Chapter 2: The Eyes Have It
Summer's silver eyes were shining with childlike delight as butterflies danced in her stomach. She still couldn't believe she'd been accepted into Beacon Academy, the most prestigious huntsman school in all of Remnant. Her grades at Crier Academy back home in Mountain Glenn had certainly been good, and she worked very hard to be a diligent student, but she still didn't think she qualified to be considered the best of the best. Yet somehow her application to Beacon had gone through. It was like all her wildest dreams were coming true.
It was initiation day at Beacon, and Summer was standing in the school's weapon locker room along with dozens of her fellow first-year students. She had already found the locker that had been assigned to her yesterday, and she was typing in her combination on its keypad. She was eager to collect her weapon and see what Beacon's initiation ceremony had in store for her.
Summer's locker beeped, and its door slid open. However, before Summer could retrieve her weapon, a figure slid up next to her.
Summer turned and saw one of her new classmates tapping at the keypad on the locker next to hers. She decided there was no time like the present to get to know her new neighbor. After all, they were about to spend the next four years at Beacon together.
"Hi! I'm…!" Summer started to say, but she trailed off mid-sentence. Her finger shot up as she pointed at her neighbor and blurted out, "It's you!"
The raven-haired student dressed in a shabby red and black kimono standing next to Summer glanced at her with a condescending look in her eyes. She finished typing in the code to her own locker, which also beeped and opened. Only then did she ask, "Do I know you?"
"You bumped into me in the courtyard yesterday!" Summer said. "Then you ran off without apologizing!"
"You're the one who bumped into me, Shortstuff," the young woman said.
"So you do recognize me," Summer said. "And…maybe I did bump into you instead of the other way around. But that just means you ran off before I could apologize to you!"
"So?" the young woman asked.
Summer pouted. It was clear that her neighbor wasn't concerned with being polite or having a pleasant conversation, so she turned back to her locker. Inside was a sizable hand axe. Summer reached in and pulled the axe out, hefting it a few times before sliding it into a custom-made holster that hung on her hip.
Summer was about to leave the locker room, but she paused. She glanced at the young woman standing next to her again. None of Summer's friends from Crier Academy had made it into Beacon, even though many of them had applied. It wasn't all that surprising since Beacon was a difficult school to get into, but Summer had been certain that at least some of her classmates were more likely candidates than her. Regardless, she knew she needed to make some new friends, and she was just stubborn enough to not give up on her locker room neighbor yet. Maybe them becoming proper friends was out of the question, but Summer felt that just because the mysterious woman had been rude to her twice in a row didn't mean that they couldn't at least learn to get along.
Summer pondered for a moment how to get on her neighbor's good side, and when she saw the young woman reach into her own locker, Summer finally knew exactly what to do. Weapons were something that all huntsmen- and huntresses-in-training loved to talk about, especially their own weapon. Luckily, Summer just so happened to know a lot about weapons. Her papa back home was a weaponsmith and a successful one at that. He had taught Summer everything about the family business. She knew he still hoped that she would take over for him someday, but that was one wish she couldn't fulfill. She hated to disappoint Papa, but from a very young age she'd wanted nothing more than to become a huntress.
As the young woman standing next to Summer withdrew her weapon from her locker, Summer preemptively said, "I like your…stick!"
The young woman turned back to Summer and gave her a humorless look.
Out of all the weapons Summer had been expecting her neighbor to use, a wooden sword, a bokken if she wasn't mistaken, had not been one of them. She clearly should've waited before opening her mouth. She quickly tried to salvage the situation by asking, "Is the gun barrel inside the…uh…blade?"
"It's not also a gun," the young woman said.
"Oh," Summer said, a little dumbfounded. "Well does it…fold up…or something?"
"Why would it do that?" the young woman asked.
Summer felt herself mentally scrambling. Chatting about weapons had always been her surefire trick to ingratiate herself with her peers. She had no idea why it wasn't working this time. But she realized there was another angle she could try.
