Initiations and Misconceptions

Aichmire jumped off the makeshift ladder he was creating. Yawning, he walked back to the camp hidden behind bushes. "There are kids coming in an hour, right?" he said, tired from dropping all their supplies down the cliff.

"Indeed," Frounus replied, "students of a combat academy, I presume. Strange that they train children for this work." He finished, polishing his shield. "With cooperation, they'll be fine; this forest isn't very threatening."

Aichmire chuckled, "Didn't seem like that when Stavros saw you running for your life."

Frounus scoffed. "Ah, shut it." He looked upwards at the clifftop, noticing more humans, most shorter than Ozpin. "Seems that initiation is starting."

The Swordwrath looked up thoughtfully, and thought out loud. "Y'know, I wanna watch up close, and I always wanted to be a ninja."

"So what exactly is a landing strategy-" Jaune said before he was promptly launched high into the air. His screams could be heard as he fell. Weiss, on the other hand, landed with grace as she ran into the forest.

'Find the relics, get a decent partner, and succeed.' She thought, determined to reach the relics and find someone worthy of her time. Pyrrha Nikos would be the best partner she could get, her skills being amongst the best in Vale. For the worst partner-

Damn it.

Locking eyes with Ruby Rose, Weiss felt a pit of disappointment in her stomach. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and went forward without Ruby.

Ruby quickly caught up with her Semblance, stopping right in front of the snow princess. "Hey, I know we got off on the wrong page, but we're partners now! Can't just leave each other behind-"

Weiss interrupted her. "Listen, you are worth neither my time or energy. I'd be surprised if you didn't slow me down."

Ruby's expression fell as she shrunk backward. She turned to continue onward, until she caught sight of a weird flying creature above them. Weiss followed her gaze, seeing a creature with beige wings, black skin–too dark to see any details–and a stick thin body.

"Is that a flying Grimm?" Ruby asked, with Weiss shaking her head in response. "Not one I've ever seen," she said, "maybe it's connected to that weird windstorm that happened when we got here?"

Ruby recalled the winds that arrived; the day before their initiation, gale force winds rushed across Vale, strong enough to have shattered windows and uprooted trees. The area hit hardest was Beacon Academy, with the winds converging at the school. It was a miracle that anyone managed to sleep last night. Recalling the event,

Ruby listened to the headmaster's speech about the new students, and felt something was wrong. The Ozpin she met was stoic, sure, but he was happy, approachable. The Ozpin on stage seemed more emotionless, as though he felt something was off. As he gave his "wasted energy" speech, his eyes tended to drift towards the outside of the amphitheater, like he was thinking about what happened earlier.

The rest of the students weren't much better, considering the turbulence that almost crashed their ride on the way. Some students kept their cool, like Yang, but others didn't fare that well. Weiss tried to keep her professional persona, but Ruby could tell she was shaken up after seeing the damage. Jaune vomited just remembering the debacle.

Ruby tucked in for the night, remembering the announcement that they would still have initiation tomorrow. Hopefully that was just a weird weather accident.

Ruby shook her head, saying, "If it's Grimm, it'd be better if we killed it." She swapped into Crescent Rose's sniper form, and took aim.

The creature noticed her from the sounds of her gun taking shape, and immediately flapped away when he realized that it was aimed at him. "It's getting away!" Ruby said, as the Grimm loaded up his crossbow with a Blazing Bolt. As Ruby was about to pull the trigger, she was knocked back from the force of Stavros' bolt. She felt her Aura draining slightly, noticing the flaming bolt.

"It's got a weapon!" Weiss shouted out, cooking up a glyph to fire red dust at the flying beast. As she fired, her expression shifted into one of disbelief as the flying arbalist twirled mid-air to dodge the blast. The two exchanged flaming projectiles as the Grimm flew backwards. Ruby got up and shifted Crescent Rose back into scythe mode, unwilling to get interrupted mid-shot again. Speeding up a tree, she jumped and swiped at the flying beast, knocking it down to the ground. As it was attempting to take to the skies again, Weiss rushed in with Myrtenaster to perform the final strike.

She was blocked by another Grimm; one wielding a sword. The creature, similar to the crossbow user but without the wings, guarded its comrade as it flew above the Huntress-in-training duo. "Didn't know they could use weapons," Ruby stated, before going in to slash at the sword user. She did not expect the monster to match her speed, a red aura enveloping it as it roared. Weiss went in to take it out, but was stopped in place by a bolt that blazed just past her face. "He did say to destroy anything in our path," She recalled, firing off more fire dust towards the arbalist.

Ruby used her Semblance to try and rush down the sword Grimm, but the monster somehow managed to match her speed along with quadruple the anger. With every swipe, the thing would either block the strike or dodge and punish her. Not to mention the Aura depletion from the fire earlier; she still had no clue or time to figure out how it drained her down by roughly 20% from one shot. Maybe she should use one of those bolts for Crescent Rose? A secondary fire mode with anti-Aura bolts would make for pretty cool duels-

She was knocked out of her thoughts by a stab to the gut, knocking her on her knees. Cradling her stomach, she looked up to find the sword user standing across from her with a guarded stance. Getting up, she prepared to fight again, petals flowing in the wind as she dashed towards her opponent.

Weiss wasn't having a very good time. While she was firing off fire to kill the blasted crossbow Grimm, the thing barely paid her any mind while weaving through her attacks. It's like it was missing its shots on purpose, too! No way in hell did something like that miss all of its shots. Infuriated but steady, Weiss summoned glyph platforms to rush up to the thing herself. Even on a level playing field with the thin Grimm, it dodged and weaved her rapier's thrusts. 'Remember your training,' she thought, lacing Myrtenaster with fire dust for more damage.

