Ruby's feet didn't feel real. Nor did the weapon resting on her lower back, bumping her tailbone with each springy step. The only thing that did feel real was the thin, crusty layer of sweat and nastiness that caked her like a carapace. Apparently staying up more than 24 hours in a cassock was inherently nasty.

She slipped her hand into her pocket, fishing past her phone until her fingers found a soft, silky surface. Not a periwinkle handkerchief. No, definitely not. No way. Because that hadn't been real. She hadn't slept in at least 36 hours; there was no way Miss Bigot had walked in on her weeping, done… something (which was weird and involved hand-on-mouth action that was not as violent as it should've been, why didn't she bite her friggin' fingers off, that was her chance!) that somehow calmed her down enough to be a real person, and she absolutely could not possibly have left her a periwinkle handkerchief. It was probably a piece of… toilet paper, or something.

Yes. Toilet paper. It was more likely that Ruby miraculously started klepping bathroom supplies than… whatever it was that could not have happened. Stealing toilet paper was just such a calming experience, tranquil enough to carry her from the bathroom, back into the infirmary, and to keep her from ticcing even once as she administered her own blood transfusion. She'd even managed to scoop one or two hours of sleep while someone else's stolen blood evened out her anemia. Thatwas how calming toilet paper theft was. And it was nothing else.

Ruby's gaze absently drifted around the group of walking students… for no reason in particular. Nothing at all.

"Uh, Ruby? Did something happen?" Yang asked, peeking into her field of view. "You were all, like, mopey yesterday, but now you look like you're walking to a fight."

Ruby immediately relaxed her shoulders, because yeah, they were very squared up. She had to ease up on her bird-legs, too, because she was subconsciously standing a full head over Yang, almost fully jacked up on them. "Sorry," she said, despite it not really being something to apologize for. "I just, uh… slept. Really good. The nerves had me up all night before I got here; some shut-eye was all I needed."

The guilt of lying tickled between her shoulder blades, but it wasn't… it just wasn't. No tic rose, the feeling came and went normally, sliding off her mind like butter off the hood of a hot car.

Yang nodded, her brow creased with at least some suspicion. "Right… well… you good? Woozy or anything?"

Ruby gave her one sharp nod, claiming "Yep! I'm great!" and it almost felt like the truth.

Yang bobbed her head, growing even more suspicious, but said nothing as they continued following the hiking group.

Miss Goodwitch, with the headmaster graciously absent from her side, led them along the clear, verdant paths that lined the cliffs over which Beacon reigned. Her face wss a gentle twist of real, genuine satisfaction as one student jogged to her side and asked a question, giving her an excuse to be a real teacher whose existence wasn't purely contingent upon the myriad controversies of her boss. She gestured to the side with her riding crop (such a weird thing to just… carry around), indicating the Grand Lake Castellan between the Greater Capitol of Vale and Beacon, with the city's barely-visible skyline just now awakening behind a curtain of cool fog. Ruby could hear her answer describing Lake Castellan as a cryptorheic lake— contrary to popular belief— with subsurface channels that vascularized it to the Torchbearer River, feeding into the sea at the Gulf of The First Remembrance of His Letters and His Tomes and His Sacred Objects and Pieces Now Lost (which was a mouthful even before translation, so most simply call it the Gulf of the First).

Which, really, was an altogether useless collection of facts, but the purpose of it was more understandable when Ruby saw who had requisitioned that knowledge. With a bob of bright, yellow-haired movement beside Miss Goodwitch, Jaune nodded. He did seem like a useless-facts-kid.

Ruby had never enjoyed the outdoors. She never had any particular problems with it, per se— save for having the combined, vulnerable paleness of both her mothers (somewhere between floral white and magnolia)— but she didn't have the same appreciation for it that others did. She didn't like the quiet, because it made her feel like every little sound she made was amplified. She didn't like the openness of it, preferring instead the predictable rat-maze of Greater Vale. She didn't even like the air— it was just too clean, but still rife with strange and unpredictable scents, as if the lack of pollution was a way to lull her into a sense of comfort, then assault her olfactory glands with the sudden and implacable stank of a rotting animal.

And yet, she couldn't fully put her smile away.

