Sorry this took a while. I've had this chapter mostly done for a long while but I had to focus on preparing for medschool interviews and this fell to the way side. But, did the finishing touches and we've got a complete chapter. Enjoy.

As Jaune Arc flew the sky, he had a lot of time to think… in a manner of speaking. In reality, he had about a minute before he struck the ground and exploded like the most gory water balloon to ever grace this terrible, terrible world but, in his mind, it felt like ages. Even as his lungs burned from his frenetic screams for help, his mind calmed and let him experience just one bit of peace before the end. This was probably what people meant when they said their life flashed before their eyes.

He'd had a good life, all things considered. His parents loved him, even if his dad coddled him too much to let him take on the Arc tradition of throwing the eldest son against an endless horde of monsters… Well, when he put it like that, it didn't sound so unreasonable for his dad to refuse training him. His sisters… Well, as much as he liked to joke about being mortal enemies with them, he'd certainly miss them. It felt like just yesterday that they'd all circled around the dining table for their monthly board-game night, where lines would be drawn in the sand and the closest of familial bonds was torn for the sake of bragging rights. He'd done some cool things too: he'd finally beaten Phantoms 'n Fiends after one of his sisters had introduced it to him years ago, he'd got through the entire base campaign of an MMO that he'd started playing years ago, and he'd finally finished the Brightest Day run of the X-Ray and Vav comics.

And that wasn't even getting started on his time in Beacon, short as it was. He'd become good friends with someone who was undoubtedly the main character of his time at Beacon… At least, he hoped she was the main character. If it somehow came out that Ruby Rose, the underage prodigy who'd made her way into Beacon early, wasn't the protagonist, then he'd have to wonder who really was? Who could top that? A five-year-old combat master? Nah, it was a bit of a cop out: just finding a younger person was a little boring… Someone possessed by an ancient warrior? That reeked of a d-list comic plot. What about someone who didn't want to go to Beacon but was forced there anyway?

Yep, that was the perfect plot for a story he'd have loved to have been a background character in. But he wouldn't be able to… because he'd be dead.

Jaune decided to ignore his impending doom, even as he screamed for a second chance at life. Hadn't he been thinking about the good things in life? He'd made his first new friend in Ruby, who'd certainly been a fun person to be around. He'd only known her for a day but he'd have assumed she'd be just the kind of person to go on wacky hi jinks with and would start that "high school tomfoolery" that his dad always talked about. Aside from her, he'd had a brief introduction to her sister, who she didn't resemble at all. Yang had seemed like a decent person. Well… she seemed like a decent person after he'd apologised for ruining her shoes.

Aside from that, he'd found the prettiest girl he'd ever laid eyes on. Her skin was immaculate, either the results of the most rigorous skincare routine to grace Vale or dastardly good genes, and her hair was astounding. It was white. And not white in the really pale blonde sense or white in the greying hairs sense but white. It was almost like looking at a girl pulled straight out of a comic, because her hair looked like someone had forgotten to colour it in. With her grace and posture, she'd almost seemed like some otherworldly princess, gracing him with her fleeting presence before she disappeared to some unreachable place.

She didn't like him, though, which was fine. He'd be dead anyway, so there wasn't much of a chance for Jaune to even try for a romance.

Jaune looked through the tears in his eyes to glance at the ground. It was still a considerable distance away, which meant that he had a little more time to remain lost in his thoughts. What else was there to think about? He met the Pumpkin Pete mascot, which was pretty cool. She seemed like a nice girl, even after she used her spear to pin him to a locker. Did that mean she hated him too? That'd suck; she was meant to be some super powerful tournament fighter according to Weiss, so she could beat him up real bad if she wanted to. She wouldn't get that chance though because he'd be freed from his mortal coil. It's not like she can fight someone who's already dead.

Unless, of course, she died too.

How were you meant to survive this anyway? Were you meant to bring a parachute or something? That seemed like the kind of thing to put in the brochure, the website, the television ads and the articles. They should really put "make sure to bring a parachute or you'll realise your midlife crisis was picking which friend to sit with when you were 10" somewhere in the material…

Or maybe they did and he just had horrendously bad perception.