Summer patted the axe holstered on her hip. She said, "Well this is my weapon. Her name is Sundered Rose! She's a combination hunting rifle and axe!"
The young woman stared quizzically at Summer for a moment. Then she asked, "Am I supposed to be impressed?"
"What? No! I mean…yes?" Summer said, growing increasingly distressed.
"Do you think your fancy weapon makes you better than me or something?" the young woman asked.
"No! No!" Summer wailed. "I'm not trying to show off or anything! I'm just trying to make friends with you!"
The young woman looked taken aback for a moment. Then her lips turned up into something almost resembling a smile. She said, "Well aren't you a ray of sunshine."
"I try to be," Summer said, hoping her neighbor hadn't intended to sound sarcastic. She stuck out her hand and said, "I'm Summer Rose. Who are you?"
"Raven Branwen," the young woman said. She tucked her sword into her cloth belt. Then she grasped Summer's hand, but rather than shake it, she unexpectedly gave it a firm tug and pulled Summer in close.
"Whoa!" Summer said as her body collided with Raven's.
Raven leaned in closer, still holding Summer's hand in an iron grip. She whispered into Summer's ear, "You don't want to be my friend. People like me are very bad news."
A blush spread across Summer's cheeks, and she felt a warmth building in her chest. She wasn't sure why.
Raven suddenly let go of Summer. Then, just as suddenly, she began to walk away, brushing past Summer as she went.
Summer stood there, bedazzled and bewildered for a few seconds. Then she shook her head clear. She stared after Raven, but Raven had already vanished into the collection of first-year students lingering about.
Eventually, Summer started making her way out of the locker room. She didn't think she'd succeeded at making a friend today. However, if Raven had wanted to dissuade Summer from trying to get to know her better, she'd done the exact opposite. Summer had never met anyone even half as intriguing as Raven before. She had so many questions. How had Raven gotten into Beacon wielding nothing more than a wooden stick? Why had she felt the need to posture like she had? What kind of person was she really behind all the pretense? Summer had never felt the allure of the unknown pull on her so strongly. She absolutely had to know more.
About half an hour later, the loud hum of engines was buzzing in Summer's ears. She and her fellow first-year students were all packed into the belly of a small airship that had departed Beacon the moment everyone had gotten on board. Summer wasn't exactly sure where the airship was going other than to wherever the initiation ceremony would take place. It was standing room only inside the ship, which had clearly been built with cargo instead of passengers in mind. Rather than the interior being filled with rows of seats, the main cabin was one large, mostly empty space. Fortunately, the winds were calm today, and there was almost no turbulence.
Summer's thoughts about the mysterious Raven had mostly faded into the back of her mind as she focused on what was happening. She was doing her best to psych herself up for whatever the initiation ceremony would entail. She'd heard rumors about it being dangerous, but no one seemed to know any specifics. Whatever the case, Summer was determined to hit the ground running, even if the ground was currently several thousand meters below her.
A door at the front of the cabin that led to the airship's cockpit suddenly opened. A man stepped through it and closed the door behind him. Summer was standing toward the back of the airship, so she was having difficulty seeing. It was just her luck that everyone surrounding her was taller than her. She didn't consider herself to be all that short, although some of her friends back at Crier had liked to tease her about her height on occasion. She maintained that she was still due at least one more growth spurt, even if she was already eighteen.
Summer stood on her tiptoes to get a better view. The man who had entered the cabin appeared to be middle-aged and was wearing a distinct pair of glasses.
"Greetings, students. And welcome to Beacon Academy," the man said, raising his voice just loud enough to be heard over the airship's engines. "For those of you who have not met me yet, I am Professor Ozpin, headmaster here at Beacon."
Summer hadn't met Professor Ozpin yet, but she was suddenly struck by the feeling that she'd seen him somewhere before. She wasn't sure where, however.