Maybe it was the day. It was objectively amazing, the late summer transitioning into autumn with cool, lakeside breezes that carried grassy, salty scents. The birds below, in the thick and sprawling forest beneath the plateau upon which Beacon rested, were being particularly raucous, and the gentle din of walking, talking students drowned out any oppressive silence.

Ruby felt energized. Full of (someone else's) blood, her brain cool and mellow, feeling like a root beer float that'd overflowed with bubbles until some gracious soul came and sucked up the excess, leveling her brain off to fit perfectly in the glass of her skull. There was an easy acceptance to her that didn't seem to fade. Her throat occasionally tickled a little, her neck getting little strings that wanted to be pulled, but none of her nerves needed striking as they had over the past few days.

And you know what? So what if she didn't want to be a Huntress. She was here. So long as nothing else fucked up happened, maybe she could find a way to make it work. At the very least, she knew there would be a lot more time with her weapon, plus whatever else she could blow her equipment requisition fund on. Maybe there was an on-campus weapons tech position she could hustle her way into.

And there was also Blake. Ruby could see them walking a few yards away, the space between them filled with other students. As if they could sense Ruby's giant eyes and giant nose pointed their way, they turned to meet her gaze. They gave an indulgent little grin and waved.

Ruby forced her gaze frontwise, the tips of her ears heating up again. She futzed with her hair to make it fall down over her face, hopefully covering up any angle from which Blake could see her blush. Through the dark strands of her hair, Ruby continued to stare, straining her eye so she didn't have to turn to watch Blake. They had cargo shorts on today, torn up at the bottom, matching the— wait, no, those weren't cargo shorts, it was an olive-green cargo romper, with their jacket-of-many-buttons tied by the sleeves about their waist. Ruby almost groaned. They were so cool.

God, why the heck did she keep the friggin' cassock on, she felt like a boiled lobster that's been left in the fridge too long. She was nastiness incarnate, not at all fit to gush over the hot weirdo that Blake was.

Ruby shivered at herself, forcing her eyes forward. She got one crush, and she was already such a creep.

"Students!" Goodwitch called, making everyone stop. She directed them towards the hillside, lining them up along a ridge that overlooked a huge swathe of the Emerald Forest. Unfortunately, as the crowd in front of Ruby cleared, she saw that Ozpin was there. He stood dramatically before the sheer drop, leaning slightly on his cane, greyish hair blowing in the breeze. Following Miss Goodwitch's direction, Ruby shuffled onto a metal plate between Jaune and Yang. Looking left and right, she saw everyone else on similar brassy platforms.

Goodwitch nodded, joining Ozpin's side.

Ruby was positioned very close to them— pretty much directly behind Ozpin, as if to taunt her. It'd be so easy to lunge forward and push him off. Goodwitch would probably kill her for that, but Ruby could imagine the Huntress uttering a quiet 'ugh, thank god, finally' after she did it.

"Oz," Goodwitch said quietly.

Ozpin's shoulders rose, then fell.

"Oh dear god," the Huntress muttered under her breath. "Oz, wake up."

Ozpin breathed, his inhale trailing a snore as he some-friggin'-how slept standing. Miss Goodwitch huffed out a growl, gently placed her hand between her boss' shoulder blades, and pushed him off the cliff.

There was about half a second of stunned silence from the students, including Ruby, before a loud yelp arose closer than it should have.

"Glynda!" Ozpin's voice shouted from around the cliff edge.

The Huntress looked up innocently, cupping her ear towards the source of whining. "What was that? I couldn't hear you over the two hundred meter drop!

"Glyn-da! For God's sake!"

"Whaaaa-aaaat?"

Ozpin snarled. "Miss Goodwitch!"

Glynda Goodwitch closed her eyes and savored that sound, then (disappointingly) flicked Ozpin back over the cliff edge with a swish of her riding crop.

Stumbling forward onto his cane, a colorless Ozpin brushed his hair back and adjusted his cravat. "Your winter bonus for that," he grumbled sourly. "And another write-up."

Miss Goodwitch didn't give away a single shred of care. "Implying you'd feel able to find somebody else stupid enough to do what I do."

Ozpin snorted. "I found you."

"Sure," Goodwitch said sarcastically. "Found. That's the word."

"Glyn—"

Goodwitch flicked out her riding crop, making him jolt.