Who really knew? Not Jaune Arc since he'd be dead in-

Out of nowhere, a bolt of crimson lightning shot down and struck him in the hood of his hoodie. Jaune screamed as he was sent hurtling in a different direction. He was falling back-first, which meant that there was a very good chance that he'd smash into a tree without being able to see it coming. He tried to turn around, but his hood was flying up behind him, blocking his view of the ground. As it turned out, it was much harder to be calm about falling to his death when he couldn't see what he was falling into.

Still, was lightning meant to feel so heavy?

Jaune looked up only to see a very familiar red and gold spear, and he could only gulp, This could mean one of two things: either Pyrrha had liked him enough to try and save him, or she hated him enough to try and kill him before the ground could do it for her. Pyrrha had seemed like a nice enough girl, so she probably wouldn't attempt murder just yet. Then again, this was the second time she'd thrown her spear at him, so was she really that kind? Even if she'd apologised, she'd thrown her spear at him! That had to count as excessive force!

Maybe he should look on the bright side? Pyrrha hadn't yelled her undying hatred of him just yet so there was a chance this might have been an attempt to save him. Her spear had also hit his hood, which was the only non-lethal section she could have hit. And, it was an incredibly small target dozens of metres up in the air, which might just mean that Pyrrha had been aiming for it which could have meant she wanted him alive, which would have meant that she had a plan and must mean that he was going to be saved.

Wind brushed through his hair for a few more seconds before everything jerked slightly. The spear tip dug into the bark of a tree with ease, almost sinking down to the haft of the spear. Unluckily for Jaune, inertia wasn't something that went away for comedic effect like some cartoons tried to portray and his body crashed into the bark of the tree with all the force of a tall teen being chucked at terminal velocity. The shock spread across the entirety of his back and it was only the hoodie's protective properties which let him walk away with only a very large, very painful bruise… Or he would have been able to walk away, had his feet not been kicking at air as he was left hanging tens of metres in the air.

All was well, right?

Jaune didn't think he could convince himself that being left hanging tens of metres in the air by the threads of his surprisingly strong, huntsman-tier hoodie was alright. He'd thought he was screwed before when he was thrown off of a cliff face without any warning but there'd always been the chance that he would land somewhere or in some way which wouldn't kill him. Now, it was a straight vertical drop onto a fairly hard ground. He was certainly high up enough for the fall to be lethal, and there was no real way to avoid death aside from hoping that his hoodie didn't tear.

All Jaune could do was accept that maybe coming to Beacon hadn't been the best of plans.

Ruby was fairly sure she was having the worst Initiation in Beacon's history. That might have sounded hyperbolic but she was almost certain that it was true.

First off, she'd accidentally crashed into an innocent bird midway through her fall and its small body splattered against her chest and left a bloody, feathery mess on her torso. Uncle Qrow would be so disappointed in her: he'd always told her that she should treat any birds that ended up in their house with respect and to never, under any circumstances, hurt one.

It was a weird promise but one she'd upheld since she made it at the tender age of seven. She remembered him being really big on it, especially after she'd smacked a poor crow which she'd mistaken for a baby Nevermore. Ruby Rose didn't like lying but Qrow could never know what happened to that poor birdie.

After breaking one of her oldest promises, she landed all alone with no real idea where Yang or Jaune were because, as it turned out, accidental bird homicide was distracting enough that she'd lost track of both. Who'd have thought? Ruby didn't know whether to curse the bird for ruining her chances at getting a good partner or cry over the odds that a bird just happened to fly into her flight path.

And, to top off the horrendous situation, her cloak was covered in dirt, blood and feathers.

She'd need to wash it before lessons began: what could be a worse impression than showing up to lessons with liquified bird on your clothes?

That was a problem for after Initiation, though. Right now, she needed to focus on passing the test so she'd ignore the guts for now. Her first order of business was to get a decent partner. Her first roadblock was that she had no idea where her ideal partners were. Or, perhaps, ideal partner since she'd rather be alone on a team than have to deal with a mandatory bedtime. She was training to be a Huntress! Huntresses didn't need to follow a bedtime, no matter what her dad or Uncle Qrow had said!

