Chapter 6: Players and Pieces
"Are you hearing all of that Blake?" Yang asked, looking around the forest's edge. They were standing in front of the temple's steps, listening to the noises of several creatures and screams from different students carried from deeper within the woods.
"Yeah," Blake said, looking up, "but-"
"Should we go help?" Yang interrupted, "I mean, their all huntsmen, but so are we, so-"
"Yang," Blake cut in. "Is that you're sister?"
"What?" the blonde turned to her. "Where?"
Blake pointed upward at a flailing red figure falling toward them.
Ruby plummeted, toward the forest, her eyes watering from the rushing wind. Just before she could pull out Crescent Rose, something hit her in the side. Her aura flashed red, absorbing the impact as she careened toward a tree, landing sprawled over a branch.
"Hey Ruby," Jaune said, hanging from a dense tangle of leaves above her.
"Jaune," she said, sitting up and holding her head, "Uh, what's up?"
"I'm not sure anymore," he said dizzily as he tried to twist himself out of the tree.
Yang and Blake stood in shock after seeing Ruby and Jaune crash. Before they could speak, another group of students rushed out of the woods, leading a bear.
"Russel!" Cardin shouted, pointing past Yang and Blake. "The temple!"
The scrawnier boy nodded, and they ran past the girls to get a relic.
The brown bear finally came to a stop, collapsing in a heap at the forest's edge. The girl riding it stepped off, complaining, "Aww, it's broken!" before cheerily bouncing toward the temple. The young man behind her followed, keeping an eye on the woods.
The ginger girl was examining a gold rook piece while the boys were catching their breaths. Grinning excitedly, she snatched it up and began singing, "I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the castle!" while she juggled the relic.
"Nora!" her partner, a boy in green with a purple streak in his black hair, called her back to reality.
"Oops!" Nora said, running back to him while balancing the rook on her head, "Coming, Ren!"
The other team, now recovered, looked across the available chess pieces. The armored boy reached for the other gold rook, but Russel stopped his hand. He shot the shorter guy a glare.
"Do you want to be partnered with the crazies over there?" Russel whispered, flicking his head at Nora.
"What?" Cardin asked, "Why would we-"
"One piece for each pair," Russel continued, motioning to the relics. "Two matching pieces for each team. It's pretty obvious."
Cardin furrowed his brow and retracted his hand while asking, "Then what piece should we take?"
"That one," Russel said, pointing to the last black bishop piece. "That pair came through before, so they should be better than the rest of us." The larger boy smirked down at him.
"You've got a good head," Cardin said, rustling his partner's hair before plucking the black bishop off its pedestal.
While they were scheming, Yang and Blake came out of their shock, with Blake asking, "Was she riding a bear?"
"I-" Yang started, before a voice came down from the heavens.
"HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME!" Weiss boomed, amplifying her voice with a green-colored glyph. She clung to the talon of a giant black bird, which was beginning to circle the gathering students.
"I said jump!" Ruby shouted back, helping Jaune steady himself on the branch.
With a worried sigh, Weiss let go of the bird, plummeting like a stone toward the clearing.
A recovered Jaune perked when he saw this, readying himself and jumping in an attempt to catch the falling girl. However, his leap was ill-timed, leaving him to skid across the ground and come to a stop at the exact place to become the heiress' landing pillow.
"My hero," Weiss said pitilessly.
"My back!" Jaune groaned as Cardin and Russel laughed at their antics.
The boys joined up at the stairs of the temple with Blake, Yang, Ren, and Nora.
Blake shook her head, looking back to the sky before asking, "Was that a nevermore?"
"I can't take it anymore!" Yang snapped, her hair igniting. "Can everyone just chill out for like two seconds before something crazy happens again!"
Those with her paused, turning to stare at Yang as Weiss and Jaune joined the group.
Yang took in a breath, calming herself while pushing her hair back and letting the fire in it die down. Ruby tumbled out of her tree, landing with outstretched arms before running over to her sister.
"Yang!" she yelled gleefully.
"Ruby!" Yang returned, opening herself up for a hug.
"Nora!" Nora joined, popping up between the sisters moments before they connected, causing the three girls to tumble into a pile.
"Jaune!" Pyrrha's voice called from the far side of the clearing. She came out of the woods, running at a full sprint toward the ruins. Weiss turned at her voice, smiling.
