When team RWPJ (Rouge) walked into a clearing, they were met with a scenery which looked like a temple of sort. From how tattered and destroyed some parts of its grandeur were, they drew the same conclusion that it was a relic from the past civilization.

Jaune touched one particular pillar, which stood tall amidst the destroyed others.

"It's full of scratches."

Pyrrha, who was walking behins Jaune, offered an explanation. "This is probably something from the lost era."

Jaune perked up at the thought. "You mean before The Shattering?"

Pyrrha nodded.

"Then this temple is at least a dozen millenia old," Weiss chimed in. "Do you think it's okay for us to enter?"

Ruby, optimistic and giddy, couldn't contain her glee. "Maybe there's a mountain of treasures inside!"

"Or death traps galore."

Ruby turned to Weiss with apparent poutiness. "You're such a joykill, Weiss."

Scratching his head, Jaune had had to chime in. "I don't know, Ruby. Not to be a pessimist, but we do have to account for danger."

"Which is why I'll lead you guys to safety," Pyrrha, smiling confidently with both arms on her hips, declared. "Are you with me, Weiss?"

Weiss sighed.

"Fine, but I'm leaving at the first sign of death traps."

"Then that's settled!" Jaune and Ruby said in unison and not a beat different. "We're going treasure hunting!"

Their voice deeply echoed inside the entrance.

Knowing the temple was deep, they carefully proceed inside. Although Weiss had her own reservations about it.

Not quite what they had expected, the inside of the temple started with a vast hallway that reached far into the back. The ceiling had holes on them, which let the sunlight dimly adorn the ruin from above. The group could see the same pillars from its ouside marking the road in its inside, and they followed the trail across the dimly lit broken road.

Slowing her steps, the vanguard turned behind her. "Watch out everyone, the road's broken ahead."

Ruby answered with a playful salute. "Noted, Pyrrha."

"This looks less and less like a temple and more and more like a tunnel," Weiss stated. "If I remember its layout, it stretched inside a cliff."

"So it'll lead us to the other side?"

To Jaune's question, Pyrrha replied. "Pretty much. However, this is an old ruined spot in a grimm infested forest. There must be something interesting down the line."

"This better not be for nothing," Weiss sighed.

The further they walked along the road, the darker it became. Their legs didn't stop moving before they ended at one part of the tunnel which was shrouded in pitch blackness.

"We need a torch here," Pyrrha warned.

"I can handle that," Jaune picked up a sizeable stick of stone before wrapping it with a thick cloth and tying it with a sturdy rope he procured from his utility belt. "Now I just need a sprinkle of fire dust inside the clothe and make sure it stays lit."

Finding the makeshift contraption interesting, Weiss curiously handed the necessary supply.

"Not bad," Weiss admitted. "Where did you learn to do that?"

Jaune couldn't say the specific. It was too embarassing to explain. "Let's just say I needed some light and it just happened."

He couldn't say he learned it from his hustling career of blowing up motor vehicles.

It was a complicated time for him.

With the makeshift light ready, they ventured further into the tunnel.

Now with a narrower field of vision, the group had to stick close to each other. Ruby, in particular, felt herself constrained under the sudden lack of space to move around. Weiss, on the other hand, was happy to take the lead with the makeshift torch in hand. Pyrrha and Jaune were relegated to scouting duty, in case of unfortunate circumstances.

The longer they walked forward, the weirder everything around them felt.

For one, there were no grimms. None whatsoever. Pyrrha had expected at least golem-types or nocturnal-flyer-types, but found herself without words when nothing happened. It was as if the place itself was free of them.

The second, there were smells of rotting all over the place. It was the kind that one could find in hallowed grounds, or underground catacombs. Weiss had joked that the walls were rotting, but once the stench became unbearable it was not funny anymore.

Then, last but not least, was how normal everything felt. Jaune was thinking about the possibility of something out of the annals of horrors to appear, but contrary to his beliefs none appeared. The calming sense that he was feeling currently

"This place feels… wrong."

Weiss couldn't keep herself from worrying.

"I get what you mean," Ruby said. "The floor's not broken anymore, and it feels like… I don't know… cleaner in here, I guess?"

Pyrrha, with one hand on Weiss' shoulder and her eyes looking at Ruby's, nodded. "It just goes to show how different everything was some mythologies ago, but that only made these more fascinating, don't you think so?"

"I guess," Weiss relented. "I wish we'll get a sense of normalcy soon."

Ruby, who was peering to what was forward, stopped on her tracks. It was so abrupt that it almost made Weiss burn Ruby's cape with the makeshift torch.

Side-stepping her at the last minute, Weiss raised a brow toward her.

"Why did you stop like that? That's dangerous!"

Her tone carrying her utter disbelief, she pointed forward. "Well, that."

Weiss looked at where she had pointed, and held herself from gasping.