Ozpin continued, "Below us is the Emerald Forest where your initiation into Beacon will take place. Your mission today is to reach an abandoned temple at the heart of the forest. Valuable objects have been placed there. You and your partner are to retrieve one, and only one, of these objects."
Summer began to fret for a moment. What had Ozpin meant by partner? She hadn't been assigned a partner yet. Had she missed something important?
As if in response to Summer's silent question, Ozpin said, "Who your partner is for the next four years here at Beacon will be determined today. Once the initiation has begun, your partner will be the first person who you make eye contact with."
Summer calmed down a bit, although she also arched a quizzical eyebrow. Eye contact seemed like a rather arbitrary way to decide something as important as who would be partnered with who. But if that was how things worked at Beacon then she would abide by the rules.
Suddenly, a large door at the back of the airship began to open. The door folded down, becoming a ramp that led to nothing more than a blue sky. The noise of rushing wind filled the airship. Some of the students began to shuffle nervously.
Summer glanced out at the empty air just behind her. She anxiously put her hand on her axe. It was clear they were going to be jumping out of the airship at some point. It was just a question of when.
Up at the front of the airship, Ozpin unfolded a jump seat from the wall behind him and sat down. He took a moment to buckle himself in. Then he spoke again, shouting this time to be heard. "The Emerald Forest is infested with the Creatures of Grimm! You have only yourself and your partner to rely on to survive! Be on your guard or you will die! And above all else, watch out…for the unexpected!"
At that exact moment, the airship pulled up into a steep climb. Summer didn't even have time to panic before her feet slipped off the airship's deck, and she went tumbling out into the open sky.
A deafening wind rushed past Summer as she involuntarily somersaulted through the air. Fear pricked at her for a moment, but then her training took over. She tucked in her arms and legs and assumed a proper skydiving posture to stop herself from spinning. Once she'd stabilized herself, she glanced up and saw the last of her fellow students tumbling out of the still-climbing airship. There was no telling where any of them would end up. They were literally being scattered to the winds.
Summer looked down again. The ground was rushing up to greet her at breakneck speed. She drew her axe from her hip. Sundered Rose's barrel extended to its full length, and the axe head folded up into the butt of the gun, completing the weapon's transformation into a hunting rifle. Summer had practiced dozens of landing strategies back at Crier, and she was already formulating a plan. She selected her target, a large tree at the edge of a clearing below, but her trajectory wasn't quite right.
Summer twisted in the air and took aim with her rifle. She pulled the trigger, and the loud crack of the shot reverberated over the wind. The momentum from the large-caliber bullet pushed Summer in the direction she wanted to go, and she fired off a few more shots in rapid succession for good measure.
The ground was seconds away at this point, but Summer wasn't worried. She spun around and Sundered Rose unfolded back into its axe configuration. There was a flash of green in the corner of Summer's eye, and she swung her axe out, hooking its heel around the trunk of the tree she'd been aiming for. She held on tight as her whole body jerked. Her axe threatened to pull out of her hands, but her strategy had worked. She almost stopped dead in the air for a moment. Then she spun down the tree on her axe like a ribbon spiraling down a maypole and landed softly on the ground.
Summer unhooked her axe from the tree and let out a breath. She looked around to get her bearings, but when she did so, she unexpectedly caught a glimpse of a young man who was already on the ground, dusting off his clothes. She saw he was dressed in a worn-out red and black kimono that strongly resembled Raven's. However, before Summer could take a closer look, she remembered what Professor Ozpin had said about making eye contact.
Summer slapped her hand over her eyes and backed off a few steps. She said, "Sorry! I don't mean to be rude! But I don't know you, and I want to be very careful about picking a partner!"
"It's alright," the young man said. Summer thought his voice sounded unusually gruff for someone who must have been around her age.
