The opening ends to an overhead view of the Emerald Forest as the camera pans down into the misty underbrush, where Yang Xiao Long is walking and looking around.
"Helloooooooo? Is anyone out there? Helloooo?" I'm getting bored here! Is someone there? Ruby, Rayelle, is that you?" Yang asks out after raising her arms.
A low, inhuman growl is heard, and Yang's head rises up as she stares at the creature.
"Nope!" Yang said she quickly rolls to the side as an Ursa charges out of the green. She gets up and activates her Ember Celica, staring at the monster before another Ursa runs out behind her. She leaps over it, and its companion runs at her again, only to get knocked back by a fiery punch. The other Ursa and Yang charge at each other, and Yang manages to get under it and deliver several punches and a kick to send the creature back.
"You guys wouldn't happen to have seen a girl in a red hood, or another girl with a long red scarf would you?" The Ursai merely growled at her, "You could just say"no "."
One of the Ursai stands on its legs and swipes at her twice, Yang barely dodging the attacks.
"Geeeez, you two couldn't hit the broad side of a ba..." Yang starts off laughing but before she can complete her insult, a single strand of her golden hair falls in front of her face and lands on the forest floor.
"You..." Yang closes her violet eyes, then opens them to reveal red, making the Ursai look at each other confusedly before Yang screams, "You monster!"
An inferno surrounds Yang for a moment, and she rockets forward, unleashing a devastating combo of flaming hits and blows on the offending Ursa, making it fly through several burning trees. The other monster runs over, but stops short at Yang's gaze while a tree falls to the ground behind her.
"What! You want some, too?!" Yang yelled
The Ursa rears up and prepares to strike... right when a whirling noise is heard and the monster makes a befuddled noise, falling down a second later to reveal Blake Belladonna with her Gambol Shroud in the beast's back.
Yang pants in exhaustion while Blake recalls the weapon back to her hand, sheathing it on her back and smiling to the side. Yang, now purple-eyed again, speaks to her new partner over the smoking remains of the monster.
"I could've taken him." Yang said
Weiss Schnee is deflecting the swipe from a Beowolf with her Myrtenaster and getting pushed back into the middle of the beastly circle. She holds out her sword as she goes through her dueling motions and practices.
"Remember your training, Weiss. Head up, shoulders back, right foot forward — not that forward! — slow your breathing, wait for the right time to strike, and... Now!" Weiss says in her head while getting into a stance.
Weiss dashes forward with her loaded weapon at the Beowolf in front of her, just when Ruby suddenly appears between the two in a blur of rose petals and a swipe of her Crescent Rose scythe, landing a hit on the monster.
"Gotcha!" Ruby said
Weiss widens her eyes and screams as she quickly has to stop, swinging the sword in a random direction and creating a line of fire that sets a nearby tree ablaze, followed quickly by the rest of the forest around the clearing.
Ruby, distracted by Weiss' mess-up, is barely defended when the same Beowolf scratches at her weapon, knocking the younger girl into the heiress.
"Hey, watch it!" Ruby yelled
"Excuse me! You attacked out of turn! I could have killed you!' Weiss said
"You'll have to try a lot harder than that..." Ruby said
The duo wield their arms as the pack of Beowolves whine and growl around them. Ruby reloads her scythe just as a flaming tree falls near them.
"We have to go!" Weiss said as she grabbed Ruby's arm
She leads Ruby out of the blaze as it engulfs the grass and sets the Grimm to running back the way they came or suffering in the fire.
Ruby and Weiss stop a safe ways from the smoke and flames. Weiss leans over and pants as Ruby looks behind her.
"What was that?! That should've been easy!" Ruby said
"Well perhaps if you had exercised even the slightest amount of caution with the placement of your strikes, I wouldn't have set the forest on fire!" Weiss said
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ruby scoffed
"I'm just surprised someone who talks so much would communicate so little during an encounter!" Weiss said
"Well, I'm sorry you need my help to win a fight. I'm just fine on my own!" Ruby said
"Well, congratulations on being the strongest child to sneak your way into Beacon. Bravo!" Weiss said
Weiss begins to walk off on her partner yet again. Ruby, with an agitated shriek, unfolds Crescent Rose, slices a tree down to the stump, refolds it back, and follows her partner as the tree crashes behind her. Neither notice the large dark feather floating onto the fallen trunk behind them.
Meanwhile across the Forest, Pyrrha Nikos, armed with Miló and Akoúo̱, and Jaune Arc are making their way through the bushes. Jaune hears a noise far away and turns his head.