With no way to deal with the situation, she'd have to leave it to luck, which Uncle Qrow had often warned was a bad idea. Luck was unreliable and couldn't always be trusted to get a Huntsman out of a bad situation. Skill, on the other hand, would always be there to be utilised and could always be trusted to get a huntsman out of a sticky situation. Ruby remembered asking him how useful swordsmanship would be without a sword or marksmanship would be without a gun but Qrow flicked her on the head and told her that they were totally useful and then ignored any further questions.

She had a feeling she'd beaten him there.

Speaking of skill not coming into play, how was she meant to skilfully figure out which direction to go? She knew that they were launched to the north-east so Beacon would be to the south-west. Was it possible that the relics were behind her and towards Beacon? Unlikely. That meant that she could rule out a general direction but she wasn't any closer to picking an actual direction to walk in. What should she do? Roll a dice? Eeny, meeny, miny, moe? Spin the bottle? Ruby didn't carry dice on her, so that was out already. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe sounded a little silly and she really didn't want anyone to hear her say it. She had a flask of water on her hip but she didn't really want to spin it on the grass; she wasn't a fan of the taste of dirt.

Well, if she had no other options, it was time to use the tried-and-true method of figuring out how to use Crescent Rose to solve her problems. Lifting the scythe, Ruby racked her brain to see how she could use a scythe-sniper hybrid to pick out a way to randomly choose a direction. Crescent Rose, being the beautiful work of art it was, came through quickly enough: Ruby chambered the weapon across her back, as if she was making a big swing, before pulling the trigger. She spun once, twirling on the balls of her feet, before pulling the trigger twice to spin even faster.

Ah, this took her back to her early scythe training days: Crescent Rose and Harbinger were top-heavy weapons because they were polearms so Qrow had been really focused on getting her used to riding the momentum of each swing. Being as light as she was at that age, riding that momentum usually meant a lot of twirling around like she was a spinning top and that only became more familiar once she started using the sniper recoil to aid her cuts. The feeling of her hair whipping out from centrifugal force and her face cooling from the rushing air was familiar enough to her to make her relax under the pressure of Initiation.

It was a little scary, wasn't it? Her hopes and dreams of becoming a Huntress were all riding on her succeeding here. Every day she'd spent training until her arms were sore and her legs were shaking and every night she'd spent studying Grimm biology and fighting manuals built up to this. What if she failed? Would she be sent back to Signal? Would she get a second chance? There was no point worrying about it. Not when worrying wouldn't help. Not when there was a cool breeze cooling her mind and the familiar smell of the woodlands to ground her.

As she felt the speed slowly bleed off with each second, she wondered who she'd rather find as her partner. Yang was her sister but she was also more than that: her best friend, a pseudo-mother figure, the one who tried to be a voice of reason but ended up showing her how to cut loose. Ruby couldn't imagine trading Yang for anyone in the world… but mandatory bedtimes? Yang was a great sister, but somewhere along the way she ended up trying to become Ruby's second mother. The younger girl knew why, and she'd never begrudge Yang for stepping up to being her caretaker, but Yang never stepped down from that role after all these years. Ruby just couldn't help but feel that the mandatory bedtimes would only be the start of it, and it would only translate to some more well-intentioned but equally unwelcome smothering.

Yang was a great sister. She'd probably become a great mother when she inevitably caught a guy she thought she could start a family with. It was just that there was a reason why people didn't want to hang out with their parents (or a parental figure), as they grew older. Most people wanted to grow from their own efforts and there was a very real possibility that Yang wouldn't allow that, from a misguided intention of protecting her from harm.

Ruby had come to Beacon assuming that Yang might treat her with less delicate gloves since she was in a Huntsman academy. But, if she wasn't…

The wind stopped whipping her hair as she finally came to a stop. A check of her scroll told her she would be walking eastwards. Even if the chances of this being the correct direction was slim, Ruby was glad to have a starting point. With a direction in mind, Aura pulsed through her body and a small amount of it focused into her semblance as she started swiftly jogging away from her landing spot.