Summer lowered her hand from her eyes, all while making extra sure to avoid eye contact. She said, "Even if we're not going to be partners, maybe we should travel together? At least until we find more people."
"You don't want to travel with me," the young man said. "It's not safe."
"Why not?" Summer asked. Then she noticed the young man had a bokken tucked into his cloth belt. Again, it looked exactly like Raven's.
Summer's brow furled. She started to ask, "Are you related to—?"
All of a sudden, a swirling mass of red energy appeared in the air right next to the young man. Summer still wasn't looking at his eyes, so she didn't see him roll them.
"What is—!?" Summer attempted to ask in alarm, but before she could finish a person came cannonballing out of the mass of energy. Whoever they were, they slammed directly into Summer at full speed.
Summer was instantly bowled off her feet. The impact was hard enough that she felt her aura strain against it for a moment. She went careening backward, tangled up with whoever had collided with her. Seconds later, her back hit the ground, and her body kicked up a cloud of dirt as she skidded to a halt.
Summer coughed several times from the dirt she'd accidentally inhaled. She felt a weight pressing down on her chest, although it didn't necessarily feel unpleasant. She blinked to clear her vision, and when she did, she found herself looking up into the most intense pair of eyes she'd ever seen.
A stillness settled over the clearing as Summer stared, transfixed by the eyes in front of her. They were a rich shade of red and beautiful. There was a story behind them, a story of adversity and bittersweet triumph.
"Really, Sis?" The Young man's voice suddenly cut through the strange haze that had filled Summer's head. "You couldn't find your own way down? You had to use me?"
Summer became aware of several things all at once. First of all, Raven was lying on top of her. Second of all, she was staring into Raven's eyes. But most importantly, according to Ozpin's rules, Raven was now her partner.
Raven unceremoniously pushed herself up, leaving Summer on the ground. She turned to the young man, presumably her brother, and said, "It worked, didn't it?"
"Unbelievable," Raven's brother said.
"Let's get going," Raven said, sounding annoyed. "The sooner we find that stupid temple the sooner we can get out of here."
"I don't know," Raven's brother said. "This forest is kind of reminding me of home."
"All the more reason to hurry," Raven said.
Raven and her brother were already starting to walk away when Summer finally scrambled back to her feet. She shouted, "Wait! Wait! Wait!"
Raven and her brother both paused. They turned to look at Summer.
Summer said to Raven, "You can't just run off without me!"
"Why not?" Raven asked.
"Because we're partners!" Summer said, flailing her arms for emphasis.
There was a pause. Then Raven said, "Well try to keep up, Sunshine."
Summer sighed as she jogged to catch up to Raven and her brother. She was a little annoyed that Raven refused to call her by her name, although she supposed "Sunshine" was an improvement over "Shortstuff".
Summer quickly realized that she was being rude to her other walking companion. She turned to Raven's brother and said, "I'm Summer Rose, by the way. Who are you?"
"I'm…" Raven's brother started to say, but he trailed off as a strange noise suddenly filled the air. It sounded like it was coming from above, and it was getting louder by the second.
Everyone stopped in their tracks. Summer looked up, trying to figure out what it was she was hearing. It almost sounded like an excited holler.
Suddenly, a fourth person came swooping down from out of the sky and slammed into the trunk of a nearby tree. The tree bent over at a worrying angle for a second before swinging back upright again. For a moment, Summer was worried that the newcomer had injured themselves, but when she looked up, she saw a young man laughing and clinging to the top of the tree.
A moment later, the newcomer went sliding down the trunk he had been holding on to, sheering off bark and branches as he dropped. He leaped off the tree just as he got to the bottom and finally set foot on the ground only a meter or two away from Summer and her companions. He let out an exhilarated whoop, throwing his fist into the air.
