The morning after the battle, the auditorium arena of Beacon was once again jam-packed with students. Yesterday the first years had been bursting with energy, ready to kick Grimm butt and prove themselves as prospective students of Beacon. Today, they were flagging. Several had opted to sit on the floor or lean against the walls. A few were even depending on each other to stay upright. They all had bags under their eyes and were paler than the day before. These were both telltale signs of aura exhaustion. The starkest change, however, was that no one was talking.
Ruby sat against the wall where she could cross her legs and rest against the cool stone with her eyes closed. She couldn't sleep; she was still too pumped up on adrenaline, just like most of the students. When they'd withdrawn from the Emerald Forest, they'd been taken to the ballroom, but almost no one had slept. Some talked, and others cried. It had almost certainly not been their first time fighting Grimm, but few had faced a horde like that.
Yang was standing next to her. Amongst all Ruby's acquaintances, she was unsurprisingly the least phased by the last night's events. After they'd withdrawn from the fighting and been funnelled into the ballroom by instructors, she had crashed next to Blake. Literally, She'd left a dent in the floorboards. They'd built up a dialogue over the night. Well, Yang had built up a dialogue, and Blake responded with hums and nods.
Weiss had settled next to Ruby and had not engaged with Ruby's attempts to talk. When it became evident that sleep wasn't coming, she propped herself up against a wall and began to practice with her glyphs, repeatedly summoning a small sword.
She looked even more tired than Ruby felt now. They were sitting next to each other, with Ruby between Weiss and Yang. She still had her weapon; they all did. They hadn't been asked for them after the siege and had been told to have them ready when they got to the auditorium.
"Ahem," Ozpin had been standing on the stage for the last couple minutes, looking out at the massed students with his inscrutable eyes, "First and foremost, I must commend all of you for your actions last night. You fought valiantly. Many of you are at a skill level beyond a typical first-year. You would all make excellent students of this academy."
His phrasing was not lost on the crowd, which shifted nervously and looked up at him with fearful or resentful eyes. Ruby had an inkling of what he meant. Beacon's practice of accepting more students than it had space for was no secret; every combat school did. Initiation served to further whittle down the student pool, and only the best of the best then secured their place at the academy. Even if every injured student was sent home, Beacon would still be almost twice its maximum annual intake.
"Assuming you pass initiation, I would be proud to teach any and all of you. On that topic, after the events of last night, it is evident sending you into the Emerald Forest would be unwise. Instead, Bullheads will drop you off at assigned locations within the forest of Forever Fall. Your task is simple: Pair up with another student, who will be your partner for the next four years, then proceed north towards the extraction point. Then your standing and the proficiency you showed within the forest will be evaluated, and you will be placed accordingly. You may encounter ruins along the way; I encourage you to avoid them. They are home to Grimm. Unlike last night, our staff will not intervene. You alone will be responsible for your safety."
The atmosphere in the room changed almost immediately: fear and resentment turned to horror and outrage. "What?" Yang said, her voice tinged with disbelief. "We've just fought through a siege." She was hardly the only one complaining; muttered protests rumbled around the auditorium like quiet thunder.
"We are well aware of the events that transpired last night," Goodwitch addressed the crowd, her tone firm. "Consider this a test of your endurance; the Grimm will not show mercy just because you're tired. If this isn't to your liking, you are free to leave."
Ruby swallowed and pushed herself to her feet; Weiss did the same beside her. Having counted her ammunition back in the ballroom, she knew she only had twelve bullets left, and as the throng started to move, it looked like there wouldn't be an opportunity to resupply. She cursed internally and resolved to be extra cautious. If she ran out at the wrong moment, it could get nasty. Very nasty.
Yang gave her a reassuring smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Come on, Rubes, it'll be fun. You'll see."
Ruby scratched the back of her head sheepishly and stuck her other hand into the pouch on her belt, counting the ammo once more — still twelve. Resisting the urge to collapse, she slowly followed the crowd to the waiting airships.
Below Ruby stretched the auburn expanse of the Forever Fall Forest; the treetops blurred together into a single carpet of red as she flew through the air. Under Ozpin's orders, the Bullhead hadn't landed to drop her off; instead, she'd been told to jump. So she soared through the air in barely controlled freefall.
Once she was barely above the treeline Crescent Rose came out, a single shot from it reduced her speed with a sharp crack. "One," she said to herself as she angled her blade. It caught on a nearby tree, tearing through it like paper, slowing her further. She hit the ground hard but not hard enough to noticeably deplete her aura.