Her only other friendly relationship was with Jaune, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. For one thing, Jaune wasn't someone who would set a mandatory bedtime or try to take control of Ruby's time at Beacon. For another thing, he was a pretty nice person and he seemed to be on the same wavelength as her. And he had a cool weapon with a rich family history and backstory! What more could she want out of a partner?

Well, she could always want them to not be Weiss, who was quite possibly the worst person for Ruby to partner up with. Even if the white haired girl owed her life to Ruby after the argument with Yang, the young prodigy was fairly sure that the heiress would be just as argumentative and bull-headed as before. Ruby would need to avoid Weiss no matter what! If there was even a speck of white in the distance, she needed to run in the opposite direction immediately.

No, wait! Jaune also wore white armour plates, didn't he? Dang it!

Alright, thinking about partners was a bit of a bust. Jaune was probably her best bet but she didn't exactly have an idea of where he was. It's not like she could just go call his name and expect him to find her.

That was enough thinking about what she couldn't do; time to think about what she could!

Her goal for Initiation was to find relics which were hidden in ruins. The important thing about ruins was that they were just that: ruined buildings. Buildings weren't just built anywhere so there were a few locations that she could prioritise. Logically, most buildings would be built somewhere fairly safe and reliable, with strong natural defences or access to a lot of natural resources. Following a river would be her best bet but that wasn't the only option. Valleys would be a good choice but so would any cliff sides or tall hills.

Huh, now that she thought about it, that didn't rule out as much as she thought.

It also assumed that these were actually ruins and not just some "ruins" that Beacon built solely for Initiation. If she looked at it from that angle, it'd probably be placed somewhere that was easily accessible, somewhat well-hidden but fairly easy to locate. What would fit that bill? A random clearing in the forest? Potentially. Some random cave? It had some potential but it'd have to be a cave which could be seen from a lot of angles or else most of the people taking the test would fail.

What could she do? What should she do?

Ruby switched Crescent Rose from its scythe mode to its rifle mode before shooting the ground in front of her. The recoil assisted an Aura-empowered jump, which gave her enough height to kick off of a tree branch, and her semblance was able to take over once she was just moving from one branch to the next.

That's what she needed: some extra height. After all, it was much easier to look for things from an elevated point than from the ground. Then again, at the speed she was moving at, she wasn't sure that the height would help her pick out things at a distance. Details were lost when everything became a blur, which only left colours to identify what was and what wasn't a ruin. Unfortunately for Ruby, she wasn't sure what colours the ruins would be. They might be a reddish-brown from old bricks, a dark grey from old stone structures or any colour in-between.

Funnily enough, she didn't see many colours besides green and brown because of all the trees, so maybe that last bit was a moot point. She hoped so: she didn't particularly like second-guessing herself, ignoring it as paranoia or something and then being proven wrong.

Yep. Just green and brown and green and brown and green and- Ruby twisted Crescent Rose into its scythe form before hooking around the trunk of a tree to turn around. Her vision blurred before she hopped off of a branch, dropping scythe-first directly onto a big black smudge. As she came to a sudden stop, her vision sharpened and the black smudge revealed itself to be an Ursa, A very young one considering its lack of white bone armour. Crescent Rose was ripped out of the decaying corpse with an effortless flourish whilst Ruby's eyes scanned the area.

Three Ursa Minors, differing amounts of bone plate but not enough to signify a Major, and five Beowolves, with little bone plating except for one which fell just short of an Alpha.

Easy pickings.

Ruby's Aura burned to life as her semblance surged up. A few steps was all it took to bring her to the side of the least armoured Beowolf and a single upwards swing was all it took to stab through its unarmoured neck. It struggled for a moment as Ruby pulled, her semblance being used for a little extra acceleration, and the scythe blade tore through the neck of the Beowolf and killed it.

Usually, it only took a single swing to kill a Beowolf. Maybe she was too used to Patch's newborns.

Crescent Rose roared as she fired high-calibre rounds into the left knees of the remaining four Beowolves, tearing the flesh and cracking the bones. Before a single one had fallen to its knees, Ruby braced her scythe against her side before running past each Beowolf, letting her scythe cleave through each of the wounded knees with sheer speed. Each Beowolf fell one-by-one as Ruby looked at her handiwork for a moment.

