned, "If the relic didn't matter then what was the point of the test then?!" He could scarcely believe that all his hard work — and trouble in that damn cave — was all for nothing.
The professor raised his hand, "Before you ask anymore questions, allow me to explain the purpose of this test." They remained silent. "As future Hunters, this test is — shall we say — a likely scenario that you may encounter out in the real world. More often than not, open-requests will have multiple Hunters and maybe even mercenaries taking the job and the rewards will possibly be given on first-come-first-serve. Let that be a lesson to you three!" he raised his hand dramatically higher, "Mighty as the Grimms are, they are not always your only enemy!"
"The second purpose of this test was to assess your ability to listen and interpret instructions; as you've most certainly noticed by now, all of you had assume that because there was a limited amount of relics then not all of you could succeed. Sadly, I don't believe anyone this year realized my wordplay against them." The three of them grumbled about that stupid trick and the professor took the moment to stroke his mustache. "Hmm, the third purpose of this test was a general assessment of your combat-skills and your reaction to adversity. The fourth and final purpose of this test, well, I'm sure you've already heard the rumors, is to figure out how to create your teams!"
"Teams?" Sieg quickly looked at the girls next to him and pinched his nose.
He had a bad feeling about this.
[...]
"Moving on..."
The debate turned quiet and the numbers dwindled. The staff would soon be ready to announce the teams after they went through the remaining vouched-for teams on the list.
"I don't believe this mismatched team will work out, Professor Port," Glynda Goodwitch voiced her opinion, her stern eyes flitted away from her holo-screen, "It is quite clear that putting both of these girls in the same team is simply a disaster waiting to happen."
"Tragic, truly tragic!" Motor-mouth Bartholomew Oobleck took a heavy gulp of his coffee. "A perfect example of the animosity and discrimination between Humans and Faunus that leads to nothing but violence!"
"Yes, I admit, they're rather rough around the edges but that's nothing a little camaraderie and time won't fix!"
"It is not a matter of being rough, Professor Port. This team has no balance or chemistry at all."
Headmaster Ozpin only half-listened to his staffs' discussion. Certainly, he would take their opinion into account, but the final decision would be up to him about this team's formation. On one hand, Glynda was right about the team having little balance but he could see the chemistry between them — volatile as it was. On the other hand, with all due respect to his old friend, Peter was most definitely understating how rough this team was.
'Hm.'
He rewatched their video and reread their transcripts.
He wondered what Peter saw in them. The portly professor was quite adamant about this team as Glynda couldn't persuade him otherwise.
However, Ozpin would be lying if he said that he wasn't interested in this hyper-offensive team. More-so because if he broke up this team then he would need to recreate another three-person team to take its place, and there was no point to that when there was already a decent choice in front of him. Besides, the boy, Sieg Aschelt, would keep the two girls in check and if he couldn't — well — then that was all they were worth.
The headmaster cleared his throat, fingers intertwined, and all eyes turned toward him. His lips curled into a smirk.
"I have made my decision."
[...]
Ruby Rose wasn't entirely sure what to do with her free time.
After their initiation test, the students were given a chance to shower, eat, and get some overall rest, while they waited for the results.
Personally, she wanted to know more about her for-the-rest-of-their-school-years partner but the snow-themed heiress had disappeared somewhere, meanwhile her older sister Yang had gone off looking for her own partner. With no one else to choose, she went looking for Jaune and found him at the dining hall but he was already engaged with a group and Ruby couldn't quite muster up the courage to get in the middle of that.
Ruby felt glum.
She didn't regret her choice of transferring to Beacon Academy early, not at all. But, once again, she found herself wondering how much nicer Beacon could have been if her friends from Signal were here with her too.
She sighed. 'Well, I'm already here, might as well grab some lunch.' She turned around, but before she could take another step, her eyes widened. "Oh wow!" She practically floated over, eyes twinkling, and blurted out the immediate thing on her mind. "It's huge!"
Sieg twisted around, his meal half-finished, and saw a girl dressed in black-and-red behind him. She seemed a tad familiar but he couldn't quite recall where; oddly enough, the first thing he thought about was polka-dots.
She was scratching the back of her head and seemed somewhat ashamed. "...Oh, uh, sorry... I... I'm... I'm Ruby! Ruby Rose! N-Nice to meet'cha! And you are?" She tried to give the biggest smile she could but it was a bit crooked from all the effort.
He shook her hand and tried to placate her with a smile, "Call me, Sieg. Grab a seat."
She quietly took a seat next to him, eyes darting everywhere and body fidgeting every so often, before she could regain her wit and calm. "Sooo, um, Sieg... what kind of weapon is that? I've never seen one quite like it; it's so... big!"
He shrugged, "Don't know. It's just some junk I modified from the trash heap back at my hometown. My old man called it an 'ultra-greatsword' though."
She blinked and leaned back. "Huh, that's a sword? The blade is pretty thick, can it even cut anything? Because it seems more like a club than a sword to me."
"You're right about that. It's more about crushing power than anything else."
They talked a bit, with Ruby doing most of the talking, and enjoyed their conversation with one another. It was... nice and quaint. Sieg enjoyed the fact that she wasn't trying to beat the crap out of him and her shy but energetic babble about weapons was somewhat endearing to him. Ruby appreciated the fact that she had something to occupy her time with and that the boy at least made some effort to listen to her, even if most of her words went over his head.
Their chat came to an end when the speakers blared alive.
"Students, please gather at the amphitheater."
The time had come.
[...]
He thought it was rather ironic or perhaps coincidental that Ruby ended up with a team that was pronounced exactly as her name. He wasn't sure if the spunky girl was leadership material but he clapped nonetheless, especially when she took the effort to search for him in the crowd and waved at him.
Eventually the headmaster announced his team and — to his dismay — it was exactly how he imagined it. Grudgingly, the two girls didn't look all too surprised at that revelation either but that didn't stop them from subtly glaring at each other — and at him — all the way up to the stage. It didn't help that he wasn't wearing his mask and the exasperated expression on his face was pretty easy for them to spot.
"And finally: Sieg Aschelt, Lilium Stel'Ciel, and Reah Von Whitestorm." Their mugshots circled into alignment on the two large holo-screens, while the first-letter of their names appeared beneath it. His untidy image was flanked by Icy-Haired Reah's regal-stern expression and the Foul-Mouthed Lilium's stoic face. "The three of you retrieved the Black King piece. From this forward, you will work together as Team RSL; led by Reah Von Whitestorm."
Reah snapped her feet together, chest puffed-up proudly, as she gave a militaristic salute. She was positively beaming.
She was a beauty to behold but still a bitch nonetheless. Honestly, he wasn't looking forward to working under her. Lilium seemed to share the same sentiments as her tail curled in displeasure. But the faunus-girl's psychotic bitchiness made it difficult for him to sympathize with her.
Sieg frowned and scratched the back of his head, his team stepping off the stage to make way, and mumbled, "Well, a team of three can't be too bad, right?"
Their glares of mutual dislike said otherwise.
'The two of them are going to drive me insane if they don't kill me first!'
Four years suddenly sounded like a really long time now.
Author Notes
I went and did some edits on Chapters 1-5. But I only recommend a re-read of Chapter 4 since that now gives a bit more insight on Lilium's and Reah's character.
This chapter is a bit choppy but (eh) I may or may not come back to it later.