She took stock of her immediate surroundings. Very little stood out to her — just trees, bushes, smaller plants, forest stuff — and there were no students nearby. "Yang?!" She shouted as loud as she could, getting no response.
With a sigh, she set off north, Crescent Rose in hand. It wasn't long before encountering her first Grimm of the day: two Beowolves. She speared the first with her weapon's war-scythe configuration; the second died when its head was taken from its shoulders. She continued unimpeded.
The further north she went, the more the forest thinned. By the time she'd encountered the next Grimm, a lone Ursa, there was enough space to comfortably extend her weapon into its scythe configuration again. Her battle with the bear Grimm was brief but cost her another bullet. The Grimm was old and had grown thick armour that her weapon couldn't cut unaided, but the recoil let Crescent Rose slice right through. "Two," she muttered.
After a while of walking, her thoughts were interrupted by someone speaking. "No, Jaune, like this." She heard them say from behind a bush. They had a kindly voice which was quite musical. Pushing through the brush, she stumbled out into a clearing. After Yanking her cloak free of a bramble, she approached the pair of students, the Amazon girl and the knight Ruby had noticed last night.
The huntress stood head and shoulders above Ruby. She had bright red hair and inviting emerald eyes. In her armoured hand, she held a spear. The other arm had a shield buckled to it, made of the same brass as the half-plate armour that covered her torso and upper legs.
The knight, a scruffy man with uncombed hair, wore white armour that seemed too large for him, covering what looked like a hoodie. Instead of protection for his legs, he wore jeans. He seemed to be following the directions of his partner, who was going through the motion of an overhead strike.
"Uh, hi?" Ruby ventured. The blonde jumped, evidently not having noticed Ruby approaching. The girl smiled at Ruby, waving slightly.
"Hello!" the Amazon said, smiling.
"H-hi!" Ruby said, internally cursing that her limited expertise at socialising seemed to have vanished. "You haven't seen my sister, have you? Blonde, big gauntlets with shotguns, lots of hair?"
"I'm afraid not. I'm sorry," the Amazon said. "But if we do, we'll let her know you're looking for her."
"Thanks! I'm gonna keep going, see if I can find her," Ruby said, turning to walk on. "Oh, I'm Ruby, by the way," she added, turning back.
"Pyrrha," the Amazon said, nudging her companion.
"Jaune," said the knight as he smiled nervously, "nice to meet you."
"You too!" Ruby shouted as she took off into the forest again.
As Blake walked, her mind drifted to the people she had met. There was Yang Xiao Long; she'd been first, dragging her sister with her. Then the misfortune of meeting Weiss had dampened the evening almost as much as the later Grimm siege. Finally, there were Nora and Ren; they'd been … interesting.
She wondered which of them Ozpin would team her up with. She hoped to be paired with Yang and Ruby, as she suspected they would make the most capable teammates for her. However, the sisters seemed set on becoming entirely different kinds of huntresses.
You could tell a lot about a huntress by looking at her weapon. For instance, Ruby's scythe, Crescent Rose, was an overengineered mess that would make White Fang smiths gape. But that was because it wasn't a weapon to fight people; its wielder was expecting to fight Grimm. To hit someone with its blade, she would have to let them inside its guard, often a fatal mistake when fighting humans. But Grimm tended to be larger targets than people, making it easier to manoeuvre a scythe around them.
Her musing was interrupted by a Beowolf; it came from behind her and met its end when Gambol Shroud's larger blade pierced its brain cavity through its pallet.
Yang's weapon, Ember Cecilia, was in stark contrast. Blunt force was continually touted as the best method for dealing with aura users but fared worse against Grimm. Those had excess muscle and exoskeletal plates to absorb blows. Still, aura didn't block all the force of a concussive attack. It just took the edge off. Aura certainly didn't stop you from being sent flying, either. And her gauntlets were the mother of all blunt-force weapons when combined with her aura-enhanced strength.
Another Grimm met an unfortunate end, a bullet through the eye and into where its brain would be. The Creep fell where it stood, having never seen the faunus that killed it.
Weiss' weapon bridged the gap between them. Myrtenaster was a dust rapier, nimble, piercing and precise. Those were advantages against both people and Grimm, but it lacked the impact to particularly hurt either. However, from what little of her fighting style Blake had seen, Weiss seemed to use it more as a focus for her semblance.