Without their left hind leg, the Grimm returned to a quadruped stance, albeit with a missing leg. The stance brought their heads much closer to the ground which would make it that much easier to cut through their necks, killing even the more heavily armoured ones with ease. It also completely ruined their mobility, which meant that she could consider them out of the fight until she needed to clean up later.

Now focusing on the remaining Ursa, Ruby took a moment to consider their positioning before changing her magazine for a fresh one. One of the Ursa used the moment she'd given them to begin charging at her. Ruby snapped her scythe upwards, switching to the war scythe configuration before slipping past them. She slashed into the side of the next Ursa's torso, spinning through the first cut into a second which sliced through the trunk-sized upper thigh.

A bullet tore through the Grimm's foot, assisting a third upwards slash which tore from the shins to a little over the hip. Ruby's boots dug into the slash wound as she climbed up the bear, jumping with the help of Aura to clamber onto the monster's right shoulder. Crescent Rose's blade flicked down to a right angle before hooking around the left side of the creature's neck before firing once more to tear straight through. The reaper ran with the recoil, boots hammering the shoulder as she ran along the arm of the creature before leaping towards her next target. Recoil assisted her as she flew straight over the shoulder of the next Ursa whilst her scythe blade cut halfway through its muscled neck. Even if it didn't decapitate the beast, the inertia of the movement caused her to pull the bear down with her. Ruby spun as she fell, tearing the scythe blade out of the neck before firing a round to finish the decapitation.

Through the smoke of her fallen prey, Ruby flicked Crescent Rose's bolt handle upwards to push it into bolt-action mode before pulling the sights up. Two rounds cracked through the forest, popping the deep red eyes of the final Ursa. Before she could go in for a final blow, the reaper felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise and she sped back without a moment's hesitation, narrowly dodging the jaws of a crippled almost-Alpha Beowolf. Shaking away the sense of dread at having been caught unaware, Ruby took a quick second to survey the rest of the Beowolves.

Right, she really was too used to Patch: the Beowolves back home tended to move at a snail's pace once she lopped a limb off. The Grimm which she had only crippled and not killed had all been heading towards her, even though they'd been unable to get her when she'd been climbing up Ursa. Well, if they wanted her attention, they had it now. The gun-nut flicked the bolt back down into semi-auto before getting into a runner's stance and looking for the optimal route.

There!

Ruby burst into an explosion of rose petals as she sped past the Alpha, scythe cutting through the underside of the Beowolf's neck as she went, and straight towards the Beowolf that was furthest from the rest. In an instant, she was behind it and, in one smooth motion, its head was sent flying through the air from a single recoil-assisted cut. The recoil pushed her off of her feet and into a full sprint to the next Beowolf. She slid beneath its snarling mouth and raised her scythe blade to rip through the neck and soft underbelly, before sprinting away to the last straggler.

It was an odd one, who'd decided to stand on its single hind leg to keep its neck out of reach. It wasn't a particularly good idea since it was unbalanced and she didn't have a problem killing it another way but still, its display of intellect and problem-solving skills was shown on full display and that had to be appreciated. Ruby could only imagine how intelligent it must have thought itself for thinking up this perfect strategy.

Or she assumed it did, the intelligence of Grimm was a hotly debated topic: ranging from being completely mindless to fully sentient. This one showed that it wasn't completely brain-dead.

She then proceeded to ruin that undeserved ego-stroking by swinging her scythe straight into the kneecap. It didn't quite cut all the way through, but the force was enough that the Beowolf collapsed on its own weight. Face down on the ground, it wasn't able to so much as attempt to resist Ruby's finishing strike of a cut through the neck.

Sadly for it, not being mindless didn't mean that it was actually smart.

At the end of it, Ruby arrived back at the almost-Alpha Beowolf that had surprised her. It hadn't moved much from where she had cut off half its neck but it hadn't evaporated either, so it was still alive. The end of Crescent Rose's barrel dug itself into the stab wound before firing, causing the head to explode into black mist. Rolling her shoulders after her final kill, Ruby almost turned away from the fight before remembering a certain Grimm she'd left unattended.