"Did you hear that?" Jaune asked
"Gunfire. It seems some of our comrades have encountered the enemy." Pyrrha said
They keep moving forward, Jaune still staring in the sound's direction as Pyrrha raises a branch to pass by and accidentally releases it right at Jaune's face, flooring him instantly.
"Jaune! I'm sorry!" Pyrrha said looking back behind her
"It's okay. Just a scratch! Jaune says laughing and lowering his hand from his cheek. He then gets back up when Pyrrha approaches him.
"Why didn't you activate your Aura?" Pyrrha asked
"Huh?" Jaune said
"Your Aura." Pyrrha said again
"Gesundheit." Jaune said
"Jaune, do you... know what Aura is?" Pyrrha asked
"Psch! Of course I do! Do you know what Aura is?" Jaune asks her while waving off the question.
Pyrrha smiles at him and gets ready to explain as the scene changes to Lie Ren's trek through the forest's tall grass.
"Aura is the manifestation of our soul. It bears our burdens and shields our hearts. Have you ever felt you were being watched without knowing that someone was there?" Pyrrha said off screen
"Uh... yeah." Jaune said
Ren stops and narrows his eyes, looking around him while a huge black Grimm serpent rises up from the grass behind him and quickly surrounds him with its large, hissing body. Ren adopts a fighting stance as the snake coils together in front of him and attacks with its long fangs.
"With practice, our Aura can be our shield. Everyone has it, even animals." Pyrrha said
"What about monsters?" Jaune asked
"No." Pyrrha says.
Switching back to Ren as he leaps out of the way, the snake's mouth hits the ground and instantly comes up again to hit a jumping Ren back with its snout.
"The monsters we fight lack a soul. They are creatures of Grimm, the manifestation of anonymity." Pyrrha continues.
Ren lands in a crouch when the serpent encircles him again, and he unleashes his StormFlower before jumping up and firing at the creature.
"They are the darkness, and we are the light." Pyrrha says.
As Ren kicks the snake's snout and slashes at its head.
"Right, that's why we fight them!" Jaune said
"It's not about why; it's about knowing." Pyrrha said
The snake flows around Ren and tries to bite him again, but he flips over it and drives his weapons into its head, pausing a moment without sensing the serpent's white head behind him
"Understanding dark and light helps us manifest our Aura. Everyone has some of both." Pyrrha said
Ren turns and looks up at the white head as it launches itself at him, dodging it and landing just in time to see the head slither towards him. As it gets closer, Rayelle comes running to slashes and leaps onto the black head, sliding over its body and as Ren blasts the other head.
"By baring your soul outward as a force, you can deflect harm. All of our tools and equipment are conduits for Aura. You protect yourself and your soul when fighting." Pyrrha tells him.
Rayelle is unprepared for the white half to hit her with its head, knocking her off and dropping her weapons, and leaving her to merely raise arms as Ren runs to help.
"It's like a force field!" Jaune says, opening his eyes in revaluation.
"Yes, if you want to look at it that way." Pyrrha said
Ren is now holding the front fangs of the colossal snake in his hands, glowing a faint, pulsating pink as he grips the teeth and yanks them from the monster's mouth, causing it to flail away. Rayelle moves out from under the snake and grabs her swords. It attempts to bite him again, but Ren spins to the side and stabs a fang into its eye, rotating his arm to deliver a final blow that drives the makeshift weapon into its skull, which ripples, expands, and blows apart in a dark mess as its headless body falls over its fellow creature. Wasting no time, Rayelle runs right at the white head.
" Now, close your eyes and concentrate." Pyrrha says after she walks up to him and touches the side of his head.
"Uhh... Okay." Jaune said and he complies
Pyrrha smiles and closes her own eyes, opening them as her skin glows and her irises shrink before shutting them again. The two stand there, now with Pyrrha glowing a faint red and Jaune a bright white.
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee." Pyrrha said mentally speaking and then hunched over in tiredness.
"Pyrrha?" Jaune asked concerned but still glowing
"It's all right. I used my Aura to unlock yours, but the energy that protects you now is your own. You have a lot of it." She says grinning as Jaune's cut vanishes.
"Wow..." He says smiling and looking at his hands as the glowing stops.
At the same time, Rayelle and Ren stand atop of the body of his enemy, sliding the weapons into his sleeves and brushing them off before a strange, animal-like noise is heard above him twice. He looks up and meets the upside-down eyes of Nora Valkyrie.
"I still don't think that's what a sloth sounds like." Ren chuckled
In response, Nora gives her friends a "Boop!" on the nose, causing them to smile
