AN: This chapter took me way longer than expected. Personal issues make it more difficult these days to finish in a timely manner.

Hope you and enjoy and tell me what you think.

RWBY

"Hello is anyone out there?"

Yang Xiao Long strayed through the woods without plan or direction. Rushing ahead of everyone else had the distinct drawback of having nobody to turn towards once you're getting lost. The plan had changed from locating Jaune to finding any warm body for finishing this stupid test.

"Helloooo?" She walked by the hundredth identical tree through the same kind of bush, once again without any luck. "I'm getting bored here!"

Bored and a little freaked out from the complete isolation. For a brutal proving ground of future huntresses and huntsmen, she hadn't seen a single grimm since landing, despite stomping through the thicket without a care in the world.

Faint rustling in another bush to her left reignited her hope. "Is someone there? Ruby is that you?"

Pushing the bush aside granted the opportunity to gaze straight into the bone plated mask of a seven-hundred pound nightmare bear.

"Nope."

Wasting no time after finding its prey, the grimm dove for her like an avalanche of claws and teeth. Ursa were strong and durable but not very agile, which meant avoiding harm came down to simple evading maneuvers. Yang chose a barebones roll to the side, dodging the telegraphed swipe and coming back on her feet just in time to see a second ursa join the first.

"You guys wouldn't happen to have seen a girl in a red hood, would you?"

The ursa almost shattered her eardrums with a deafening roar.

"You could just say no!"

They growled again and one swiped again in a wide arc with its claws, making Yang dodge a second time through a well-timed backflip. "Geez you two couldn't hit the broad side of a…"

A single strand of golden hair fluttered down on the ground before her eyes. The dodge apparently wasn't as well-timed as she thought.

"You…" Her eyes turned red. "You monsters!"

Enough was enough. When it came to messing with her hair, Yang had reached the boiling point. Grimm technically weren't alive, a physical manifestation of negative emotions crawling out of black pools. Because of that, she had no reservations to vent her building frustration by brutally eviscerating the beast in front of her.

A minute later, she stood over a broken and hole-riddled pile of dissolving grim matter, panting heavily and glaring at the second ursa approaching.

"What?! You want some too?"

She got her answer when the head of the ursa exploded in a shower of black goo and bone splitters. An iron block, just as big as the skull it just shattered, had flown against the back of the beast and was now on it's way to reconnect with an attached chain to a shaft.

A potent combination of two-handed mace and iron whip in the hands of Cardin Winchester.

Up close and in a calmer situation than back in the locker room, she realized how tall the brunet with the buzzcut was in comparison to others. He had at least a head on Jaune, who in turn had several inches on her, a rare circumstance for the vertically gifted young woman.

"I could have taken him."

The guy in plate armor ignored her quip and took out his scroll, reading out loud every word on the screen. "Yang Xiao Long, seventeen years old, daughter of Taiyang Xiao Long and sister of Ruby Rose, resident of Patch and graduate of Signal Academy."

"Do you want an autograph? Where are the rest of your goons? Did they bail on you for being an aggressive lunatic? Or did you smash them headfirst into a tree as well for a lack of lockers?"

He kept reading as if he hadn't heard her. "Also known for her bad temper and getting carried away. A full rap sheet with nothing more than the most minor misdemeanors."

Yang's eye twitched. Being ignored ranked high among the list of things that pissed her off. "How did you even know where to find me?"

A small moment of silence filled the forest when Cardin looked at her for the first time, pondering something long and hard. A bad feeling grew in Yang's stomach from the sudden smile on his face.

"Look at your scroll."

She did and almost blew a blood vessel from seeing the new screensaver. "How the fuck…"

It was a close-up selfie from the mohawk guy, having an arm around Yang and making a silly face with one of his fingers up her nose. She unlocked the screen with enough force to crack the glass, seeing four new names in her contact list. People exchanging contacts on their scroll could use a feature to track each other at all times.

"That's cheating, Winchester."

"Did Ozpin say we can't, Xiao Long?"

He had not and Yang hated not realizing it sooner. "Okay smartass, then why did you wait especially for me?"

This Cardin Winchester rubbed her the wrong way. She was used to horny guys giving her leery looks, but there were zero vibes in that direction coming from him. There was grading alright, just not the kind hormonal boys partook in when they created a hotness scale for chicks they wanted to bang.

Evaluation took place on a different level.

"I want to know if your files paint the whole picture. Your CV reads like every typical loudmouth from the boonies, thinking they are hot shit. All very big fish in a small pond kind of stuff."

