Chapter 1: Arrival

The forest was burning, a single infected, that was all it took for a veritable horde to fall upon them. Now they were trapped inside a clearing, hordes of beasts and trolls rushing them from the woods in uncounted numbers. Their traps, either mechanical, explosive or magical, had done little to buy them time.

Still, their defiance still burned bright, flamethrowers, rifles and grenades did their bloody job. A black haired silver eyed girl fired her scoped rifle as fast as she could, each shot either hitting one of the fallen in the head or in a limb. Her companions were also hard at work, her ginger companion was throwing grenades and explosives interchanged with assault rifle fire wherever she saw a particularly dangerous infected. Their blonde medic meanwhile concentrated on the closest infected with his shotgun or if needed, his machete. Finally their white-haired mage was supporting their medic with her flamethrower, there simply was no time for her to make more runes.

However, despite their efforts, their fate was sealed, as soon the infected were upon them, knives and machete sliced and stabbed but one by one they fell as bites and slashes hit them. The sound of breaking bones and shouts of pain mixing with the growls and sound of the infected as they did their bloody work. Then a sudden final explosion and all that remained was the debris falling from the skies and the arrival of new infected.

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Ruby suddenly woke up in the airship with a cold feeling over her alongside the sensation of pain from all the injuries she had suffered during the dream.

"This was too real" - thought the silver-eyed girl to herself before looking around in near panic noticing she was still at her airship seat before noticing Yang was looking at her in worry.

"Hey Rubes, you ok? You look as if you had seen a ghost" - asks Yang, her voice full of worry, her left hand over Ruby's shoulder and ready to just go and hug her sister.

Taking some deep breaths to calm herself before responding, Ruby looked at her sister again.

"I'm ok Yang, just a bad dream, don't worry" - answered Ruby, omitting the ghost pains she was still feeling.

"You sure?" - asks Yang, still worried unwilling to leave it alone

"Yes Yang, don't worry, I'm ok" - says Ruby again. She really didn't want to discuss the dream she had just had.

Yang seemed to be more than willing to continue pushing for answers but Ruby was not willing to let it happen and stood up to go get Crescent Rose. Anything to distract her sister. However as she passed, a blond guy suddenly passed running towards the airship's bathroom, something that for some reason she was finding … amusing? familiar?

Leaving aside the strange feelings, Ruby continued to the lockers to retrieve her weapon, the amount of people increasing as she got closer. Ruby held a sigh in frustration, weapons were ok, even the most complicated of weapons could be understood with enough time but people? people rarely made sense even after dealing with them for months or even years.

Opening the weapon's locker, Ruby took out Crescent Rose, inspected it for a moment and then closed the locker once she made sure Crescent Rose was in perfect condition. Now it was only a matter of meeting with Yang once again.

Although something told her that her stay at Beacon would bring in more surprises than she imagined.

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As Jaune barfed into the airship's toilet he couldn't help but curse his airsickness, doubly so when a part of him told him that this had been the cause of many troubles. Why? He didn't know, but the feeling was there.

Not helping was the dream he just had. He could still faintly feel the cuts and bits he had suffered. And the panic, the panic of knowing death was approaching and nothing you could do would stop it, only slow it. He hated that feeling, no matter how brave he felt or acted in the face of that inevitability, there was always an underlying feeling of panic and he hated it. It made him remember his limitations.

"It doesn't matter!" - thought Jaune trying to calm himself and his stomach down - "it was just a dream, it was just a dream"

Finally, after it felt like minutes of his stomach wanting to get out of his body, Jaune was able to exit the airship's bathroom. Hearing the warning that the airship was soon to arrive at Beacon, Jaune went towards his locker to get Crocea Mors.

On his way to the lockers, Jaune watched his possible future peers like a hawk, he may not be the most powerful, the fastest or the most skilled, but he liked to think he had a good eye for the details. And those details were telling him that he was way behind the rest. He knew that fact but it was being constantly reinforced by the people here. The weapons went from rifles, to swords, spears and everything in between. One guy was even using a chainsaw/drum mechashift by brothers' sake!

