Chapter 2: Setting the Stage
It was a calm day, the sun was shining but the heat wasn't overwhelming, there was wind going but it didn't feel cold. Simply, it was the perfect day.
And that perfect day was now being accentuated by laughter, a small bipedal blue canine with black torso, legs, ears and face mask was playing catch with a completely white six-tailed canine. With the former chasing the latter who was freezing the ground to keep her blue pursuer from catching her.
Meanwhile an arthropod with a brown shell resembling a horseshoe crab was over her small quadrupedal fluffy brown friend (who was lying upside down) using its four yellow legs to tickle him. The latter trying, with no effect, to use his fluffy tail to get his friend from over him while laughing like a hyena.
Suddenly their playing was interrupted with a sudden shout.
"Hey guys, the food is ready, time to eat!"
This single shout made the four stop. Playing was great but food was almost as good. Deciding to get back to playing and training after eating, the four rushed to their food.
Ruby woke up feeling happy and peaceful. Peaceful dreams like the one she just had were not really unknown to her but normally they felt small times of peace in between conflict. This one felt nothing like that, it felt truly like a time free of worries.
That honestly put her in a good mood.
But now it was time to get ready. The initiation was today so there was no time to waste.
She quickly took a bath and got changed before going to get breakfast. And oh boy, what breakfast.
Cookies! Milk! And even strawberries! The perfect breakfast!
"So Rubes!" - appears Yang from nowhere - "You ready for the test?"
"Of course!" - responds Ruby with a happy and chipper voice - "Me and Crescent Rose are going to blast through it, just you wait!"
Yang laughed a bit at her sister's energy and enthusiasm, it always let her and others get in high spirits.
"That may be true but I'm sure I'm finishing before you!" - said Yang, teasing her sister.
Ruby pouted in response, her face showing clear displeasure. Yang meanwhile just laughed a bit before going back to eating her breakfast.
Realizing her sister was not going to continue their conversation and that asking her about being teammates would only end in her trying to convince her to get new friends she just went back to enjoy her breakfast.
Jaune continued to enjoy his cereal with yogurt and his sandwiches. It wasn't much but when he could make sandwiches of whatever he wanted, he would take the option. Especially with the initiation happening soon.
The last dream had been nice and had put him in good spirits, at least good enough to keep his self-doubts and nervousness from overwhelming him.
What little training he had managed to get behind his parents' backs had shown him just how outmatched he was in comparison to everyone else. He had decided he wasn't going to quit no matter what happened, but, still doubts always reared their ugly faces.
Deciding that he was not hungry anymore, Jaune went to get his weapons only to find a sea of people doing the same. Not wanting to take too much time, Jaune went to search for his weapons locker, which he found after a few minutes of ~~desperate~~ searching.
After taking out his weapon, he closed the locker and turned to leave only to crash into someone else, thankfully both managed to keep their balance.
"Sorry, I didn't notice you!" - immediately says Jaune, trying to stop a discussion from starting.
"No, no, it was my fault" - responds the smaller girl now in front of him - "I was going to get my weapon but I got distracted."
It was at this moment that Jaune took stock of the shorter girl in front of him, she was using a black skirt and blouse, black stocking and black boots alongside a red hooded cloak. Honestly, she looked kinda cool if in a cute way.
"I can see why, many of these weapons are interesting" - responded Jaune. He didn't lie either, many of the weapons were very creative if not downright strange.
"Yep! These weapons are so cool!" - continues the girl, obviously interested in the weapons of everyone around her - "If you want to I can show you mine if you want to!"
"Ah … sure!"- responded Jaune, taken by surprise.
Immediately the girl said to him to follow her with a lot of enthusiasm which he did.
"Ah, one thing" - said Jaune, which made the girl stop for a moment - "what is your name?"
"oh, yeah, I'm Ruby Rose!" - answers Ruby - "and which is yours?"
"Name's Jaune Arc" - responds Jaune
After that Ruby proceeded to ask him about his weapon and how it worked, which he did to his limited abilities. While her reaction was not as effusive as with other weapons they then continued to talk about other things.
At some points it felt like they had been friends before. It seemed luck had smiled on him, just for once.
Weiss quickly decided that today was not going to be a good day. First, she was woken up from some idiot deciding to shout everyone near him awake and then some menace of a girl had caused chaos in the female bathroom.
The silver lining was that her breakfast had been surprisingly peaceful.
