At the beginning of time there was darkness and light. From the light rose humanity; strong, resourceful, and full of life. From the darkness rose the Grimm; cold, destructive, and born only for bringing death. They lived in a divided world, when the sun rose humans would roam the planet, and when the darkness consumed the land, the Grimm would wander and destroy all things humanity had created. Eventually the Grimm decided that they wanted to erase light, and began to attack during the day.

This is the beginning of the story.

Cinder cursed as she felt herself launched suddenly from the ground and high into the air. Not a moment's warning, one minute she was on the ground and the next she was flying through the air on a collision course with the ground. It would waste a bit of her energy, but she did have a plan to prevent the impact that would most likely kill her. She focused a ball of energy into her left hand before aiming it at the ground and letting out a pillar of fire, pushing her up and slowing down the rate at which she fell to manageable levels until she could touch the ground without turning into a human pancake.

"Well that was exciting," Cinder quipped to herself, before realizing there wasn't anyone around and talking to yourself was a sign of insanity. Whatever the case was, she needed to find someone fast. The Grimm of the forest were dangerous to take on alone, and she really didn't want to end up with someone she didn't know.

Speaking of which, Cinder began to run through the options in her head. There was of course Emerald, her first and best choice; lifelong friend, stealthy to make up for her more blunt approach, and a blast to be around. There was Jaune of course, but his inexperience with Aura might mean Cinder would have to watch over him at every step. The counter point was that he seemed to have massive potential. The guy she had met last night who called himself Mercury seemed nice enough, and the blows he had been practicing showed that he obviously had quite a bit of skill.

Whoever she met, she would need to do it fast because this forest was filled with loads of dark energy radiating off the Grimm, and going it alone was about as bad of an idea as letting Emerald loose on a beach full of cute guys. It could only end badly.

With a sigh Cinder began forward, wishing that she had the ability to feel Aura's as well as she saw them. But that skill was mostly kept for conductors to help them build their strategies. A sudden rustle of foliage broke her free from her pondering and made her take a battle stance, already building up power to launch an attack. "Looks like finding another person will have to wait," she muttered to herself, getting ready to strike.

Emerald laughed out loud as she was suddenly launched into the air, taking the time to do a few spins while her body was light as air. How many times could a person say they were sent flying like this and actually got to do some tricks in the air? Probably not many, so she wasn't going to waste it.

Once a spin or two was done, she looked down at the various others who must have been launched at different angles. Most of them seemed to be landing rather well, using trees, their Aura, weapons, or anything else to help prevent a big splat when the ground came rushing to meet them.

Well, except for the blonde guy that Cinder and herself had been talking to earlier. He seemed to be screaming his head off and trying his best to swim in the air. She considered helping him but found that someone else was already on it. Before he could hit the ground, a spear came flying out of the trees and hit a tree he was going by. By the looks of it, the spear was probably meant to go through his outfit to pin him to the tree, but at the last moment he adjusted himself to grab hold of it and hang on above the ground.

Good thing Cinder unlocked that guys Aura, might have looked pretty lame if he had actually gotten stuck to a tree. Emerald snickered at the idea and realized she should probably think of her own landing strategy, seeing as the ground was a lot closer than before.

She closed her eyes and focused for a moment, opening them again to get a full view of everything beneath her. Her Semblance was known as Super Awareness, the ability to process millions of variables in a matter of moments and plot out a simple route toward what she needed. Great for getting dates, and also useful for preventing painful meetings with the ground, which she was finding helpful. She pulled out one of her weapons in its pistol form and began to fire it, adjusting her position and making it so she would land on a number of sturdy branches. After enforcing her legs with hardened Aura the shock from a few snapping under the force didn't even register, and she finally landed on one branch that held firm for her.

"Woo, I totally made it!" she threw her fist into the air and looked around. "And now I don't know where I am."

She tilted her head to the side and thought about what she should do. Finding Cinder could be one thing, but then again she had her own grade to worry about, and Cinder would most likely be fine on her own.