"Miss Goodwitch," he hastily corrected. "Could you—"

The dean's assistant pulled a stopwatch out of her pocket and displayed its screen. By the grace of having giant birdlike eyes, Ruby could barely make out that the digital timer was already counting down. "Thirty seconds."

Ozpin's eyes boggled nigh halfway out of his skull. "S-sec—" he furiously shook his head and turned to his students, speaking fast, "StudentsofBeacon! Thisisnotanormalhike, youareallmerestepsaway from—" he breathed in— "beingtrueHunters! HereintheEmeraldForestisasecret—" he looked at the clock, growing frantic— "Ruins! Find the ruins! Puzzle! Relics! Chess pieces! Andwhoeveryoufirstlockeyeswithisyourpartnerforever!"

Jaune raised his hand. "Uh, Professor, why're you—"

"No time, Arc! Prepare to land!"

Ruby seized up, feeling the platform beneath her click with tension. She dropped low and braced her bird-legs.

On Ruby's right, Jaune continued to blabber as Ozpin turned to Miss Goodwitch, complaining through his teeth, "Glynda, you are supposed to text me when you get near!"

At the end of their line, Ruby heard a mechanical kuh-thwung, drawing her eye to the sight of her peers being launched off their platforms one at a time, hurtling them towards the Emerald Forest.

Jaune, the poor idiot he was, didn't pay it any mind and continued to espouse his confusion. "Sorry, Mister Ozpin? Professor Goodwitch? It just… well, it seems weird we're on these platforms— are they ticking?"

The Headmaster and his assistant paid him no mind, instead whispering hotly to each other until Ruby heard her platform reach a final tension, heralded by a tight groan of springs and a single, final klunk.

"Hello?" Jaune beckoned pathetically. "Are you just going to ignore me?"

Ruby turned to him. "Jaune," she advised calmly, getting his attention. "All you need to do is—"

The platform exploded out beneath Ruby's feet, launching her skyward as the howling winds sucked her words from her lungs. She barely managed to catch sight of Jaune's expression as she flew, and found herself giggling at his hanging jaw, traumatized gaze, and deathly pale skin.

She totally did that on purpose.

Blinking out of her Semblance, Ruby wrapped her talons around a tree trunk, whipping the circular disc of her weapon out into whipsword-form as she spiraled down the thick bark, bleeding some of her momentum away, then swung herself along tree branches with her flexible blade until she reached the ground. She rolled to the forest floor and immediately searched her surroundings.

Nobody else landed where she had. That was probably a good thing. It meant she'd be able to find Yang without catching someone else's first. Or, if she were even luckier, Blake, though… come to think of it, that probably wouldn't be good. If she'd heard Ozpin correctly, they'd be partners forever, so she really didn't want to make the whole thing awkward by getting rejected. Yang would be the cinch indeed.

As Ruby pushed herself quickly to her feet, she nearly collapsed. "Crap," she mumbled, stars flashing in her vision— she hadn't paid enough attention to the time, it'd been too long, the transfusion was wearing off. That wouldn't have been a problem if this had been a normal hike, but of course it hadn't, of course she was a gullible idiot for ever believing that, and of course she was now alone and low on blood in one of the most Grimm-infested forests in the kingdom!

She started clawing at the ground, feeling a need for the security of dirt beneath her claws, tearing up the forest floor as her thick talons scraped through the loam. She felt her throat rumble, but pushed the tickle in her larynx down. If she started making noise out here, she'd attract Grimm, which would slow her down and make her even more vulnerable. She needed to be calm and focus on the… what was it? Something about ruins and relics? Chess pieces?

Stupid.

Ruby trudged forward, pulling the plates of her whipsword back together by hand, interlocking them until the weapon was a shortsword once more, then using that shortsword to hack her way through the bushes.

This whole thing was stupid. What even was the point? Filtering the students by strength? Survivability? Getting into Beacon was enough of a filter on its own!

Though, she didn't really have a place to comment on that, she supposed. Knowing her limits, Ruby took a break and leaned on a tree, taking slow breaths to prevent fatigue.