As she attacked once more, she struck only air as the beast took even higher into the skies. Weiss wondered if it and its friend were a new kind of Grimm, one with the intelligence to create and use weapons. They would be exceptionally dangerous, especially with the skill these creatures showed today. Oddly enough, only the sword Grimm's eyes were red, the crossbow's were white. Chasing after the creature again with her glyphs, she had to wonder how the crossbow Grimm concealed its red eyes.

Perhaps there was more intelligence in the beasts after all.

Approximately ten minutes ago, Stavros was admiring the initiation's race to the ruins from above. Now, he's dodging for his life while fighting a human made of snow; that's what she looked like, anyway. At least Aichmire was doing better than him, able to turn anger and life into power. He, on the other hand, had to fight a child with nothing more than Blazing Bolts. Usually, he could hold his own, but against a kid?

He couldn't bring himself to shoot willingly, so he whiffed every shot to try and get it to run. It didn't. Even if it looked like an adult–based on the description of Ozpin given by Frounus–it wasn't one, and he didn't want to see how well it could fight back. He wasn't like a Swordwrath, his rage was severely lacking.

Speaking of Aichmire, he spent the previous moments doing his best Shadowrath impression, sneaking across the forest with some difficulty. 'Man, if they trained me, I would've been a great ninja.' He thought, spectating the students as they made their way through the forest. "Black n' yellow duo's gonna do well, dunno about gold n' blonde." He said, trying to predict how the partners would work together.

Hearing the sound of shifting metal, he snuck over to where he heard the sound, finding Stavros under attack when he arrived. Blocking an attack for the downed stick, he targeted the faster human and Raged at it. The student was fast with that massive scythe, but Aichmire had fought enough Juggerknights and Giants to deal with large weaponry.

Ducking under a swipe, he thrust his blade into the redhead again, punishing her for slowing down. Still, he hesitated to keep going. Sure, he could fight until she got knocked out, but he wasn't sure if Ozpin would let that fly. He couldn't exactly stop fighting, either, since he was faster than Stavros and would have to leave him behind in an escape attempt. He was also running low on health, his extended Rage usage draining him more than he was used to.

Looking behind and above, he saw Stavros flying away already, as what seemed to be a snow Meric of a human chasing him, the same one that he blocked earlier. 'Might as well leave,' he thought, rushing in to finish off the human he was fighting. He blocked another hit from her with his sword when it recovered, and slashed repeatedly until she fell down and didn't immediately get up.

He sped off, past the student with a rapier and with Stavros. Catching up to the flying stick, he said, "Get back to camp!" wanting him back with the team for healing. Stavros complied promptly, flying away beyond the sight of anyone else. Aichmire ran off as well, running dangerously close to death.

Weiss started questioning if the creatures even were Grimm as the sword user ran off. There were two options; either they just fought normal (albeit strange looking) people, or the Grimm are getting far smarter than what she was used to. She turned to face Ruby, seeing her Aura visibly flickering. Walking over she said, "Was it really that hard to fight it?" with overall disappointment in her voice. Ruby looked up at her, clutching her tired arm. "Hey, it's not my fault it fought like a real Huntsman! The one that fought you didn't even land a shot!"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Can you get up? We still need to finish this, I'll cover you if any more monsters come our way." She said, outstretching her hand to bring her new partner onto her feet. Ruby pulled herself up. "Hey, as long as I don't get hit, I'll be fine!" She said, cheery as always. "Sure sure, just don't hold me back."

"Ah." Frounus said in response to Stavros' report. He brought his hand up to his face in a mix of disappointment and understanding. "If you two were trainees, I'd have been scolding you, but…" He looked up to the two, who were sheepishly looking around their camp. "I'm sure you two already know the lesson to take from this." He peeked his head above the bushes that hid them, seeing the students already through most of the forest. "Tell me about the two you fought."

Aichmire stepped up first, saying, "Okay, first, she had this dark red hair-"

"The girls fight in this region?" Frounus interrupted, used to the women of the nations managing their hospitals and field clinics.

"Yeah, different species, guess we'd have different customs," Aichmire said, continuing, "anyway, she had dark red hair, a weird battle skirt, and a massive scythe for a weapon. Looked like it belonged in a Giant's hands instead of hers. Oh, and she was really fast too."

Frounus looked intrigued, saying, "Really, now?" Aichmire activated Rage for demonstration, running around with blistering speed. "She could fight about this fast," he said, swinging his sword around, "while moving at double my running speed. Jeez, that kid was good," he said, panting from the lost health. "Hey, Stavros, what was yours like?"

"I think she wanted to kill me just because she hates me." Stavros said, recalling the white haired girl's assault. Stavros continued, "Maybe she thought I was taunting her, I was whiffing my shots to keep her safe."

Aichmire replied, "See, this is why Swordwrath don't hold back, Crossy."

Stavros could sense the teasing in his voice. He responded, "Hey, cut me some slack for not fighting a child. I volunteered to fight the Chaos Empire, not students! And don't call me that!"

"You're being really defensive right now." Frounus said.

Stavros sighed and started hovering over the grass. "Listen, I just got a soft spot for kids, alright?" Aichmire and Frounus shrugged, accepting his explanation.

"Say, what're they doing right now?" Aichmire asked, directed at no one in particular. Stavros flew upwards to look for them from above, before seeing-

"Is that another giant bird?!"

Review if I screwed over Ruby and Weiss' characterization. Thanks in advance.

Patch Notes - 9/5/2024
Removed some dialogue tags that really shouldn't have been there.