A Beowolf was swiftly decapitated; a second died moments later when its limbs were separated from its body.
Nora and Ren's weapons seemed complementary in the same way their personalities were. Nora captured attention with her hammer/grenade launcher, while Ren's comparatively light weapons suited his more manoeuvrable approach to combat.
An Ursa Major caught her attention as it stalked below her. It was growling as it walked but didn't look Blake's way. Following in its wake was a small army of minor Grimm, Beowolves, Creeps, and Boartabusks. A momentary spike of fear rose in Blake, which she quickly suppressed before the Grimm could take notice, when she realised that the horde was also travelling north. She sighed and ducked behind the tree trunk; she would have to follow them for the time being.
Trees splintered as Yang slammed through them, her unique landing strategy causing a typical amount of collateral damage. Eventually, she had lost enough momentum that she encountered a tree she couldn't break through and spun in the air, checking it with her shoulder. She'd learnt through painful experience to not hit it straight on.
After leaving behind the dent she'd made, she took the time to look around. The part of the forest she found herself in was dense, but it didn't take Faunus' senses to hear the sounds of battle all around her. Gunfire rang out, and blades clashed against bone; it was a familiar layer of background noise for her.
Looking up, she found nothing but trees and grey sky. She scowled. At times like this, she envied her father's sense of direction; he always knew where he was going. Without a compass, she had little idea what to do other than start walking towards the nearest sound of battle, keeping an eye out for her sister as she went.
She'd made it a little way before it occurred to her that Ruby was practically camouflaged in the forest. Resisting the urge to punch a tree, she stopped to listen again. The forest was still full of noise, but she tuned it out to listen for the sound of one particular weapon.
Every student at Signal built their own weapon, but Ruby had taken it a step further. Most built their weapons using modular kits - Ruby, however, had made Crescent Rose and Ember Cecilia from scratch, custom machining every component. It led to both weapons being entirely unique, including their firing reports. Firing reports that Yang couldn't hear.
"Ruby?!" She cupped her hands to her mouth as she shouted. When she didn't get a response, she sighed and resumed walking towards the sounds of combat. Despite the echoing noise, she encountered neither hunter nor Grimm as she walked. Instead, the forest continued to close in on her as she went.
It took almost five minutes for the forest to thin out and another ten before she came to a clearing. The unseen battles around her had started to quiet some time ago, almost all ending with the sound of a Grimm roaring its last. However, there was still no sign of Crescent Rose amongst the crescendo, which concerned Yang. "Ruby?!" She called out again.
Behind a nearby tree, something moved.
"Ruby?" The tree cracked and crashed, causing Yang to roll to dodge it. Where it had stood, there was an Alpha Ursa. "Uh oh," She said. Behind it was a veritable army of minor Grimm, jeering and roaring at her.
Yang punched; it was what she did best. The Alpha's rib cage caved inward under the force of her fist. Despite the injury it clawed at her, she deflected the strike with Ember Cecila and drew her fists up into a boxer's stance. Her first attack broke its jaw, and the second drove it back.
The minor Grimm swarmed, and Yang met them with her fists. One fell to a crushed throat; it spent its last moments choking out a mournful cry. Another died when its bones shattered under Yang's rage. A third was shot full of buckshot, and a fourth was killed when Yang's recoil-propelled elbow struck it in the eye. She made quick work of the horde even as they kept coming. All the while, the Alpha watched.
Once done, she flicked her wrist to reset her gauntlets to their storage positions and looked around. The clearing she'd made was littered with the dissolving bodies of minor Grimm, each sporting broken bones. The Alpha, however, was nowhere to be seen.
It was a mystery soon resolved, as once she'd rounded the trees, she found its rapidly dissipating corpse and Blake standing over it with her weapon in its back.
"Eh," Yang said, "I could have taken it."
Ruby stumbled from a patch of thorns, dragging her cloak out of the brambles to free it for what felt like the twentieth time that day. She'd reached a clearing in the forest where the stream she'd been following pooled into a small pond. After adjusting the now slightly tattered garment, something behind her caught her attention. "Yang?" She called out, drawing Crescent Rose again.
When she didn't get a response, she began to close on the source of the noise. Peering in, she almost didn't have enough time to dodge the Boarbatusk that flew out of the bush.
As she recovered from diving to the ground, she watched the pig-like Grimm turn and run straight past her into the bush. "Uh? Hello?" She asked rhetorically.