A thud from a bit away drew her attention and she decided to follow it, turning off her Semblance to conserve power and not hear every movement in the forest. She peaked down from her hiding place in the trees and saw a young man walking along the ground. He must have just landed or something, at least, that's what she thought.

She ran her eyes along him and recognized the person as the guy Cinder had met last night on her walk. And he was cute. But was he strong? Emerald decided to follow after him, saying a silent apology to Cinder as she did.

She will be fine, whoever she gets partnered with won't be that bad.

Roman cursed as he was launched into the air and looked down toward the forest. If Ozpin had given a seconds worth of warning, he could have linked up with Pyrrha's Aura and would have been able to track her and ensure a good partner, but no, the old coot had instead decided to just suddenly launch them into the air.

The hunter to be reached under his coat and pulled out a sphere shaped object from it, pressing a button on the side and throwing it at the ground where he knew he would land. As soon as the object hit the ground, it exploded into a bed of soft goo that made it so he landed without a heavy impact.

It was something he had invented himself, a high impact foam that would distribute the force of any object impacting it along the surface, nullifying any damage from heights. It would, in theory, allow soldiers to drop from airships at any height without the need for parachutes, dropping landing times and allowing them to get straight to fighting the enemy when they touched ground.

Roman scowled and brushed some of the foam from his leg, wishing that he had included something that would make the foam not stain his expensive pants. But fashion sometimes had to come second when it came to saving one's own life.

The young man looked around the location and realized that many of the others had probably landed in trees and were probably moving via the branches, meaning that he had a slight advantage in not running into others and making a weak partner. Speaking of partners, he had some searching to do.

Roman stabbed his cane into the ground and slowly sent tendrils of his own energy around the forest. Not enough to connect with anyone and form a full connection, but enough to feel out the power of those close to him. A strong Aura inevitably meant a strong fighter. There were a few good choices, but they were also either moving quickly or close enough to another person to make it seem like they already had a partner.

After about half a minute of searching, he finally locked on to someone with quite a bit of power and no one else around them. With that information in his mind, he drew back in his search threads and began to move toward the presence. He could deal with personality later; so long as the person was powerful, he could mold them into someone he could agree with at a later date.

What could possibly go wrong? he thought to himself.

Mercury closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of the wind pushing against his skin as he was launched into the air, thinking about the words the Headmaster had said. The first person he made eye contact with would be his partner. It seemed like an odd way of making such an important decision, but maybe Ozpin was a fan of destiny, and believed that the pairings would work themselves out. Or maybe he had set the springs to launch them in certain ways so they would land near ideal partners.

The young hunter in training wouldn't put it past the Headmaster of one of the greatest Hunter Academy's in the world to rig to odds every now and again. Of course he didn't have much more time to muse on that line of thought as he looked down and noticed that the ground was starting to become a lot closer.

"Cannon Mode," he spoke loud enough to echo down to his boots. His personal weaponry was equipped with two different varieties of ammo, a high impact explosive "cannon" round and a faster but smaller and less deadly "missile" round.

In order to take away reload time, he had incorporated a voice module that could easily change what type of ammo he was using on the fly. He moved his foot and activated the round, which fired off and adjusted his course toward a tree that was filled with leaves. Once he got close enough, he flared up his Aura and lessened the impact, jumping off the tree and rolling on the ground in order to remove any remaining inertia from the fall.

With all that done he finally took a moment to observe his surroundings, trying to figure out where he should go next. "Hm… from the look of the landscape I got from the top of the cliff and taking in that this is a test… the place with the artifacts would be in the center of the forest, which would be…" he closed his eyes and summoned up the memory of the forest in his head. "This way," he started walking through the forest, all of his senses on high alert for any dangers.

One couldn't be too careful when the creatures of Grimm were around. And if his eyes hadn't deceived him, a few of his old classmates had also been in the line up, Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie. Both knew about his past and if one ended up accidentally partnering with him it would be… messy.