"Pyrrha!" Jaune exclaimed after helping Ruby up. He waved to his partner, shouting "Over here!"
From behind Pyrrha, the giant scorpion monster emerged from the woods, knocking over several trees and scuttling after the warrior. It made a swipe at her with its left claw, almost catching her. Pyrrha jumped over the bottom half of the claw, flipping through before it could snap shut.
As she recovered, its stinger shot at her, connecting with her shield and sending her flying towards the temple.
Jaune ran forward, arms outstretched to catch Pyrrha. She hit him hard, forcing the boy onto his rear, his aura pulsing to absorb the impact. They skidded back to the ruins and then blinked at each other before Jaune grinned wryly.
"Just, dropping in?" he asked.
Pyrrha smiled back, brushing her cheek before standing and helping Jaune up.
"Did she run all the way here with a death stalker on her tail?" Blake asked, looking at the monster baffled.
"Well, at least the gang's all here," Yang said with a playful shrug. "Now we can die together!"
"Not if I can help it!" Ruby said, readying Crescent Rose away from the approaching scorpion. She charged forward, ignoring the cry of alarm from her sister.
Letting off a gunshot to launch herself at the grimm, Ruby readied an overhead strike with her scythe's outstretched blade. Her attack was battered aside by the creature's claw, forcing her back with sheer weight.
Ruby stood, whipping around and unloading her scythe on the creature, but her shots bounced off its bony carapace. Realizing she was outmatched, she took her last shot to launch herself a few feet back toward the temple and began running, folding her empty weapon back into its travel form.
As Ruby turned to flee in a storm of petals, Yang started running forward, shouting her sister's name.
From the sky, the nevermore had circled back around, watching the little red blur cross the clearing. Rearing back, the grimm unleashed a torrent of feathers with a heavy flap of its wings, saturating Ruby's path with massive quills and pinning her cloak to the ground.
"Ruby! Get out of there!" Yang shouted, punching away at the feathers between her and her sister with shotgun blasts.
"I'm trying!" Ruby said, tugging at her pinned cloak.
Unrelentingly, the death stalker chittered up to her, preparing its tail for a final skewer. Yang called out again as Ruby turned to look back at the grimm. She shut her eyes just as the tail jerked, a vain hope her aura could protect her running through her mind.
The sound of cracking ice rang around the trapped girl, who tentatively opened her eyes. Weiss Schnee was at her side, rapier stabbed through a bright white glyph and into the ground.
Between the girls and the death stalker grew a wall of shimmering ice, encasing the scorpion's tail and claws, the stinger mere inches from Ruby's head. The creature struggled against its imprisonment, but the wall held fast.
"You are so childish," Weiss said, turning to Ruby. "And dimwitted, and hyperactive, and don't even get me started on your fighting style.
"But," Weiss changed her tone as Ruby started to slouch, "I suppose I can be a bit difficult. So, if we're going to work together," She leaned over Ruby. "You need to stop trying to show off, and I'll be… nicer."
"I'm not trying to show off," Ruby said. "I want you to know that I can be a huntress."
"You're fine," Weiss said, rolling her eyes and walking back to the group while calling out "Ruby is fine!"
Ruby let out a relieved sigh before pulling at her cape again, which was still stuck with nevermore feathers. Yang came over and punched the quills loose, helping her sister up.
She squeezed Ruby into a tight hug and said, "I'm so glad you're ok!"
The sisters broke apart as the nevermore circled overhead, letting out a dull roar. They trudged over to the ruins, meeting up with the assembled students as Jaune pointed to the sky.
"That thing is circling back!" he said, "What are we gonna do?"
"There's no point in dilly dallying," Weiss said, pointing to the relics. "Our objective is right in front of us."
"She's right," Ruby said, stepping up in front of everyone. "Our mission is to grab a relic and get out of here." She motioned to the death stalker. "There's no point in fighting these things."
"Run and live," Jaune said with a relieved smile. "Now that's an idea I can get behind."
Ruby and Jaune walked into the temple and grabbed the closest relics: the gold rook for Jaune and the gold knight for Ruby. They turned to look over the assembled students, noting their weapons, equipment, and postures. The two shared a nod, then rejoined the group.
"I think it's that way," Weiss said, pointing somewhere with her nose buried in her scroll.