Following the pig into the bushes, she found another clearing just off the one she was in. Within it, several Grimm circled around someone she couldn't see, taking swipes at them. The recoil from a bullet, combined with a momentary burst of her semblance, took Ruby over the Grimm and down beside the target of their aggression: Weiss.
She looked noticeably worse for wear than when Ruby had left her in the atrium; she sported several new minor scuffs, and every action she took was accompanied by deep breaths. "Ruby?" Even her voice sounded strained.
"Hey, Weiss! How's it going?"
"How does it look," she muttered, "We should try and cut a path out of this encirclement. Are you battle ready?"
"Uh, I've got like nine bullets left, I think, maybe ten?" Ruby said, "I started out with twelve, and I've only used two so far, I think. So ten. And also, my aura's running low, so I can't really use my semblance much."
"Will that be sufficient to fight our way out?" Weiss asked, checking the chamber of Myrtenaster while she spoke.
Ruby looked around at the circling Grimm. They'd been surprised by the arrival of the new girl, but that shock was fast wearing off. She shook her head. "Against this many? Not really. Why don't we just run?"
"They'll catch us; we can't run as fast as they can. Never mind for as long." Weiss gestured to her state as evidence.
"I can!" Ruby replied.
"I can't!"
"I'll carry you!"
"No." Weiss said, an air of finality in her voice. "Schnee's are not carried, and we do not run."
Before Ruby could respond, the Grimm grew bored of waiting. A Beowolf closed in and swung at her. She had just enough time to force herself to the side before the claw hit her. She didn't see where it went after that; she had to worry about the Ursa trying to bite her head off. It died when Ruby stuck Crescent Rose down its open throat.
Weiss reeled from the beowolf strike, recovering in time to end it and use a glyph to block the charging Boarbatusk before it could strike her, skidding off to the side and away, out of Weiss's peripherals. She skewered at a nearby creep, killing it, and she withdrew her blade fast enough to block a blow from an Ursa.
Ruby stumbled when the Boarbatusk hit her. She could barely compensate in time to stop it from knocking her weapon away. The offending Grimm died to a rifle round through the ocular cavity as it turned. Three Beowolves closed on her; one perished to a bullet wound, the second as well not long after. The third got close enough to strike at her, and she stepped backwards. Something hit her back, but it wasn't a Grimm, so she paid it no mind.
Weiss struggled to keep pace as the fight progressed; she barely had time to kill the Ursa before another took its place. And blocking with glyphs was using too much of her rapidly dwindling aura. She took a step back and felt something against her back.
Raising Crescent Rose in the air, Ruby prepared to deliver an overhead strike against the Beowolf.
Weiss raised Myrtenaster in the air, preparing to summon another glyph to aid her.
Ruby tried to bring her weapon down and met resistance; without thinking, she applied more force, and Crescent Rose fell onto the beowolf.
Before she could summon her glyph, Weiss felt something tug against her weapon. She held on tightly regardless and was sent stumbling over.
Ruby fell as someone landed on her back. She sprawled on the ground, squawking as she fell; she heard Weiss grunt above her as Ruby's elbow jabbed into her stomach. Above them, the Beowolf towered; it reached up with a clawed hand, preparing to strike Ruby. She reacted on instinct.
Weiss wondered if she was dead. She'd fallen suddenly, her weapon nearly ripped out of her hand, and she had just enough time to look up at the Ursa towering over her before the world went red. Now her sight was full of red. She felt light like she was falling. The air whistled around her, but she couldn't see or feel it. She just saw red and felt warm, like she was close to someone.
It ended as suddenly as it began, with an undignified squawk. Ruby's semblance gave out, and she came to a sudden halt. Weiss splayed out her arms and landed on the ground with a thump. Ruby didn't notice as she was bent almost double; her aura was dangerously low.
It took the two students almost thirty seconds to recover to the point of speech, and like in most things, Ruby was faster. "What was that?" She asked, "That shouldn't have happened!
Weiss, who took several gulps of air to recover from her winding, gave Ruby a look that could kill before responding. "If you had exercised even the slightest amount of spatial awareness, you wouldn't have almost disarmed me."
"Like you were any better! I didn't need you pressed against my back. And we could have escaped at any time! Your pride kept us there."
"Oh yes. Run away; what a fine example of our talent that would be. Now we're practically guaranteed to be kicked out of Beacon because of you!"
With everything she wanted to say said, Weiss turned and left, walking north again. Ruby started to follow, lagging behind and blinking back tears.