Now she was going to retrieve her weapon while thinking about her potential teammates. She knew for a fact that all academies grouped their students in teams of four members, she just needed to find the perfect teammates.
Which was the problem. Everyone around her she saw substandard teammates, either they looked like they had an ego far too big for their good, others looked as if they didn't take the academy seriously, some even looked just plain incompetent!
Reaching the place where her weapons locker was she noticed something, not only was there the girl that nearly blew up her dust yesterday but she was talking very animatedly with one blonde guy with armor, jeans and a hoodie?!
Regardless, they represented a problem, that being that they were blocking her from getting access to her locker.
"Just my luck" - she thought with frustration to herself as she neared the pair who didn't notice her, apparently talking about weapon maintenance - "Well, at least there is no dust to explode now"
"Good morning, sorry to interrupt but I think you are blocking me from getting to my weapon's locker" - said Weiss to the pair
"AAAAAHHHHHH! you are the girl from yesterday, sorry! - responds the black dressed, silver-eyed girl quickly moving out of the way.
The blonde guy stands in his position, looking at both before also moving out of the way, his face showing obvious confusion.
"Thank you" - says Weiss while nodding to both of them before taking out her weapon and closing her locker.
However when she turned around she found the pair still looking at her and her weapon. She instinctively raised one of her eyebrows completely unamused, basically asking them why they stayed or to move somewhere else.
Both of them had the decency to look half-ashamed.
"Sorry, I just wanted to see your weapon!" - responds the girl before her companion could move or say something himself.
That surprised Weiss, normally people would recognize her and immediately give empty platitudes to try to gain favors from her or simply build a good rapport. Asking her about her weapon was simply not something she expected.
That said, she still needed to find a teammate.
"Sorry, but I still need to find a teammate?" - she responds
"Teammate?" - asks the blonde guy
This makes her sigh in frustration.
"Yes, teammates. Don't you know that you will get into teams here in Beacon?" - she asks to both teens in front of her
The girl nods in but the guy puts a face that tells her that no, he didn't know.
"I had forgotten about that!" - shouts in panic the blonde while pressing his hands against his cheeks.
"In that case I suggest you start searching" - says Weiss before going her own way, she had a teammate to find.
Pyrrha Nikos was having a decent day all things considered, beyond the small hiccup of the bathrooms where one girl caused untold chaos, not only she had been able to make a small Mistralian style breakfast for herself but also she had had a very nice dream. After that she retrieved her weapon from the weapons locker without much issue and now she just stood in the locker room waiting for the initiation to start.
However she had completely lost hope of finding someone that didn't care about her fame. Everyone either evaded her, or complimented her on her achievements asking her if they wanted to pair up with them. She turned them down but it was getting tiring.
The last of these had been, surprisingly, the Schnee heiress.
In a way, it was obvious, Weiss Schnee was not only famous in her own right, even if it was more due to her musical career than sheer combat prowess and she had most likely received training from the best instructors money could get.
However, teaming up with the heiress was not something she, Pyrrha Nikos, wanted to do, despite the good points the heiress brought up. She wanted someone that saw her not as the invincible girl, but just as another peer.
"Well, I was planning on letting the chips fall where they may" - she says to the heiress
"Are you sure about it?" - questions Weiss - "wouldn't it be better to choose your own teammate?"
Pyrrha wanted to answer yes, but that would mean telling Weiss that she and almost everyone here in Beacon were not what she wanted.
Thankfully before anything else was said someone else appeared and saved her from having to do so.
"Sorry to interrupt but I'm searching for a teammate and I wanted to know if any of you wanted to be it" - asked the new arrival to Weiss
Both Pyrrha and Weiss turned to see who he was, finding it to be a blonde boy, with a set of armor, a hoodie and a pair of jeans. Alongside him, there was a girl in basically all black, black skirt, black stocking, black blouse and black hair, the only things that weren't black were some accessories, the red cloak and her silver eyes.. Both of them looked friendly enough.
Before she could respond to the question of the blonde guy however, Weiss talks first.
"Sorry, but we are talking here" - responds Weiss, her voice showing obvious frustration in her face while she crosses her arms.
Both new arrivals cringed at her response.
"Sorry!" - responds the boy - "but you were the only one we both thought about asking!"
"Really?" - asks Weiss - "do you have any idea who you are talking with?"