Their users were also spectacular, from full one knights, to what appeared to be rangers and everything in between. Everyone looked like they had faced and killed Grimm or at least were ready to do that. Everyone exuded confidence and security he knew he didn't have. Hell, even his weapons and armor were hand-me-downs, completely unimpressive to the rest.

"You'll get to that point, just don't give up" - said a small voice in the back of his head.

"Was it really possible?" - responded another of his mind as Jaune took Crocea Mors from the locker. His dream pointed at yes, his dream depended on it! But … but a significant part of his mind said "no".

Suddenly Jaune shaked his head, no, he would not let his fears and doubt keep him from his dream, not after everything he had to do to get here. He would be a huntsman and a hero.

No matter what.

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Weiss had to be honest with herself, her day had started poorly. not only the dream he had on the way here had not been the best one (she still felt the pain and hopelessness when she thought about it), perhaps she had taken a bit too much stuff with her.

"Definitely too much and unnecessarily at that" - added a small voice in her head that she decided to ignore.

There was a small pile of suitcases filled to the brim not only with her clothes but also with dust and in one case, spare parts for Myrtenaster. Enough for at least the first semester. The less contact she could have with her father the better.

That thought made her mood get sour, if anything, her father had been the greatest obstacle she had had to get into Beacon. From, plainly negating her wish to later unleashing the Arma Gigas against her.

Further thoughts about her father however were cut short when not only a massive group of students basically passed near her thing running but also when a clumsy dolt, not only crashed into her things but also spilled some dust!

"Hey! what are you doing?!" - Weiss shouts at the clumsy girl - "do you have any idea what you have done?!"

"I'm sorry!" - responds the girl in black and red clothes.

A part of her really wants to continue admonishing the girl that had crashed into her suitcases but a small part of her pointed that the priority would be to make sure her dust was safely contained.

Kneeling to check the vials, Weiss winced, despite being seemingly still sealed, looking into the details made her notice that the dust powder was leaking out. It was already a miracle nothing had exploded, had she decided to admonish the girl, things would've definitively exploded. Sighing in frustration she went on to make sure the dust was safely secured.

Meanwhile the other girl had just stood up looking at her with nervousness before asking.

"Can I help you?"

Weiss, at that moment wanted to explode, not only that dolt had crashed into her things and almost caused an accident, she was acting as if she had not done anything wrong!

However she managed to control herself, if barely.

"No, I'm good. Just … take more care next time, you almost caused an explosion!" - responded Weiss with frustration clever in her voice.

"Ah, ah, sure!" - responds the other girl before going away.

Weiss only sighed, now alone, she could finally calm down herself. She would not let this single accident put her in such a bad mood that she wouldn't feel good about coming to Beacon.

Freedom was finally at hand.

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If anything Pyrrha could feel about arriving at Beacon, it was the feeling of failed expectations. Unlike what she wanted she had either been ignored or approached by fans. At no moment she had been approached by someone just looking to talk with her without her fame being a factor.

Then came the headmaster's speech, and simply, it had been … ok? Nothing really inspiring and incredibly blunt but she figured that the headmaster had his mind on something else.

After this the rest of the day felt like a blur, meeting more fans or being left alone by the rest of the people at Beacon. It seemed once again her fame preceded her.

"There must be someone out there that doesn't care about my fame. There must be!" - thought Pyrrha to herself in an attempt to not lose hope.

Suddenly she heard a discussion on the far side of the hall, apparently a yellow girl with a white one. She couldn't hear exactly what they were discussing although she noticed another watching both discuss.

For some reason looking at the third girl watching the other two discuss without doing anything brought her some amusement, it reminded her of one dream she had a few nights ago.

No matter, hopefully the next day will be better than today.

And hopefully the next dream would not be as terrifying or painful at the one she awoke from.