"Just the usual summer vacation spot, Lake Trump is 'yuge', arguably the biggest and greatest spot ever. The family, relaxing on the sandy beach, is having a nice time, until one of the kids spots something rising out of the water. The entire beach panics as they realize that it's a zombie, tangled in kelp and completely bloated from the time spent decomposing in the water. Everyone evacuates, and the corpse slowly shuffles along, going into the beach store and grabbing the phone off of the extension on the wall. It reaches into its pocket and inserts the coins, dialing 1(800)FAN-FICS. With an inward grin, it speaks for the first time in decades. 'I'm back, bitches'"

Ok, in all seriousness, WOW. It's been a while since I updated, huh? What is it… three months? Geez. One quarter of the year is gone, with minimal time put in on this in the meanwhile. I swear, I didn't mean for this to take this long: back in March, I meant to publish some more stuff a week after the last one, but we had SATs that weekend [#fuckyouEmerson, spread the word], and then it was just test after test after project after test after project after project after… you get where I'm going with this. And since finals ended yesterday for me, I wanted to do something ASAP… but I spent the time level-grinding my 3-star Narcian on Fire Emblem Heroes instead. On a quick side note, did anyone manage to get all three of the mission orbs? I could only get the one for Alfonse, and 'clear with Narcian on your team': if you got the last one, I'd appreciate a PM so we could discuss strategy. And speaking of FE, how in $&*% are we supposed to get the '10th stratum with Armor Emblem' orbs?! I mean, even clearing the Lunatic Camus was easier than that!

Ok, ok, too much of a tangent here. Back to this fucker. I hope to publish more often, now that I have free time (whoo, vacation!), but something tells me this might be the summer I have to start working, so as usual, I won't make any guarantees. But, TLDR, thanks for tuning back in, and I hope you guys will continue to enjoy my stuff.

Keep Moving Forward

Published June 2 2017

...

...

Jade shoots out her arm, blocking Skyla from going forward, concentrating on moving the ears on top of her head.

"Jade? What's the -"

"Grimm." she interrupts. "Lots of them. Beowolves, I think."

"You can tell what they are just from hearing them?" A loud howl rips through the forest as she finishes asking the question.

"When they're this loud… happy thoughts."

"What now?"

"Think happy thoughts. Anything to keep them away. We don't want to get slowed down."

Nervously, Skyla closes her eyes and focuses on her family, and the time they spent together. A warm, fuzzy feeling races down her back, causing her to smile at the thought. She waits, and opens her eyes when she hears the howls fade in the distance.

"They're gone…" she mumbles as she looks up at her partner. Curiously, she notices that Jade is wearing a set of cordless earbuds on her human ears, and her Faunus ears are pressed down on her head. Skyla tugs on her partner's sweater sleeve, the Faunus' eyes opening as she pulls out her earbuds.

"They're gone." Skyla says again. Frowning, Jade's cat ears twitch as she looks around at the trees around them.

"They're not just gone, they ran off in the other direction, as if called… what the hell could've attracted them like that in a group of cocky teenagers?"

…

"Erm… Ruby?" Weiss calls out hesitantly, screaming as the pack of Beowolves crawl out from the shrubbery surrounding her.

…

"WHAT?! YOU WANT SOME TOO?!"

SHHNNNKK

Blake grins smugly as the Ursa dissipates between them.

"..."

"..."

"Hmph. I coulda taken it."

…

"Now, about your semblance. What else can you do?"

"What do you mean?"

Jade turns around and looks down at Skyla, still partially amused at how much she has to tilt her head to look at the girl's face.

"What do you mean, 'what do I mean'? You're saying that you only know how to jump higher with it?"

"I mean… yeah. It's gravity. I can jump and do martial arts. What else is there?"

"Well, for starters, you can reduce the weight of heavy objects and throw them around as if you had super strength. You could make falling objects hit harder by increasing their gravity. There's all sorts of other things, if you just know the physics behind it."

"I… uh… I never studied physics, actually… mostly chemistry and physiology…"

"Figures, for a medical company heiress. Ok, crash course: gravity is the force that one object uses to attract another object, and it's more or less constant. Long story short, if you can change the way that the acceleration affects an object, you can change the amount of force required to lift and throw something, you can change the time necessary for something to drop, and the force of an object's impact. You get all of that?"

"Not really, but wow. Where'd you learn that?"

"I read. A lot. I'm usually in a library whenever I need a place to hang out, so why not?"

Jade flinches as the sound of a gunshot erupts in her ears, her eyes and ears darting around to try and find the source of the danger. "Another team ran into some Grimm, it seems…"

"And there's some smoke coming from over there!"

Her nose twitches as she scowls at being unable to notice the smoke, barely paying attention to the younger girl running past her.

"We have to get moving! The other teams need help!"

"Can you even fight though?"

"We have to help them! Now, come on!"

"No, we need to get to the temple. Honestly, as long as they know how to use their aura, they should be fine."

"What do you mean, 'use it'? It's easy! Just don't get hit, but you'll be fine if you do, right?"

"You… I'm seriously surprised that you managed to pass the exit exams…"

…

Ren brushes the dust off his shoulders, not even flinching as Nora makes random animal noises from the trees above him.

"Nora… I still don't think that's what a sloth sounds like…"

"Nora Valkyrie is unavailable at the moment." she says in a robotic voice. "Please leave a message at the Boop."

"The what now?"

"Boop." she repeats, tapping him on the nose as she hangs from a branch by her legs.

...

...

A bit short, I'll admit, but still, it progresses the plot. Since the rest of the Emerald Forest arc is basically set in stone in the canon, there's not much to do. Just the Grimm fight at the end (ch. 8), and we jump to the formation of teams. Now, since the next chapter (last chapter until the fight) is pretty short, I plan to have it up within the week (no promises), and hopefully ch. 8 within the same timeframe (even fewer promises). Again, thanks to those of you who've stuck around this long, and more thanks to those of you who've just joined up. Comment/follow/fav. if you liked, and I hope to see you around in the next video. Buh-bye! Wait… wrong outro… shit.

Keep Moving Forward

Also, really quick, what do you guys think about the tense? Most fics are in past, this one's currently in present, but if it makes it more convenient for you guys it wouldn't be that hard to correct. Let me know in the comments: I wanna hear your opinions.