The Ursa, blinded from a lack of functional eyes, charged at her. It was a reckless full-body sprint, relying on only the detection of Ruby's negative emotions to locate her, but it wasn't one that Ruby would dare to stop. She spent a moment to look at her surroundings before darting to the closest tree and leaning against it, back pressed against the bark and weight entirely resting on the tree. She breathed in deeply, then out, and hazarded a second inhale before the Grimm was upon her. She waited until it was close, far closer than any of her combat instructors would have liked, before she burst into motion.

First, she zipped to the left, letting the Ursa crash head first into the tree behind her. The tree offered up a brave resistance but the Ursa was far too heavy and moving far too quickly for it to fully stop the beast. However, it was slowed down substantially, enough for Ruby to push her semblance to its limits as she sprinted laterally, sliding underneath the stumbling bear and carving up its underbelly. Crescent Rose's hooked tip was pushed in a little deeper before Ruby got out from under the bear and jumped, using Crescent Rose as a lever to swing herself on top of the Grimm. The sniper roared once to wrench the blade out of the body and then a second to let it carve through the rest of the monster's back, bisecting it completely,

Ruby rolled onto the ground as the creature turned to mist, rifle raised as she stood back up. She spun quickly, surveying the surrounding area, only to find that no more Grimm had shown up since the fight began. That was… odd. Prior experience in Patch told her that such a small encounter should never have been the end of it: by the time she'd dealt with this first horde, a second and perhaps even a third should have already thrown themselves into the action. Had the forest been cleaned up that much for Initiation? Could you even clean up enough to prevent that?

Someone was nearby. Should she see who it was? Maybe it was Yang, who she still wasn't sure she wanted to partner with. Maybe it was Jaune, who she was pretty sure was a safe bet. If it was not Weiss, it was at least not Weiss. All of those were good options and Ruby talked around the perimeter to search for anything that indicated combat had taken place. For a moment, silence overcame the soundscape before, at the very edge of the soundscape, she heard a whooshing sound, as if someone was moving at incredible speed.

A fellow speedster? Heck yeah! Super speed was already an incredible ability which let Ruby far outskill most people her age. On her own, it was a great contribution to her team, but a second speedster would make their team near-unstoppable. What if they got a third? A fourth? The Vytal Tournament would be a cinch if her entire team was too fast to be hit.

Ruby would admit that she was getting a little excited, even when this new person would undoubtedly be a stranger. Yang was fast, but that was more through careful use of an incredibly short-barrelled shotgun instead of raw speed, and Ruby doubted Jaune was a speedster because he couldn't keep up with her when they'd been looking for the opening speech's location the day before.

In preparation of meeting a completely new person, the gun-nut thought about how she wanted to introduce herself… She wasn't kidding anyone; her weapons-based introduction was the only thing the young girl could think of. No matter what Yang said, it was a great introduction: it let someone speak about their pride and joy and gave them the opportunity to brag about all the hard work they did to create it. Who didn't like talking about the culmination of their blood, sweat and tears?

Well, Blake didn't. Then again, Blake seemed like a cynical Debbie-Downer from her take on fairy tales so her opinion didn't matter.

The air whistled past her ears, muddying the soundscape a little, but there was definitely the sound of something moving fast in the distance. Ruby's semblance was kicked up a notch and she ran at a dead sprint. Somewhere along the way, she heard something crash and Ruby grinned: she found them. Ruby spun on a dime and darted to the right, passing a few dozen trees in seconds before ending up in a clearing with a lone figure in the middle.

Ruby didn't bother looking at the person: her icebreaker didn't depend on them, after all. Instead, her silver eyes focused on the particularly long revolver in the white figure's arms. No, wait, that wasn't a barrel, that was the blade of a sword! A revolver sword wasn't the most inspired thing in the world but it was a wartime classic which had stood the test of time. And it wasn't like it was just any old sword, it was a rapier, one of the most acclaimed duelling weapons to ever be crafted.

Ruby's smile widened a little. A revolver-rapier wasn't particularly rare but it was a great, practical design. Ruby was just about to compliment the design of the weapon… And then the rapier bent..