"I'm a top graduate from Signal Academy, the best combat school in Vale!"

Yang was getting a lot of mileage in the bragging department out of that fact lately. Every time it soothed her ego a little less, the accomplishment seemed to matter a little less. Taking it seriously during her last year at Signal catapulted herself to the top with little effort. Combat school was just that, a school focused on combat, and she took to fighting like a fish to water.

"How much of your time has been spent on your knees between a pair of legs for that honor?"

Insinuating her success came from oral favors towards the teaching staff finished, Yang had closed the distance between them before Cardin managed to raise a mocking eyebrow to punctuate his sentence.

"You pigheaded fucker!" Her eyes blazing red, a gloved fist reared back using every ounce of weight and momentum to ram itself between the eyes. Yang's knuckles reached the point where his aura should have softened the blow, but realized too late how her punch went unopposed. Flesh hit flesh in a resounding crack when Cardin's nose dented inwards in a shower of blood splattering against her face.

His body hit the floor like a sack of potatoes, unmoving and face in the dirt.

The Same dirt made him mumble before spitting it out. "Easily goaded and predictable reaction. At least the broad can throw a decent punch."

Yang stared at her bloody fist in horror. "Are you crazy? Why would you take a hit without aura?!"

Cardin slowly pushed himself off the ground, getting on his feet with a chuckle. "For fun, why else?"

"How fun is a broken nose? Your blood splattered all over my hair!"

"With priorities like that, you'd better be off posing as a pin-up model than becoming a huntress." his eyes strayed from hers to look at her body. "You're already halfway there with that outfit."

Their banter calmed her panic and conscience immensely. Her opponent couldn't be as close to death as she feared with mouthy replies like that. "Want me to wear a hundred pounds of armor like you? Did you steal that clunky thing from a museum?"

"Family tradition and lifelong habits are hard to lay down, but I agree that it's rather pointless nowadays." He had already moved on from her breaking his nose, not an ounce of heat in his voice. Almost casually, Cardin stripped out of his armor and set the pieces down gently against a tree, right beside his oversized mace.

Underneath he wore simple grey pants and a black t-shirt, which had nothing on its back and the front was revealed when he finally turned around.

Yang almost fell over laughing. "A white cartoon bunny? Didn't they have one with pink unicorns, Mr. Badass?"

Cardin watched her cackle like a hyena for almost a minute, waiting until she finally calmed down enough to hear his response.

"I'm rather fond of this shirt."

She laughed for another minute. "Then you shouldn't risk getting your favourite shirt all bloody."

He took her advice and started to strip, leaving only his pants and shoes on, showing off his physique to Yang in the process. Cardin Winchester was in good shape, even for a huntsman, with a lot of defined muscles on his broad frame. The only blemish was the tapestry of scars and other faded wounds on the front of his torso.

"Did you lose a fight against a woodchipper?"

Another round of laughs, lasting just about to the point he turned around and showed his back.

"You probably think those wounds are a source of shame to exploit, don't you?" Cardin's tone was conversational, folding the shirt neatly together as he spoke. "Shame is not useful for anything, so I stopped bothering with it. I'm not ashamed of my scars, the bunny on my shirt or the antiquated armor over my clothes. I wear them all proudly like the ink on my skin."

Yang only got the gist of his words, too occupied with staring at the nightmarish creature staring back at her from white skin in a sense of weird deja vu. She had the unique opportunity to compare the artistic rendering on the flesh canvas with the bear beast she had put down earlier.

The inked ursa on Cardin honestly looked more frightening than the original.

Drawn as if beast and man stood back to back as a team, the grimm was reared on its hind legs with both claws raised towards anyone coming from behind. A depiction of a weird and gruesome guardian angel watching out for threats Cardin couldn't see.

"So… how do you get one of these fancy tattoos?"

"You earn the ink." Cardin changed into a lazy boxing stance. "Ready?"

It took longer than expected for Yang to grasp Cardin's intention, caught off guard by somebody actually wanting to fight instead of her having to push for it. "Why are we doing this exactly?"

"Do you need a reason?" Cardin scratched his chin in thought. "How about I insult your mother? That usually gets the job done."

"You don't know shit about my mom!"

Raven might be a piece of shit, the jury's still undecided on that question with a strong tendency towards yes, but Summer Rose stood beyond any doubt about her status as the greatest mom that ever lived.

Anyone putting it into question would be dealt with.