Summer stared at the strange man who'd joined them. He had short, blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. He was wearing a tan-colored vest over a darker, collared shirt. There was a metal pauldron on one of his shoulders and a red bandana tied around his opposite arm. There was also what appeared to be a pistol holstered on his thigh. His build was lean, but he did have some muscle showing. In fact, he looked like he'd been a scrawny teenager not so long ago who had only recently started bulking up. But his most distinctive attribute was the way he was brimming with joyous energy.
"What a trip!" the newcomer said as he brushed some stray leaves off of himself. Then he finally noticed he wasn't alone.
The newcomer's eyes lit up as he looked at Summer and Raven. He sauntered closer to them, giving them both a confident grin. He pointed a pair of finger guns at them and said, "Ladies. Either of you happen to need a partner?"
Summer knew she should probably be annoyed by this newcomer's behavior, but despite herself, she couldn't help but be a little bit charmed by him. Her cheeks reddened slightly. However, before she could respond, Raven clapped an arm over her shoulder and possessively held on to her.
Raven said, "We're taken."
Summer's blush deepened. She was suddenly feeling a lot of confusing and conflicting things that she wasn't sure how to process.
"That's a shame," the newcomer said. "But everyone might as well introduce themselves since we're all here."
Summer finally found her voice again. She said, "I'm…I'm Summer Rose! It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Raven," Summer's new partner said in a decidedly less cheery tone.
"I'm Qrow," Raven's brother muttered in the background like he'd already resigned himself to being an afterthought.
"Qrow," Summer whispered to herself, embarrassed that it had taken her so long to learn his name.
"Well I'm Taiyang Xiao Long!" the newcomer said, cocking his thumb toward himself. "But you can just call me 'Yang'. All my friends do."
Raven chuckled. She said, "Sounds like a girl's name to me."
"No it doesn't!" Taiyang blurted out defensively. Then he softly asked, "Does it?"
"I'd go by 'Tai' if I were you. But maybe you should ask your new partner," Raven said. She let go of Summer and gave Taiyang a hard shove. He stumbled forward, obviously having been caught off guard, until he ran into Qrow. Their eyes met.
Silence returned to the clearing as Taiyang and Qrow stared into each other's eyes for longer than Summer felt was strictly necessary. It was Qrow who looked away first. He nervously scratched the back of his head and muttered, "'Tai' does sound better."
"Then tell you what, partner," Taiyang said as his charming grin returned. "You can call me 'Tai'."
Summer saw a tiny smile cross Qrow's lips and an ever so faint blush color his cheeks. She thought it was an odd reaction to a bit of positive attention, but whatever concerns she had about Qrow were swiftly pushed aside when she suddenly felt an unpleasant and all-too-familiar queasiness settle in the pit of her stomach.
Summer stoically said, "We should get moving."
"Finally…" Raven muttered. "Come on, Sunshine. Let's give the lovebirds some privacy."
Qrow hissed at Raven, "Shut up, Sis."
"Don't say I never did anything for you," Raven quipped.
Taiyang seemed to be oblivious to whatever Raven had been implying. He asked, "Why split up? Beating up grimm is always more fun together!"
"Fine. Come on then," Raven said impatiently. She glanced over her shoulder to where Summer was standing. "Don't fall behind. Partner."
Summer's eyes had been focused on the nearby trees. She'd been trying in vain to somehow see beyond the dense foliage. She turned to Raven and said, "Right behind you, partner."
Author's Note: Remember when I said Yang wasn't in this fic? I lied! Well, not really, but I found a way to bring a Yang into the story. It's a bit of a meta joke honestly, but it amuses me. So there.
I had to fill in a surprising number of details for Summer and Tai in this fic. These include (but aren't limited to) semblances for Summer and Tai, origins and family histories for Summer and Tai, and a weapon for Tai. Many of these to be revealed in later chapters.
As always, I welcome constructive criticism. Please feel free to leave a review. And if you like what you've read, taking the time to favorite and/or follow really helps me out. You can also find me on tumblr (electronicyarn) if you want to send me a message or be notified of updates.