Nora would have been a fine partner, but Ren most likely would kill him for getting close to her. Likewise, if he accidentally caught Ren's eyes, he probably would just kill him and call it an accident. He couldn't really blame the guy, but it was still a fate he wanted to avoid.

Other than that, he thought to himself. What could possibly go wrong?

As soon as that thought entered his mind, he felt the need to hit his forehead with the flat of his palm. One was never supposed to think that, it invited bad tidings.

As if the universe was reacting to him, a number of red glowing eyes began to peak out from the foliage, followed by a number of low and dark growls.

"Fantastic," he muttered, taking a fighting stance and getting ready for whatever was about to come next.

Jaune dropped down from the tree, taking the spear that had come from out of nowhere with him as he landed. He expected the drop to be a lot more painful, seeing as he had been pretty high up. But instead it felt like he had just stepped down from a wall, still a bit bracing but nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

Maybe it was that "Aura" stuff Cinder had unlocked for him. He made a mental note to thank her for that when he had the chance. For now though, he was just going to wait, holding the spear that had prevented him from taking a face first dive into the ground. It felt rather odd in his hands, like it had been specifically designed for someone else's hand.

Not for the first time, Jaune began to wonder if he was really supposed to be here. After using the fake transcripts he had managed to forge, he had thought that this place could finally give him the thing he had always wanted, a destiny, a way to feel important. But now that he was here he felt completely out of his depth when surrounded by people who were already great warriors in their own right.

What could he do? All he had was a sword, a shield, and some extremely dumb luck to run into someone who had seen his lack of a basic tool in the Hunter's arsenal and unlocked it without a second thought.

Before he could continue to tear himself a new one, Pyrrha walked out of the forest and gave a wave to him, meeting his eyes without a moment's hesitation. "Sorry about that, it looked like you were a bit out of control with your landing."

Jaune laughed a bit and scratched the back of his head. "I uh… I thought my shoelace was untied and was looking at it. Didn't expect the launch," it was a lame excuse, but he was already a pretty huge dork in most people's eyes, so it was probably easy to buy.

"I see," she looked at her spear for a moment. "Would you mind if I had that back?"

Jaune nodded and tossed it over to her. "So uh… you know if you want to find a different partner there is a chance that we weren't caught on camera."

Pyrrha cocked her head to the side in confusion. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Well…" Jaune shrugged a bit. "I mean you are really good, especially if what that guy earlier was saying was true. I am okay but you would probably do better with a partner that was on your level, right?"

She shook her head and walked over to him, putting a hand over his heart. "Strength can only take you so far, a pure and honest heart is a much greater weapon than the force one can put behind their actions," she gave him a warm smile. "And I can tell that you have a great heart to you, Jaune."

Jaune blushed a bit but also felt her words dispelling the darkness that had earlier been eating away at his mind. She might have had a point, and he could also grow stronger as time went on anyway.

"Thanks…" he looked around and sighed. "You know, I just realized I have no idea where we are supposed to be going."

"Hm… well let's explore around a bit. Maybe we can find some other students and follow them," Pyrrha suggested, putting her spear on her back with her shield and starting to walk. "Try and stay alert though, I am getting a bad feeling."

Jaune nodded. "Well we are already in a forest full of Grimm, what else could possibly go wrong, right?"

Ren sighed and walked with Nora at his side, moving through the forest carefully, and ready for another Grimm to strike. He had just battled against a King Taijitu, an enemy which was usually meant for at least two Hunters, so he was understandably a little tired and needing to build up his energy.

Unlike Nora, he was more built for scouting missions and finishing blows rather than prolonged one on one fights with enemies. It was something the combat school they had previously attended had drilled into them.

One stealth fighter with quick movement and speed and a strong fighter with powerful blows. These teams were put together in a way to trick students into thinking they were organic, but in reality they were anything but. Students would be paired with people who not only balanced them out on the battlefield, but also in their normal lives.