"That can't be right," Yang said, scratching her head. "Didn't we come from that direction?"
"I don't know where we came in from," Blake said, folding her arms. "You got us lost in the forest, remember?"
"Jaune," Pyrrha called to her partner, approaching him with her scroll out. "I'm pretty sure it's past the grimm." She pointed directly at the death stalker.
Jaune nodded. "Maybe we can-" he was interrupted as a giant white and black snake emerged from the forest and crashed into the ice wall, coiling around itself frantically. Now freed, the death stalker scuttled around, searching for its prey.
"Ren," Nora piped up. "Can we sneak around them?"
"Not with a group this large," Ren said. The boy had crouched and placed his hands on the ground, concentrating. "It's all I can do to keep us hidden right now."
"Why sneak by?" Cardin said, hefting his mace. "We can rush past them, can't we?"
Weiss rolled her eyes. "If you want to die, then go right ahead."
Ruby silently rocked on her feet, watching the monsters and racking her brain for a plan. Beside her, Jaune looked around the forest, standing on his toes to see over the treetops.
"There!" he called out suddenly, pointing. "Over that hill; there's another set of ruins."
"So?" Weiss asked.
"If we lure the grimm over there, we might have a better chance of getting around them," Jaune explained. "Then, we book it to the evac site."
While some of the students nodded, Cardin turned to Russel, asking, "How's the path over there?"
Russel nodded and tossed one of his daggers high into the sky, a burst of air escaping the weapon's hilt. The boy closed his eyes, focusing for a moment before saying, "No monsters or animals. It'll be an uphill run, but there's plenty of cover."
He caught his dagger as it came down, only opening his eyes once it was in hand. "We might be able to use the ravine somehow."
Blake shrugged. "Best plan we've got."
Yang turned to Jaune with a smirk and said, "Lead the way, Vomit Boy!"
Jaune groaned, muttering, "I'm never gonna live that down."
"It's time we left," Ren said, standing and drawing his bladed pistols. The grimm instantly turned toward them as the ten students began a mad dash through the Emerald Forest.
As the group ran, Ruby and Jaune began closely observing their companions, trying to gauge their strengths. Ruby knew Yang's weapons: Ember Celica, her dual shot-gauntlets, but her sister's partner had a cleaver with a complex looking hilt, like it was also a pistol. She looked to Weiss, who loaded a small white canister into her dust rapier and then tucked it into her waist sash.
Jaune noted Ren's bladed weapons and the large, cylindrical gun on Nora's waist. He looked to Pyrrha, who was running with her rifle held tightly. Russel and Cardin brought up the rear of the group; the more aggressive young man occasionally glancing back while hefting his large mace in anticipation.
Eventually, the forest gave way to a clearing with stone debris littered throughout. The nevermore swooped into sight ahead of them, screeching as it took notice of their presence. The group split, pressing themselves against large stone structures to hide from the grimm. The bird perched on a large tower that grew out of the misty ravine ahead.
"You! Green-hair!" Weiss said, pointing to Russel. "Use your dagger trick to find the other grimm."
He raised an eyebrow at her, confused.
"Weiss, we know they're behind us," Ruby countered. "We need to set up a defensive line against the king taijitu." She looked to Jaune and Pyrrha, who were on the other side of the clearing. She tried waving at them, pointing to the tree line they came from frantically.
Jaune nodded, looking back that way. "I think Ruby wants us to watch our backs," he said, motioning to the forest with his sword. He glanced around the pillar he, Pyrrha, Yang, Ren, and Cardin were hiding by. "We can take that bridge into the tower, then climb into the ravine."
"As long as birdie doesn't attack," Yang added, pointing up at the nevermore.
Ruby followed her sister's finger, nodding to herself. "Does anyone have a way to distract it?" she asked her group, consisting of Blake, Weiss, Nora, and Russel.
"I can do it!" Nora said, hefting her grenade launcher. "Should I do it now?"
"Sure," Weiss cut in. "While it's distracted, we can find the other grimm." She gave a pointed look at Russel, who sighed and readied a dagger.
"We don't need to do that!" Ruby interrupted. "The death stalker is gonna chase us straight forward, and-" She was cut off by the crash of several trees.
