"What are you doing?!"
The furious shout came from an elegantly-dressed and petite young lady with a small scar and a deep scowl, her irritation overt.
"Uh? I'm sorry," responded the victim of this remonstrance; an even younger girl in a black and red dress with a red cape and silver eyes full of embarrassment. It's also worth mentioning that she was on the floor among bags of luggage as she was scolded.
"Sorry?"
Weiss continued (for that was her name) in her admonishment, not at all appeased by the apology and instead responding with even more irritation.
"Do you have any idea how much damage you could have caused?"
Still slightly stupefied, Ruby (the younger girl) gets up and attempts to make amends by handing the fallen luggage to the less than pleasant person before her.
"Give me that," she said rudely, abruptly seizing the suitcase from the other's hands although considering the contents of the luggage, that wasn't the best of ideas.
A second later, there was an explosion.
A small one, but one that left the first girl's clothes and hair blackened and singed and the crowd (one had formed as they saw the drama unfolding in the docking area) barely containing their amusement.
"Unbelievable!" she shouted angrily, her body quivering and her veins popping out, seemingly
seconds away from an apoplexy.
Her second explosion-the emotional kind, made the crowd move back slightly afraid another chemical one was close by.
"This is exactly the thing I was talking about!"
"I'm really sorry," the silver-eyed girl, who had at some point gotten up to her feet, said as she looked down and twiddled her thumbs, hoping the earth would be a pal and swallow her up.
"Sorry? You complete dolt!"
Although it seemed the earth wasn't taking any requests, and neither was the white-haired girl wasn't taking any apologies, as she continued to rain insult after insult angrily at her.
Although everyone could agree that Ruby had been careless, the continuous string of insults was excessive in their eyes; the explosion was harmless and with all that luggage, she ought to have some shampoo and a spare dress, there was no reason to continue being so harsh.
"I said I was sorry Princess," came the silver-eyed girl's timid response, after enduring salvo after salvo of insults.
"It's heiress actually."
There was a newcomer to this discussion; a broodingly beautiful brunette with intense but distant amber eyes and a bow situated neatly on top of her head.
"Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Company, one of Remnant's biggest dust-centred companies."
This further introduction came from yet another person, a fellow of nearly two metres in height with a breezy air and a face covered in a black cloth mask down to his nose but revealed a few locks of hair that stubbornly stuck out from his neck area.
Ruby was further embarrassed, the last thing she wanted was for the situation to escalate and the pair seemed to know the girl who was shouting at her. "Finally, some recognition," the white-haired girl apparently called Weiss said, this time without her signature furious shouting.
"A company known for its questionable labour force and business partners," he added with a slightly malicious grin, clearly watching for her reaction from behind his mask.
This left the heiress hemming and hawing in anger, surprised by the sudden attack on her family honour to the point of unintelligibility before she stormed off, moving far away from the group.
"I'm really sorry," the silver-eyed girl called out apologetically after the furious Schnee heiress.
"Well, thanks a lot for your help," she declared sincerely, turning towards the pair who had just extricated from that mess just to see that the girl had disappeared.
"Don't mention it," the redhead that had stepped in later said; clearly he had enjoyed provoking her.
"I'm Adam by the way," he said extending his hand.
"Ruby, I-I'm Ruby."
"Nice to meet you Ruby."
"Nice to meet you too," she responded.
"Hey, my eyes are up here," he said with a small chuckle noticing that her eyes were trained on his waist.
"I'm sorry," she said, embarrassed at being caught staring, "It's just... I'm really curious about
your weapon."
"Oh you mean Nerium Thorn?"
His hand unconsciously grabbed its hilt as he asked.
"That's what it's called? That's so cool."
As she spoke, she inched forward seemingly drawn in by the weapon.
"Don't we have an orientation to get to?"
He used this question as an excuse to distract her enough to walk past her and try to shake her off.
xXx
The orientation went without incident; Adam was able to lose Ruby temporarily, but she magically appeared close to him that night, introducing a blonde boy with a Peter Pumpkin hoodie under his plate armour.
He introduced himself as Jaune, although Adam recognised him as the person who had thrown up aboard the bullhead.
Adam was also introduced to a wild blonde with fierce lilac eyes; Yang was her name and she was apparently Ruby's sister –half-sister.
In the course of the night, the red and black pair ended up conversing with the Schnee heiress on account of a ruckus and were surprisingly able to resolve the earlier bad blood.
xXx
The next morning, the students filed out in excitement, prepared to prove their ability and earn their places in the greatest Huntsman Academy in all of Remnant.
They were all summoned to a hill where the Principal explained the objective of their examination and wished them good luck.