Whatever. Stupid, yeah, but she was in it, and she really didn't want to get killed by a Grimm, of all things. That was just… eugh. Blood or no blood, she'd have to keep moving. She just needed to find—

Ruby yelped as she was thrown to the side, a weight barreling into her fast enough to break bone (though that wasn't saying much in Ruby's case). Ruby rolled with it as she was thrown down, one arm thrusting down to push it away while the other tried to bring her shortsword to bear, only to find that blade-wielding wrist grabbed and forced away. She got one good punch in before her other arm was grabbed, too, and the body settled atop her.

Ruby groaned.

"Florabel," Weiss exhaled, blood trailing down her face from the lip Ruby had busted. "Wert thou not expecting me? I did warn thee."

Ruby bucked up, trying to throw the other girl off, but Weiss' position was sure. "Get off," Ruby demanded. "What're you doing?"

Weiss squeezed Ruby's wrist until she relinquished the shortsword, then met Ruby's eyes, baleful blue and uncanny white locking to silver. Weiss grinned, her white teeth parting as she inhaled, something surely self-aggrandizing sure to roll up out of her throat.

Ruby plot—

Weiss' hand relinquished her wrist to dart to Ruby's mouth again, but Ruby was quicker, grabbing that left arm and yanking it to the side, tipping Weiss over just enough to free her left leg. Ruby coiled that spindly, clawed limb all the way up to her own chest— right between herself and Weiss— and shot it forward like a darting snake, pushing Weiss back as her front talons hooked around the girl's right shoulder and her rear talon sank into the meat of her pectoral. Weiss reeled, snarling, scrabbling to grab the leg. Ruby twisted her claw and pushed, forcing Weiss to fall onto her side lest her collarbone be gored.

But Ruby, lost in the grapple, didn't realize where they'd fallen, and had to relinquish the girl's shoulder in favor of locking the arm itself down when Weiss took up Ruby's fallen short sword.

Weiss, with her wrist being rent bloody between Ruby's claws, grunted through her teeth. "Florabel," she seethed, her voice taking a barely-noticeable edge of chastisement. "Thou'rt so keen on hurting thy partner."

Ruby growled, not at all phased— she'd just choke the bigot out and go lock eyes with someone else while the Grimm ate her— but she was at a stalemate. Weiss had her left wrist, she had Weiss' left wrist. Weiss had her right leg pinned between her own, Ruby had her right arm in her claws. Thankfully, she just needed one advantage to set it even, something like…

Ruby and Weiss both dumped out of the former's Semblance, the latter unprepared to be falling as Ruby flipped on top and freed the leg between Weiss', using it to push Weiss' chest down, her other claw pulling up and twisting the girl's wrist until she relinquished Ruby's sword and hit the ground with a heaving gasp. Ruby pressed that now-empty hand back down to the ground, letting go of Weiss' left wrist in favor of kneeling all her weight on the bicep itself, locking both arms down. With both hands finally free, Ruby Rose bent forward and stretched ten fingers around Weiss' supple neck.

"Give up," Ruby commanded, warning her with a press of her thumbs against her trachea. "I beat you."

Weiss grinned up at her. "Nemesis, thou wilt meet thy gaze to mine when such a declaration is made."

Ruby bent fully forward, adrenaline fighting anemia as she clutched the girl's neck harder, just so she could get nose-to-nose with her. She wanted Weiss to see her as she went out. She wanted Weiss to know it was her— a Faunus, once a Second Archivist—who beat her, again, and on equal terms. As equal as they could be, at least.

The girl had no Aura. It was never going to be equal, whether or not she had the element of surprise, whether or not Ruby had hollow bones and not enough blood. Ruby had been the reluctant top of her class for a reason.

For once, it felt good to win— it wasn't every day you meet a person who checks all your 'I am the worst kind of person and I hate you and I will endanger you until you kill me' boxes, so she stared into Weiss' eyes like her gaze could go right through and pin the girl's brain to the back of her skull.

"Florabel," Weiss squeaked, thin and breathy, close enough that Ruby felt the plea on her face.

Ruby pressed harder. "Last chance," she seethed.

"Florabel," Weiss begged, her voice barely audible at all.

Frustrated, Ruby smashed her forehead against Weiss', demanding, "Give it up, Wei—"

Weiss bucked up with her shoulders, just far enough to smash her mouth into Ruby's.

Between their lips, there was a pull.