The scorpion grimm emerged from the forest with a screech, turning toward the other group. Jaune and Pyrrha readied their weapons, stepping up to engage the grimm as the nevermore stirred from its perch, reading a volley of feathers.
"Nora, cover them!" Ruby shouted, running out into the clearing to get a line of sight on the bird.
The ginger hopped after her, blasting away the barrage of feathers with pink explosions released from her weapon. The feathers were averted away from the melee with the death stalker, which was going poorly for Jaune and Pyrrha; they were being pushed back by its massive claws.
Ruby crouched and began firing at the nevermore, forcing it to turn.
"Find the snake!" Weiss ordered Russel. He gulped, then stepped into the clearing. Weiss took off, running after Ren and Yang.
Tossing his dagger up, Russel closed his eyes, activating his semblance. This power let him transfer his sense of sight to any object he threw, but that sense then left him for as long as the object was in the air.
He saw himself, the grimm, the other students fleeing, and the whole forest from a bird's eye view, which let him track the motion of the trees where the king taijitu was slithering… heading right for him.
Russel let out a cry, trying to run with his out-of-body sight. He tripped, falling between Pyrrha and the death stalker. He saw his own body pounded by the creature's claw, the distraction allowing Jaune and Pyrrha to disengage the beast.
His senses returned with a sharp flash, his aura faltering around him. He never saw the stinger crane down at him, but the shadow that swooped in to rescue Russel formed into that girl with the bow.
Blake hauled the green-haired boy over to his partner, shoving the kid into his arms. Before either could say another word, she was gone, her image vanishing in a shimmer of black.
For his part, Cardin had been preparing to strike the death stalker's side, but having his winded partner shoved in his way prevented that plan.
Luckily for the two of them, the scorpion monster pursued Jaune and Pyrrha, who were harrying it as the others fled. Blake and Ren joined their efforts, firing their pistols at the base of its tail where the bone armor became black chitin.
The beast screeched, trying to overrun the group, but Jaune stepped in front of it, tanking its flailing claws with his shield. He stopped its attack, but was thrown out onto the bridge with the remainder of their group.
"This isn't going to plan!" Weiss said, helping Jaune to his feet.
"I'm sorry!" Ruby said, stopping with her. "Did you have any ideas back at the temple!"
Weiss narrowed her eyes, starting, "Well, I-"
"Incoming!" Nora shouted, pointing as the massive form of the nevermore swooped down from the sky. The students leapt away as the bird hit the stone bridge, decimating the section Jaune and Weiss had been standing on moments before.
Yang fired blasts from her bracers at the bird, which mostly ignored her attacks as it dipped under the mist.
Their group stopped, looking back as the death stalker cornered Pyrrha, Blake, and Ren on the other side of the chasm.
"You good?" Cardin said, giving Russel a shake. The two of them had been left alone by the grimm, allowing Cardin to pull his near catatonic partner into the cover of the ruins.
"S-sn-" Russel faltered, his eyes watering.
"Speak up, man!" Cardin said, "I can't understand you when-"
"SNAKE!" Russel cried, pointing behind his ally.
In a smooth motion, Cardin lifted his mace and blindly swung it behind himself, connecting with the king taijitu's upper maw, its face spread to reveal giant white fangs. Flicking a switch on his mace's handle, the deep red crystal nested under the head let off an explosion, sending the snake's face craning away.
"Stand back," Cardin muttered through gritted teeth, tossing Russel away with a single hand and readying his weapon. "I've got this."
Ruby, Yang, and Weiss started climbing the tower, firing at the nevermore to distract it as Jaune ran to the edge of the bridge.
"We gotta get over there!" he said, pointing across the gap. "They need help!"
Nora stepped up to him, hefting her weapon. "Let's do this!"
"Yeah," Jaune said, looking down into the ravine. "But, I can't make that jump." The chasm between them and their allies must have been more than twenty feet.
Nora smiled wickedly before hefting her grenade launcher by the end of its grip and slapping him with it, forcing Jaune a few steps back. She deftly extended her weapon into a hammer, taller than even Cardin.
She swung it around, eventually lifting the maul high above herself. Nora ran and jumped, turning back while above the bridge and slamming her hammer into it, releasing a blast of pink on impact.