"I don't believe it."

Weiss' surprise was understandable.

Suddenly, there was a light in the distance.

Burning a wooden stick, Jaune carefully walked toward it.

It was a spot of light far away into the darkness, but when Jaune examined the source closer, it was from a well-lit room about two kilometers away from them.

Jaune placed the burning branch on the floor, and walked inside the room.

Imagine his surprise when it turned out to host a particular looking door at the end of the room. Gigantic in size and crafted on it a very intricate pattern. The room itself was lit by a source of light which came from a mysterious origin, and the lack of shadow underneath Jaune told her the entire room itself was emitting light.

Caught up to Jaune, Weiss asked with her sense of wonder seeping out. "What is this room?"

"It's so beautiful." Ruby added, appearing behind Weiss.

"Could this be a treasure fault?" Pyrrha assessed. "Why would there be anything like that hidden so remotely here?"

Then, with an ephiphany apparent in her mind, something struck her thoughts.

A moment of silence soon followed, and everyone looked at Pyrrha. She was now walking slowly toward the door, as if called out to it. Then, the door reacted when she placed her palm against the door.

"Pyrrha, snap out of it!"

Jaune quickly pulled her away from the door, before it could do anything to or if she would do anything to it.

"Jaune, I–" she cut herself, a confused look in her eyes. "I didn't know what happened. Something came to my mind and I just had approach the door!"

"We should leave," Ruby promptly and vehemently said. "There is some strange juju from this place, and not the good kind of strange jujus either."

Pyrrha nodded. "Ruby's right. The sooner we get out of this weird place, the better."

Weiss, in all of her tiredness, couldn't help but complain. "Walking all the way back? You've gotta be kidding me!"

Jaune shook his head.

"Not exactly. We have Ruby to cover the distance."

Ruby nodded. "Might be a little bit shaky and I might get your head bumping against some things, but I can manage."

Too tired to care, Weiss walked toward the exit. "Just try not to lop my head off."

They all huddled up with Ruby at its center. Holding to each other tightly, Weiss and Pyrrha had one thing each to say about where Jaune would hold his hands.

"If you grab my behind, you're dead."

"You can grab me tightly, Jaune."

Hearing that, Jaune nodded and tightly held them by their waist.

Confirming that everyone was holding tightly to each other, Ruby braced herself. "Everyone ready? Then hold on tight!"

It was an instant. Their surroundings blurred when all four of them disappeared without a trace. Then, as if replaying a film reel, the next twelve seconds of their lives felt like melting into one with everything.

Then, when they were outside, they felt their life slipping by their spine.

What took them at least thirty minutes of walking had been traversed back in twelve seconds give or take. Undoubtedly, the group had seen everything normally again, they were looking at things in a new light now.

Weiss, suddenly coming down with vertigo, dizzily walked behind a large pillar and vomitted.

Pyrrha, unsure of what to think, sat down on the ground and tried breathing normally.

Ruby, so used to her power, couldn't help but chuckle.

Jaune, who wasn't there anymore, was missing.

He was flying with the momentum from letting go at the last possible moment.

It was not as if it was intentional. It was a freak accident. He felt the world of super duper hyper speed a bit too much on his first visitation, and unconsciously clamped his hands against Pyrrha's and Weiss' asses.

True to her promise, Weiss was able to twist Jaune's hand at mach fast speed which threw his hold on reality a bit off.

Then, when Ruby was about to stop her power, Jaune had mistakenly let go and sent himself far into the woods.

The speed wasn't his concern, but the obstacles in-front of him; trees, boulders, grimms and other killing elements. But, Jaune knew just a solution to that, and that was to hold his shield before his head and hoped for the best.

Like a cannonball, Jaune crashed through everything that stood against his shield. Though made of wood, it was made from a good wood so woodenly good that it could drill through the toughest boulders and the most powerful of grimms in high velocity.

To his surprise, however, he was instantly stopped.

His wooden shield met against a steel gauntlet, unleashing a shockwave which annihilated even air. The trees around them were pulled into the vacuum before the pocket of air was released and blew everything in a five meter radius away.

She was alone, travelling casually while still putting up her guards. It was for the better, as she was able to pick up on the elements of surprise. It was because of an experience which was similar to this, one which she had experienced many times before.

"Nice to see you too, Ruby," an excited voice started from behind Jaune's shield. "I see you're skipping on the greetings again. Guess us sisters are teaming up today, huh?"

Jaune, still holding his shield, slid down weakly before becoming a puddle of limpness.

Taken aback, the blonde-haired girl raised her brow as her soft indigo eyes met with Jaune's shocked blues.

Her happy-go-lucky attitude turned vigilant, questioning, and alert.

Squatting before the barely conscious Jaune, she carefully eyed her partner. "Wait, you're not Ruby."