"See? It works every time." The big grin on his face showed how pleased Cardin was for being right. "People are so weird about this. Why would someone care about strangers bad mouthing the woman they dropped out of?"

"That's the grossest way I've ever heard somebody describe their mother."

"Accurate though. So, are we doing this?"

So far, this guy had been the complete opposite of Jaune. Where Cardin carried himself open and explosive, his blonde tattoo buddy always seemed tired and muted in every response to things around him. An underlying sense of boredom inhabited the Grimmhound in contrast to the boisterous nature of the Ursa.

Yang didn't know if Cardin went by that name, but she would bet good money on it being the case.

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to teaching you a lesson." All in all, beating the snot out of somebody reciprocating her smacktalk was a refreshing change from the almost lethargic Jaune Arc.

Case in point Cardin's response. "You're not teaching me dick, Blondie. Or maybe you do? You look like the type intimately familiar with the male reproductive organ."

Not the first time a sexist remark kickstarted a physical altercation with her, even today, but one of the few instances the perpetrator didn't go down immediately. Instead of taking it to the face again, Cardin caught her punch in his hand and struggled to keep himself from being pushed away. She saw the muscles in his arm bulge under the strain, showing the difference in strength in their exchange.

For now, Yang was stronger than him by a significant margin.

Her opponent was a pure brawler type with no technique, just relying on instinct and reaction speed. Those he had in abundance to stave off the worst of her attacks as Yang ran circles around him even without the use of her gauntlets. She couldn't risk shooting him with his aura turned off and spraying his brain against the next tree.

Using weapons against an unarmed opponent would be really lame anyway.

One strike finally slithered through his defense and Cardin took a punch against the chest. Yang felt the unmistakable sensation of bones denting inwards under her fist as his ribcage buckled. She jumped backward to avoid the huge amount of blood he spat out, only to receive a hit on her chin when Cardin took advantage of Yang's retreat. Stars filled her eyes from the blunt force trauma, it's impact still rattling the blonde although already reduced by her aura and the lack of usage on his part.

Aura did not exclusively bolster defense, it enhanced all facets of body and mind. One combatant refraining from using it should unbalance the fight drastically towards the other. Yang had obviously the upper hand from the beginning but she wasn't as dominating as suspected.

"Use your damn aura!"

"Make me, Blondie."

Another punch flung towards her face. She dodged the attack and grabbed his arm, pulling him closer for a headbutt. The execution wasn't perfect due to their height differences, resulting in their foreheads smashing together in a resounding crack of skull and crackling aura in Yang's case.

Cardin busted open like a ripe tomato, gushing more blood down his face. More and more injuries mounted on him during the course of their fight. Besides the multitudes of bruises and lacerations, she was sure at least three of his ribs were cracked and the left arm hung uselessly on his side from a dislocated shoulder. While Yang had no visible injuries, her aura had already dropped to sixty percent and the punches from his good arm were still hitting like a truck.

And he still wasn't using an ounce of his aura.

"Take this seriously. I don't want to kill you by accident!"

"I don't think that's something you have to worry about. Not from what I've seen so far."

Yang turned up the heat, literally and in the figurative sense. With fire emerging around the brawler's body and desperation clear in her eyes, a complete battering and manhandling of the bloody but stoic opponent began. All enjoyment was gone, her fists shaking after every blow. She wanted to wash the sticky blood off her skin, burn her stained clothes and curl up under a blanket to sleep this whole day away.

But not without winning first.

The ending of a vicious combo in the form of a double palm strike sent Cardin flying against a tree in a sickening crack, not discernible if the noise was the splintering wood or his spine breaking. He crumbled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut and Yang allowed herself a sigh of relief, looking at the blinking fifty percent gauge of her aura meter.

Then he rose up again and all the precious air fled her lungs.

"Don't you have enough?" she asked, unable to fully hide the pleading tone out of her voice. "Just give up."

"Unrelated question," he checked his mouth for missing teeth and gave a bloody smile afterwards. "When you had unprotected sex with three or more teachers at Signal, did you call it a Yang Bang?"

She answered by breaking another rib in a fit of rage, nailing him back against the tree. Cardin laughed in her face throughout the physical abuse and made the blonde nauseous to the core. Yang had never been so freaked out by a fight. There had to be a trick to this monstrous endurance, some kind of stamina semblance or pain reduction ability.

Gaining potential witnesses to her embarrassment didn't improve Yang's situation, especially if one witness was her little baby sister driving onto the scene as a passenger on a motorbike.

"Yang!"