A large section of stone under the students gave way, catapulting Jaune over the chasm to land amongst the other students. Nora quickly planted her feet on her hammer's head and shot another grenade out of it, sending herself flying back to her partner. She came in over Ren, hefting her weapon again to land a hit on the grimm.
Another blast from her maul distracted the creature while sending her flying back to Ren's side. As she slid into position, she bumped into Blake, who lost her balance and fell into the ravine.
"Whoops!" Nora said. Before anyone could look for her, the death stalker screeched, forcing their attention on it.
As she fell, Blake saw the nevermore flying past the tower, receiving blasts from her partner's weapon. Instinctively, she readied her sickle and launched it at the bottom of the remaining bridge, firing a shot to increase its speed. The ribbon that attached the weapon to her arm went taught as the blade struck, biting deep into the stone.
As Blake swung under the bridge, the giant nevermore swooped in front of her. With a small tug, her weapon fired and released itself from the structure, allowing Blake to shift off a shadow clone of herself at the apex of her swing. She came up by the nevermore's beak, slashing with her cleaver to propel herself onto its back.
The bird flew up as she ran across its feathers, slashing with her sheathe while drawing her other weapon in along her ribbon. With the extra height, she leapt from the grimm's back down to the tower's highest landing, joining up with Yang, Ruby, and Weiss.
"We've got to keep it distracted," Ruby instructed. "None of us can deal with more than one grimm at a time."
"That'll be hard," Blake said, leaping over to stand with her partner. "It's tougher than it looks."
"Then let's hit it with everything we've got!" Yang said, ratcheting her gauntlets.
Ruby followed suit, unfolding her scythe and planting the blade in the rubble. Weiss held her rapier out, her other hand holding up two fingers to draw more glyphs in the air around her.
As the nevermore swooped back toward them, it was meet with a barrage of attacks: Blake's pistol shots, Ruby's high-impact rounds, Yang's shot-gauntlet blasts, and Weiss' dust-infused strikes that streaked from the glyphs she created, all aimed at the charging bird.
It took every hit, becoming disoriented moments before crashing through the portion of the tower the girls stood under, throwing the huntresses away from the structure in a rain of stone.
Yang jumped between falling rocks and blasted off each with a punch, shattering the ruins while flinging herself higher.
Blake spun in the air, using her semblance to leap to a lower pillar. She raced up it as far as she could before throwing her gun to the top, the blade sticking into a stable section of stone.
Weiss danced through the air, gracefully bouncing off glyphs she summoned while avoiding falling debris.
Ruby landed on a lower section of the tower, meeting a pillar with her feet before shooting back up in a flurry of red petals with her semblance and the recoil of Crescent Rose.
She met Weiss atop the landing filled with broken arches that they had sheltered under, noticing Yang, who came down in a three-point landing on another section.
"Is this working?" Weiss asked, looking down at the fight with the death stalker.
"I think so," Ruby said, noticing Blake when she swung up across from Yang on her ribbon.
"And how much longer can we keep this up?" Weiss asked, firing a glyph at the nevermore as it rose from the mist.
Ruby glanced at Blake's weapon, the ribbon whipping in the breeze as the girl fired her pistol up at the grimm.
Ruby examined the pillars before her and Weiss, then exclaimed, "I've got a plan!"
Cardin forced the snake monster away, blasting at it with his weapon when it dared to charge him. The creature was coiling itself up, trying to overwhelm the boy with its size, but that wasn't going to work. Cardin was built like a mountain; the grimm would have better luck learning to fly.
The king taijitu struck out, fangs bared, only to be smacked aside by Cardin's mace. It reeled, hissing before diving in to bash the boy with its snout. He sidestepped the attack, hefting his mace with two hands before slamming it down on the snake's head.
Another blast from the dust crystal shattered the thing's skull, leaving pieces of the grimm's head crest littering the ruins. The rest of the creature, including most of its bones, disintegrated into a fine black mist, vanishing from existence entirely.
"And that!" Cardin said, spinning his weapon in one hand, "Is how you kill a grimm!" He smirked at Russel, who returned a limp thumbs up.
The death stalker pushed forward, forcing Jaune, Ren, Pyrrha, and Nora back, right up to the edge of the bridge. Pyrrha fired her rifle, covering Nora as she reloaded her weapon. She landed useless hits on the creature's bone armor.