A ravine was in the midst of the forest, nestled amongst the trees. It had only one bridge across, leading to a black stone building. Vines crawled up its surface, and the walls had collapsed in several places. The side of the bridge opposite was surrounded by smaller walls of the same black stone.
"Do we go around it?" Blake asked.
"Ravine's pretty big," Yang replied, looking up and down the fissure. It stretched a long way away on both sides before winding out of sight, "it might take a while; we could just go over it?"
"Walk into the ominous ruin?" Blake's hand fell to her hip, and her eyebrow raised.
Yang shrugged, smiling sheepishly, and started to slowly pick her way over the bricks that had once likely been a gatehouse. Behind her, Blake also climbed up the wall. She moved gracefully from step to step without issue.
The inside of the gatehouse was still paved, although blades of red grass poked up between the black stones. The courtyard was free of obstacles, granting a clear view of the bridge beyond.
Crossing the ravine took almost a minute of walking. Despite its age, the bridge was in good condition, so the two had no trouble until Blake stopped. "What?" Yang asked. In response, Blake raised her hand and pointed towards the trees where they had come, gathered on the cliff edge were several Beowolves, frozen and watching them pass.
"That's creepy," Yang muttered.
"There's more," Blake responded quietly. Yang glanced over to the other side of the gatehouse, more Grimm assembled, watching. Beady red eyes glared at them from the depths of shadows on both sides of the ravine, save for a small perimeter around the ruin. "They're avoiding the castle."
"That's good, right?" Yang asked hopefully as she resumed walking.
Blake didn't respond.
The castle ruins were dark, dank, and unpleasant. Every surface was damp and slick with water and moss. The whole place smelled like stagnant water and dust. A slight chill pervaded the area that caused the hairs on both necks to stand up. Yang reflexively summoned her weapons from their storage mode, and Blake drew Gambol Shroud.
"Are these passages getting smaller," Yang asked, "or is it just me?"
Blake shrugged as they turned left. They didn't seem to be getting any smaller to her, but she could understand feeling claustrophobic.
They took another left, then a right, then a left again. This continued for some time, weaving through the ruined tunnels until they came to a dead end. Once, it had likely been a passageway, but time and the elements had worn it down, and the ceiling had caved in.
"We need to get through here," Blake nodded towards the debris.
"Hold on!" Yang drew her fist back.
"Wait, no!" Blake shouted, too late.
Yang punched the wall with her full strength. It shattered, bricks turning to powder and flying loose under the force. Her hand flickered yellow as her aura manifested to protect her bones from the attack. She smirked and went to say something when the building rumbled.
Behind them, the roof gave in. "Oh shit!" Yang shouted as she started to run, Blake right on her heels. Thirty seconds of sprinting led them to the central courtyard of the structure. It was dark, the high walls surrounding them blocking even more sunlight than the forest. In the centre stood the ruins of the keep, a dark shadow that seemed to suck in light.
"Whew," Yang exhaled, "That was a close one. You good, Blake?"
"I'm fine, thanks," Blake replied offhandedly while staring into the shadowed ruin of the main keep. "Did you see…" she trailed off.
"What?" Yang asked.
"I thought I saw something in there," she gestured to the keep.
Yang squinted in, her lilac eyes narrowing as she tried to pierce the darkness. "I don't see anything," she said, "but hold on a second." Drawing her arm back, she primed Ember Cecilia and sent a flare into the building. It burned brightly, revealing a mass of slithering black scales and bone-white exoskeletal armour.
When the flare faded, eight pairs of red, glowing eyes stared back at the hunters from the darkness.
"Oh no."
As promised, the next chapter of Rose By Any Other Bloom, on time... with only 3 hours remaining. Who's cutting it close, I'm not cutting it close. Still this was fun, I'm happy to finally get the partners together. Weiss and Ruby have my favourite dynamic in V1 to 3 and I'm glad I get to explore it here, while Blake and Yang carry the team as the actually functional huntresses. Also, we have an editor now. I've successfuly pursuaded one of my friends to beta-read this for me and harass me about sentences being too long.
Oh and, although I'm 2 days late (and I was considering putting this chapter out early just to be on time for this, had I only overcame my writers block), Happy 10th Aniversary to RWBY! Its hard to believe that I've been watching this show for 10 whole years. Because I haven't, I started watching after v3 ended, I was 9 when V1C1 came out. Still, I'm glad this wonderful world has persisted for 10 whole years, and heres hoping for another 10 to come. For now though, GLHF!