Nora and himself made a great example of their methods, as the two of them were opposite in almost every way but were still an efficient unit. Nora had probably never really thought that their friendship was anything but natural, and even though Ren knew the truth, it didn't change that he still considered the energetic hammer wielder his best friend.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Nora asked him in a sing-song type of voice. "Still worried over that Mercury guy?"

The name of Mercury caused a look of annoyance to flow over Ren's face. It was rare that anything could get on his nerves, but that man was one of the things that truly danced on his sanity and composer. "No, just about what other surprises might await us."

Nora blew a raspberry and struck a pose. "Well whatever it is, I will beat it down! Nothing can beat the Incredible Nora!"

Ren raised an eyebrow at that. "I thought your title was 'The Invincible Nora', or was it 'The Amazing Nora'," he was mostly just teasing her at this point, an act that calmed him down quite easily.

"I can change stuff if I want too," she huffed, crossing her arms.

"Of course you can," Ren assured her before continuing on their way. They probably had quite a bit of ground to cover, but that only meant he had more time to charge up. Survival was more important than a grade, and the bad feeling that he had running through him made him think it was much more intelligent to store as much energy as he could for the road ahead.

Cardin cursed as he pushed his way through another bunch of bushes, his newly minted 'team' following behind him. The three other guys had landed pretty close to him, and after a bit of talking they had decided who wanted to be whose partner.

They were all pretty similar when it came to strengths, and they meshed well in the personality department as well. With the four of them working together, finding their way to the center of the forest had been easy. The area was clear of any trees and had a small structure that held a number of objects in it.

"Told you we would find it," he said with a smirk. The others nodded their heads in agreement and started toward it.

Before they could get far though, a massive roar tore through the forest, giving them pause and causing a few to shake with real fear.

That wasn't the sound of some low class Grimm, or even an Alpha Grimm, which though rare around forests like these, were still known to show up from time to time. No, that was the roar of a real demon.

Suddenly, a feeling caused Cardin to turn around and lock eyes with a massive beast. Before any of the four could react, the beast leaped forward and struck, knocking them all back and into the dark realms of unconsciousness.

There was a loud scream or two from the others, but the last thing that Cardin could truly remember was the creature's eyes. They were like the red of a normal Grimm, except they were marked by a strange black symbol in the center. The symbol, from what Cardin could see before falling away into unconsciousness, was in the shape of a raven.

Ruby laughed as the four young hunters went down, moving her hands much like a puppet master would when standing above their toy to control its movements. With the crown and ring together, she was able to control the S-class Grimm even at this distance. With all three objects together, anything would be possible.

"Why not just kill them?" Blake asked from the other side of the stealth airship.

"Simple, if I kill them, they will just bomb the forest," Ruby moved the massive beast to stand by the structure housing the artifacts and had it go into resting mode to converse her energy. Controlling the creature drained her a bit, so it would have been stupid to just have it roam around. The students would come to it, and then she could strike. "Leaving them alive gives incentive for the teachers to come out and protect them."

Blake shrugged a bit. "I suppose there will be time for the death of humans later."

"Indeed," Ruby laughed a bit. With all this power in her hands, with the plan in place, what could possibly go wrong?

In the next Chapter

New alliances are formed as Ruby's plans continue. Will anyone be able to survive the dark power of an S-class Grimm released in a forest full of Hunters in training? Find out next time in…

A Light in the Darkness Chapter Six: Emerald Forest Part 2: Rising Fire

Thank you to everyone who reads this chapter. I argued with myself a lot about if I should fuse this chapter and the next before remembering that I don't have much time to write with my current schedule and figured that this one would be fine. We are still sticking with events that happen thematically in the episodes in a way. What happens when and where is a bit different, but I think that should be fine in the long run. Anyway, tune in to the next chapter if you want to see what happens next, and consider giving a review or following the story, things like that make Authors really happy. Oh and tip your editors people. Till next time.