Ruby's mind froze for a second. A break-action sword? A break-action sword, which had to withstand a lot of pressure which was both rotational in slashes and along the blade for thrusts? A sword which would obviously expose the weak latch during a clash and be easily accessible for an opponent.

What about the tang? Tangs were pivotal to good sword durability since it meant that the blade was firmly attached to the hilt due to part of the blade being locked inside the handle. The sword folded along the cross-guard, showing that there was no tang! Why? Even the cheapest replica swords found in the bargain bin had a thin, cylindrical rat tail tang at the least! What about durability! Who made a revolver and then decided to sacrifice durability and reliability?

And that wasn't to say anything about how horrendous the break-action was! The locking lug was behind the blade! There wasn't a single break-action firearm that had the pivot behind the barrel for a reason! Did Weiss know nothing about levers? The further back the pivot was from the tip of the blade, the more torque the locking lug had to handle and the easier it was to break. If she placed the locking lug on the blade or at its very end, it would've been bad but this was so much worse!

Who designed this monstrosity? Which fool decided to take such a tried-and-true classic and horrifically disfigured it? What trauma did a person have to have to make something so… unsightly?

Ruby's eyes flicked away from the ruined weapon and into a familiar pair of ice blue eyes. No! It couldn't be! She was rich! She had access to the best materials currently available, to the best craftsmen who'd perfected their arts into a science, to anyone that wasn't dumb enough to make this monstrosity!

Ruby should have known: no one that mean and that rude could have a cool weapon.

"You!" Weiss cried with such abject disgust. Thankfully, that disgust meant that she was turned away, looking away from Ruby's face and her silver eyes.

"Me…" Ruby couldn't think of a suitable response except for one, "D-Do you want to agree we never saw each other?"

"Absolutely!"

Score!

Alright, they were already heading in opposite directions so Ruby ignored her and continued on ahead. She took a quick second to look around at what remained of the area Weiss had fought in and found herself a little disappointed: there were clearly singe marks on the grass and trees, massive shards of ice poking out of the ground and massive tears in the ground. Dust usage was powerful enough to do that but it looked so… imprecise when compared to a bullet.

Ruby wondered for a brief moment if the fact that they'd talked to each other had already cemented their partnership. She hoped not. Then again, it wasn't like the staff could tell exactly where their gaze went; even if they dotted cameras around the place. Lying wasn't Ruby's strong suit but, if it meant avoiding being on the same team as Weiss, she was sure she could muster up her best poker face.

She continued trekking on forwards, boots beating against the ground with the fortified determination to not see Weiss again. It wasn't like there was any reason for Ruby to want to be her partner; she was just so Weiss! Ruby built up an unshakeable resolve to not turn around no matter what happened. Even if the relics were behind her, the little reaper would rather take the long way round than have to deal with Weiss and her… tool again.

And then that resolve evaporated at the sounds of combat behind her.

Really, Weiss? Again?

Ruby tried not to turn back. She really did. There was something in her mind, deep in her subconscious, which told her that turning around would be the end of her Weiss-free life. The staff might have been able to ignore one interaction but ignoring two was as unlikely as Uncle Qrow getting married. There just wasn't a chance.

Even though Ruby wanted nothing more than to continue walking, she couldn't help but think about the sounds of fire burning behind her and that of ice Dust cutting through the air. Would Weiss be okay? Given the Dust explosion when they met, Ruby couldn't be sure that Weiss was even any good with Dust and Ruby wouldn't have trusted a cookie jar to that abomination of a weapon, let alone a human life. She shouldn't go back; she'd regret it for the rest of her time in Beacon…

But she didn't feel like letting Weiss die, especially after Ruby had spared the girl from a death by blonde bludgeoning.

Her semblance flared up for only a second before she spun on a dime and sprinted. All of the steps she'd taken away from the haughty heiress were crossed in only a few seconds before Ruby arrived at the battlegrounds. It only took Ruby a second to take stock: two Ursai, no majors, two Beowolves, no alphas and a single Boarbatusk. She spent only a second to be disappointed that this wasn't the edge-of-a-knife, life-or-death battle she was worried about but instead something any Signal graduate could handle on their own.