Ren charged in, pistols ignited with a spray of bullets he aimed at the grimm's eyes. Distractedly, the scorpion rammed its tail at Ren, missing the boy by a foot. The golden stinger dug deep into the stone as Ren planted his bladed pistols into the tail, trying to cut the stinger off.
The grimm ripped its weapon free, causing the platform the students were standing on to crack, losing its connection to the cliff.
"We've gotta move!" Jaune called, raising his sword toward the death stalker as Ren was pulled into the air by the creature's tail. He, Nora, and Pyrrha charged the grimm as Ren started slashing at the chitin.
They made it to the stable half of the bridge just as the other end fell into the mist, but the grimm was now before them, swinging its claws wildly.
Pyrrha blocked its left claw with her shield, forcing it away with a slash of her javelin. Jaune came up beside her, tanking the right claw as it swung in to crush his partner. She stabbed the other claw over his shoulder, forcing the scorpion to open its guard.
They both ducked as Nora shot several explosive rounds into the grimm's face, forcing it away from the cliff and giving her allies more ground.
The creature recovered, blocking its front from additional fire with its claws while flinging Ren around with its tail. The boy lifted a pistol and unleashed a barrage into a wound he managed to create with the blades. The bullets pierced through the remaining chitin, causing the golden stinger to drop and impale the death stalker just behind its eyes.
With his anchor gone, Ren was hurled by the tail's remains into the wall of a nearby ruin, his aura shattering as he impacted.
"Ren!" Nora shouted, conflict crossing her face as the grimm wavered towards her group. Jaune spared a glance for Ren, then hardened his face, readying his shield.
"Pyrrha!" he began, facing down the approaching monster. "Lift Nora up with your shield!"
The girls looked at him as he swung his sword in the direction of the stinger. They turned to each other, then nodded.
Pyrrha stepped away from Jaune, holding her shield over herself as Nora jumped onto it. Scarlet aura pulsing around her, she hurled the ginger over Jaune and at the monster in an arc.
The death stalker was upon the young man, lifting its massive claws to cast a shadow over his head as Nora crested her leap.
"Nail it!" Jaune shouted as he took the blow of both pincers. His white aura flickered around him and his shield, but he remained standing, the ground beneath him caving.
Nora's weapon released an explosion, causing her to flip through the air. She connected its head with the death stalker's stinger, a blast of pink forcing the golden point through the remainder of the scorpion.
Its arms and legs jerked to a stop, then began fading, leaving nothing save the bony carapace and the fake relic. The claw shells clattered against Jaune's shield as they fell.
Jaune released a relieved breath as Nora fell on him, crushing him with her rump. Pyrrha ran over to find Ren, who was staggering to his feet. She helped him back over to their group where the two were squeezed into a hug by Nora.
The students froze as the nevermore screeched, swooping over the chasm to enter its own battle.
Yang stood alone atop a ruined pillar, firing blasts from Ember Celica at the approaching bird. With their short range, she missed most shots until a lucky one landed on the creature's face. It screeched, craning to swoop toward her.
The grimm opened its mouth, trying to swallow her as it flew by. Yang leapt toward it, landing in its beak and bracing her arm against the top half to prevent it from closing.
"I! Hope! You're! Hun-Gry!" she yelled, firing round after round down the grimm's gullet, each blast timed with her taunt. The creature began to sag in the air as she glanced backward at the cliff face. She jumped, blasting back to the remains of the tower as the nevermore crashed into the mountain side.
Yang ran back toward Ruby and Blake as Weiss glided past her. The girl in white leapt off a purple glyph she summoned to land next to the nevermore, stabbing her sword into the cliff as it started to recover. A shelf of ice grew from her blade and snatched the grimm by a portion of its tail.
Weiss bounded back, jumping between glyphs to return to the rest of her team as Yang climbed to the top of a broken pillar. From another, Blake hurled her weapon towards the blonde, who caught it and wrapped the ribbon around the structure to stretch it across the gap.
Ruby leapt into the air, catching the band with the top of Crescent Rose, riding her weapon like a pogo stick.
Weiss slid into position, summoning a black glyph to catch Ruby and hold the ribbon taught like a slingshot. She stood to Ruby's side, adjusting her sword and hands to properly aim her semblance.
"Of course you would come up with this idea," Weiss complained to her partner.
"Think you can make the shot?" Ruby asked, ignoring her.