"So, did you hand out parachutes?" Jaune asked, with slight worry before being flung into the air alongside all the other applicants, yelling in surprise at his ill-prepared for flight.
xXx
Adam landed leisurely on a treetop, unperturbed by his brief time as an animate projectile and instead using his high altitude in the foliage to apparently scan for something. He apparently found it soon after, because he bound from the tree to a point east of him.
Seconds later, a black and white figure appeared in his line of sight; the figure seemed to notice
him as it sped up wildly, attempting to increase the gap between them. That didn't work though, and he grew increasingly closer to the figure, till it was discernible as the brunette from the previous day, the same one who had first joined Ruby and Weiss' conversation.
xXx
Blake could not for sure say why she was running.
She was sincerely terrified of him of course, but she doubted that he would have infiltrated the best Huntsman Academy in Remnant just to track her down, especially considering that she had inhabited the city for a few weeks in her wait for her admission. He could have grabbed her at any point during that time.
Even if he were here for that, she knew that the entire exam was under the keen watch of the teachers, all of whom were Professional Huntsmen.
Despite that, she ran ever intensely, hoping to outrun the- as she was aware- faster red-haired man behind her.
"Blake!"
The thunderous shout from her former partner and superior caused her to grind to a sudden halt before gradually and almost agonisingly turning to face him, her face a mixture of expressions from fear to shame.
"Adam."
She said one word back, her eyes refusing to reach his face as she said so.
"Blake," he said again gently, walking up to her with his hands spread by way of assurance, "I'm not here as part of the White Fang."
The statement surprised Blake, not only because of its content, but because she was aware that they were being monitored.
Did he have a method to circumvent their surveillance?
"What do you mean by that?" she asked, moving her other questions to the back of her mind temporarily.
"You said something when you left," he started, walking closer as he spoke, "You said that you didn't know that what we were doing was right."
"I'm here because I think there's something to that."
Blake had known this man for the greater part of three years. To some, that was a short time, but the amount of life and death they had experienced then made it seem like it was much longer.
In all that time, she had never known him to lie.
Still, she scanned his face for any signs of deception and seemed satisfied with what she saw.
"So, what does that mean?" she asked, speaking casually as though with a friend, "We're a couple of runaways?"
"Something like that," he responded with a smile.
Her eyes had softened tremendously, looking at the man before her with affection and respect.
"You've gotten rid of Wilt and Blush?"
This genuinely surprised her as he had paid attention to that pair of weapons as one would a lover.
"Well, I've had to leave that life behind in more ways than one."
"How hard can it be to make eye contact with someone?" came a frustrated voice from behind the two, they turned around to see a blonde lady with lilac eyes- Ruby's sister, Yang Xiao-Long.
"Hey!" the girl waved as she noticed them "Remember me?"
"You're looking for a partner?" he asked, walking towards her with Blake in tow.
"Yeah, though it's been a bust so far."
"Well, the both of you could pair up if you don't mind."
"Aren't you guys already paired up?"
"Technically no," he said gesturing to his face to show that he couldn't exactly make eye contact through his mask, "I'm winking behind the mask by the way."
"See you two later," he said as he ran back towards his starting point.
xXx
"Russel Thrush, Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark," the boys that bore the names
lined up as the auditorium burst into cheer from the announcement.
"The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team CRDL …led by Cardin Winchester!"
"Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team JNPR. Led by… Jaune Arc!"
"Huh? Led by…?"
"Congratulations, young man," said the Principal, Ozpin, who had been making all the announcements.
"Blake Dellarobia, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long. From this day forward, you will work together as Team RWBY. Led by… Ruby Rose!"
"I'm so proud of you!" Yang said, giving her little sister/team leader a hug.
"And finally: Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, Adam Vulpes and Neo Reeves. The four of you retrieved the black queen pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team AMEN.
Led by… Adam Vulpes."
The auditorium erupted one last time in applause, as the newest students of Beacon Academy were announced.
"This is shaping up to be an interesting year," said Principal Ozpin as he exited the auditorium next to the Vice Principal Glynda Goodwitch.
"I'll say; we have a team leader with false transcripts, another who is much too young to be here, and another who is a faunus in disguise."
"As I said, an interesting year," he insisted with a small smile, "But you're worried about something else, aren't you?"
"Both Blake Dellarobia and Adam Vulpes disappeared during the exam, it wasn't for that long, but I still lost sight of them, that makes me feel uncomfortable."
"Hmm," Ozpin mused in response to Glynda's worries, "We already know that 'Dellarobia' is the daughter of the former White Fang leader, and current chief of Menagerie. Vulpes is also from Menagerie, so them being connected in some way isn't out of the question."
"You think that the Chief sent him to keep track of her?"
"I think it's plausible. However, we'll of course look more thoroughly into his background."
"If you insist, sir," she said as she walked past him.
"An interesting year indeed," Principal Ozpin whispered as he looked up at the fragmented moon.