Well, as long as she didn't talk to Weiss-

Ruby crossed the distance to the Boarbatusk in a moment and gave it a quick inspection. She'd seen diagrams and drawings of the monster during her days in Signal and she took a moment to identify all of the weak points she was taught. Just as she remembered, the Boarbatusk's underside was completely unarmoured which meant that an upwards strike to the neck, the underbelly and the head would all be good ideas. Similarly, an attack to either the sides or the flank would be ideal if someone couldn't quite position their weapon to strike the underside.

Luckily for Ruby, Crescent Rose could attack from pretty much any angle and it's hooked shape made it perfect to reach these particular weak points. Spinning on her heel, she swung Crescent Rose into the soft part of the creature's side before the recoil of her sniper ripped the creature from its torso and through its bony mask. It was evaporating before it could even think of a counter attack.

With the only unique Grimm split into three, Ruby looked at the rest of the Grimm scattered around the area. One Beowolf and two Ursai… Well, it looked like Weiss was able to kill the Beowolf she'd been fighting; good on her! Ruby lifted her weapon with a quick twitch and sniped the final Beowolf before it could attempt anything and watched proudly as a single round split the creature's face in half. Yep, that was her baby.

Two left. Since there were only two, Ruby took a second to quickly check which one Weiss was fighting so she could take on the other. It should have been obvious: Weiss would be attacking one Grimm and the other would be distracted enough to be easy pickings. As it turned out, Weiss herself was still deciding which to kill, just standing there with her stick poised for striking. Ruby waited a second, just in case there was some sort of massive attack that this was all building to but… nope.

Weiss's brain must have been focused on more important things like business powerpoints or something. Well, if Ruby needed to pick up the slack then so be it.

She charged into the next bout with a heightened awareness. Only two Grimm were left, which meant that any Grimm which were waiting to tag into the fight would be looking to do so around now. She slipped past an awfully slow swipe before thinking better of it and hooking her scythe onto the arm to let her swing on top. From there, it was as easy as accelerating with her semblance and letting her momentum drive the blade through the creature's muscular neck to kill it.

Bouncing off of her victim's shoulder, she leapt in front of the final Ursa and stabbed her scythe blade through its face. Gravity pulled her down and would have let her finish this round off with a flashy flourish if not for a sudden jet of flames soaring over her shoulders, singing her cloak in the process. With a yelp, Ruby pulled the trigger and shot straight to the ground, getting just enough time to see the stream of fire move off target.

"What the heck was that?" Ruby screamed in annoyance, taking her anger out by tearing through the dead Ursa's legs with a spinning cut, "You almost hit me."

"Almost! You appeared out of nowhere whilst I was attacking; you're lucky I didn't hit you!"

"You were doing nothing; how did you not see me coming?"

"I was not doing nothing!"

"Who cares? You were standing still whilst surrounded by Grimm," Ruby's nose picked up the rich and heavy scent of smoke, "And you set a tree on fire!"

"And what would you have done?"

"Killed them. You know, like I did," Ruby would have said more if not for the sudden realisation that she was talking to Weiss again, looking directly into her icy eyes, "And, it looks like we're partners."

"I refuse."

"I wish that was how it worked" Ruby really did. However, the only thing that came of her wishes was a sudden rumbling from amidst the trees and the appearance of massive black shadows creeping closer.

Yep, this was the second wave she'd been expecting last time. Good for them to show up when she needed some stress relief.

"Try not to stand still this time, will you?" Ruby snarked uncharacteristically before speeding off. So she was acting up because she was stuck with the one enemy she had in Beacon, sue her!

"Why you insufferable-"

Sadly, there's not as much character interaction ocurring since most characters are alone. Still, I hope you enjoyed the little argument between Weiss and Ruby. Whilst Ruby was willing to bury her animosity for Weiss in the first chapter, having assumed that she'd never see Weiss again, she now has to deal with the fact that she's stuck with her for at least four years. Taking into account her annoyance with Myrtenaster... Ruby is not a happy huntress.

Leave a review if you want and I'll see you when I get the fourth chapter completed.