Weiss huffed proudly. "Can't I."
Ruby looked at her confused. "Can-"
"Of course I can!" Weiss snapped.
Ruby looked back to the trapped bird, smirking confidently while ratcheting her scythe.
Weiss spun her sword's dust cylinder with two sparkling fingers, causing the black glyph to turn a bright red. With a flourish of her sword, she cut the rune, sending Ruby off with an explosion.
Firing Crescent Rose to gain speed, Ruby brought the blade of her weapon up to meet the nevermore's neck. Another shot shoved the creature back into the cliff face, the force ripping its tail feathers from the ice as it hit.
Ruby planted her feet on the rock, finding a glyph summoned by Weiss beneath her. More glyphs trailed upward, the semblance providing stability as she began sprinting towards the top of the plateau, dragging the grimm with her.
Drawing out a yell, Ruby fired every bullet out of Crescent Rose by the time she reached the top, the last shot cleanly decapitating the creature.
A burst of rose petals showered over the cliff as the grimm's body fell, disintegrating into black mist. The white head crest stuck point first into the cliff's edge beside Ruby, who posed with her scythe draped over her back, cape billowing in the wind.
She turned back to look over the cliff, spotting the remainder of the students looking up at her in awe.
Blake, Weiss, and Yang gathered on the top of the tower, craning their necks towards Ruby.
"Well," Yang said with a proud smile, looking between the others. "That was a thing."
Professor Ozpin and Glenda Goodwitch watched the spectacular end of the students' engagement with the monsters from a pair of scrolls.
"I think you're wrong about Mr. Arc," Ozpin mused. "He acquitted himself well in that last fight."
Glenda scoffed. "Be that as it may, there shouldn't have been any grimm in the forest in the first place." She glanced over the sea of green. "Perhaps the ruins are finally losing their warding power."
"Perhaps," Ozpin said, sipping from his mug. "Or perhaps this is a darker omen. We won't know until it's too late."
Glenda gave him a puzzled look as he stowed his scroll and walked away from the cliff.
"Aren't you going to wait for them to reach the evacuation site?" she asked.
"At this point, I doubt any of those kids will fail," Ozpin called from the top of the hill. "Besides, I have more speeches to memorize."
"Russel Thrush, Cardin Winchester," Professor Ozpin announced as a crowd of Beacon students lazily clapped. "Dove Bronzewing, and Sky Lark"
The four boys stood at attention behind the headmaster in the Beacon Tower auditorium. Above them, a projector screen displayed their faces and names.
"The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces," Ozpin continued. "From this day forward, you will work together as Team CaRDinaL, led by Cardin Winchester."
The screen displayed a letter from each of their names, creating a short hand for their team name: 'CRDL'. Though most of them kept a calm composure as the crowd clapped, Cardin's face brightened with a smug smile as he was named leader. They stepped off the stage as Ozpin dismissed them with a wave, and another set of students came up.
"Jaune Arc," Ozpin said to the approaching students, "Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, and Nora Valkyrie." Their portraits appeared on the screen.
"The four of you retrieved the gold rook pieces," he nearly repeated what he had said to the last group. "From this day forward, you will work together as Team JuNiPeR.
"Lead by Jaune Arc."
Jaune put a hand to his chest, his mouth gaping. "Lead by…" he trailed off as Nora gave him a playful punch on the arm. Pyrrha placed a hand on his shoulder, smiling proudly. Jaune returned it with a nervous grin.
Their team left the stage soon after, letting Ozpin call the final team to be formed.
"Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, and Yang Xiao Long."
The girls stepped forward, holding in their excitement with varying levels of success.
"The four of you retrieved the gold knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team RWBY."
The four girls basked in the applause.
"Lead by… Ruby Rose."
Each girl came out of their giddy state like ice cold water just dropped on their heads.
Ruby's eyes widened in surprise.
Blake's eye brows perked in confusion.
In horrified disbelief, Weiss turned to Ruby, then Ozpin, and finally over to Blake, her mouth gaping.
A brief look of unease washed over Yang's features before she brushed it aside, swooping over to give Ruby a hug while saying, "I'm so proud of you!"
Weiss huffed off the stage, followed by Blake, and then Ruby and Yang as Ozpin turned to address the crowd.
"It looks like things are shaping up to be an... interesting year."