The bike came to a halt right between them, stopping the fight effective immediately and frustrating Yang. She wanted this fight to end, but not without a decisive victory on her part. It spoke for the single minded focus Yang had developed, when she didn't even question her little sister riding with the same mohawk guy who pulled the scroll prank on her. Not to mention her big sister mode not activating seeing Ruby with a boy of dateable age.

"I'm in the middle of something, Ruby."

"YANG, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND HELP US!"

Did her sweet little sister just swear at her?

Before Yang could ponder the multitude of gruesome ways she would punish the person responsible for corrupting her Rubaby, a large object in the sky blocked the sun and cast its shadow on the group. The shape was easily recognizable even from this far away, belonging to a grimm bird as large as a small plane.

It looked massive, even for a Nevermore, speaking for its ancientry and ability to reach such an old age. With said age came power and cunning, making the grimm less predictable than its brethren.

"The Nevermore isn't attacking…" Ruby stared at the circling beast above. "Why? It's been hounding us nonstop through the whole forest!"

Cardin joined them, making Ruby shy away from the sight of his current state. The young man was dripping blood in buckets, bruised like an overripe fruit, and walked with a noticeable limp while his left arm hung uselessly out the shoulder socket.

Silver eyes drilled into lilac ones, searching for an explanation and finding frustration, anger and a healthy amount of discomfort in her sister's stare.

Russel barely acknowledged the disastrous condition of his partner and analyzed the behavior of the Nevermore with a frown. "It's waiting for something."

Sound of breaking rock and shifting earth punctuated Ruby's question. A pitch black armored scorpion, the size of a shipping container, burst through the treeline a second later. Deathstalkers were a rare breed of grimm, keeping to themselves in sometimes centuries long isolation periods underground and growing stronger undetected from hunting parties. As such, their appearance hit mostly unprepared people when they finally surfaced.

The giant grim took a second to orient itself and did a deafening screech once it saw the four humans around the motorcycle.

Cardin showed a faint glimmer, telltale sign of aura activating, and picked up his mace with one hand.

"Finally feeling like giving it your best?" Yang said with blatant snark. Despite the dire situation of facing two elite level grimm, the blonde brawler felt a sense of giddiness bubble up from her stomach after seeing Cardin draw his weapon. Half-dead or not, she would finally get a taste of his ability without him playing stupid games.

Unfortunately, he had to dash her hopes entirely. "Russel, do your thing."

Ruby's eyes went wide.

"Don't do it!"

"What? Don't do wh..." Yang's question stopped mid-sentence like everything else the two sisters were doing, Ruby and Yang standing still in place like mannequins.

Russel carried both girls to the bike and snuggly fit them into the sidecar, Ruby sitting on Yang's lap to save space. The Nevermore and Deathstalker waited for the perfect moment to strike, which meant Russel's window of opportunity for his getaway was closing fast.

"Meet you at the temple?" Russel asked, sitting down on the saddle and grabbing the handlebars.

Cardin nodded. "Stay out of reach when you unpause them. Blondie will be grumpy and she packs a mean punch."

"A punch you could use as backup in a fight against two elite grimm, don't you think?"

The Nevermore went for a dive towards them, but was intercepted by a swing with Cardin's mace whip, striking a glancing blow against the giant bird and ruffling its feathers enough to make it back off for now. The scorpion counterpart on the ground mirrored the cautious approach after seeing its congener repelled by a walking corpse.

"And making this fight less fun? Are you crazy?"

Russel refrained from commenting who he thought was the crazy one in this conversation. "What about Jaune? These two haven't made eye contact yet."

The girls in the sidecar didn't get more than a glance. "Let him decide who he wants. Blondie was adequate and the red munchkin should be good enough, considering the fact you decided to stick with her."

And just like that, everything they've done so far had become entirely pointless due to the random whims of their boss. Life was his playground and just like a child playing in a playground, Cardin suffered from a short attention span when presented with new toys. He had already moved on from the plan, his plan he didn't feel like doing anymore, eyeing the monsters with unbridled anticipation.

"Found something better to amuse yourself, huh?" Russel started the engine, making the red machine purr like a kitten. "For the record, I believe your decision is idiotic."

"A man fighting monsters ought to be a little stupid."

All he received for this line was an eye roll. The bike drove off unopposed with its cargo of two frozen and soon to be very angry girls, the attention of both massive grim focused solely on the remaining young man flaring his aura. Like moths to the flame, the beasts were drawn towards the beacon of life energy flooding the forest.

"Let's find out who's the biggest monster among us, shall we?"