"Nope"
"No"
Says both of the new arrivals at the same time
"Well, I'm Weiss Schnee and she" - continues Weiss pointing at Pyrrha, making her wave to say hello - "is Pyrrha Nikos"
"Hello there" - she says while waiving again
"Doesn't ring a bell and my name's Jaune" - says the boy
"Neither here and mine is Ruby" - responds the girl
That surprises both Weiss and Pyrrha. Weiss grimaces but Pyrrha was internally, she had found them!, exactly what she wanted! People that didn't know of her nor were affected by her fame.
"She graduated top of her class at Sanctum!" - continued Weiss
"Never heard of it" - responds Jaune
"Really? You must be very good!" - responds Ruby meanwhile
"I am skilled, yes, but so were my fellow students" - she said, trying to downplay her achievements. Weiss' attitude meanwhile was starting to displease her.
"She's won the Mistral Region Tournaments four years in a row! A new record!" - says Weiss again
"The what?" - asked Jaune
"Wait, you have won the same tournament four times in a row? Impressive!" - says Ruby, obviously interested
Now she was starting to feel dread, this was not what she wanted!
"So, after hearing all of this, do you really think you're in a position to ask her to be on your team?" - Weiss continues
"I don't know, considering the teams are supposed to be of four people we could all be teammates" - she said
The reaction of the others was something, Weiss looked as if she had eaten a lemon if only for a brief moment, Ruby looked as if thinking about it, Jaune meanwhile looked relieved. She had found her teammates after all!
"Well, I was planning to team up with my sister but considering its teams of four …" starts Ruby before being suddenly interrupted by an announcement.
"Would all first-year students please report to Beacon Cliff for initiation? Again, all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff immediately."
"I … suggest we get moving immediately" - said Weiss suddenly before starting to walk out of the locker room in direction to the Beacon Cliffs, her voice betraying a bit of frustration.
Ruby and Jaune looked at each other and started to follow Weiss, leaving herself standing in place for a few seconds before she also started to move.
She had not gotten what she wanted but more! Not only there was one but instead two people that didn't care about her fame!
"Now, I just have to make sure I team up with them" - she thought to herself, her smile stopping to become her practiced one and becoming sincere.
The cliffs were not that far away from Beacon Academy but still far enough so whatever happened inside the academy didn't affect the initiation and vice versa. Both the headmaster and his adjutant were already present reading something in their scrolls and if one looked beyond the cliff itself, one would see the massive size of the Emerald Forest below.
Soon the prospective students started to arrive together and once they were all present the headmaster started to explain how the test would work, their objectives and how the teams were going to be formed, many of them cringing at the idea that mere eye-contact would be enough to be paired with anyone.
Then immediately after asking if anyone had any questions, the students started being launched into the forest basically silencing everyone. The initiation had started.
Ruby easily landed after slowing herself down using Crescent Rose's recoil before using it to catch a branch and stop herself, while Weiss used her glyphs as platform, jumping from glyph to glyph to slow herself down and land safely on the forest. Finally Pyrrha using Akoúo̱ to protect herself from the branches before landing in a particularly large one before her taking out Miló and changing into rifle form and scanning the area around and above her.
It was at this moment she noticed Jaune trying to pull a similar landing with Crocea Mors although his form was far less stable. Quickly deciding to ensure that at least she had as teammate one of the people she wanted to team up with, Pyrrha changed Miló into his javelin form and launched it accurately pinning Jaune into a tree.
Despite being a hit to his personal sense of self-worth, Jaune couldn't help but feel thankful. Sure he had a landing strategy but he was barely keeping it together as it was during the fall, he seriously doubted he would've been able to pull it successfully.
The Javelin that had pinned him to the tree, which he idly recognized as Pyrrha's weapon, had actually made his life much easier.
"Thank you!" - he shouted, hoping Pyrrha would hear him.
"I'm sorry!" - he faintly heard in return.
"Yeah, that's Pyrrha" - thought Jaune, recognizing her voice while trying and failing to get the javelin of the tree.
Sighing at his failure, Jaune resigned himself to wait for rescue.
Back with Ruby she is currently running through the forest looking for Yang. While yes, Jaune was a nice person he didn't seem to be particularly powerful, Pyrrha seemed nice and she was powerful which put her high on her list of options, Weiss? Weiss was complicated and far too much of a hassle to want her on her team and Blake was in her opinion an even worse option. So yeah, Yang was her priority for teaming up.
"Yang! YYYYAAAANNNNGGGG!" - shouted Ruby as she tried to find her sister to no avail.
"Finding her is going to be harder than I thought" - despaired Ruby, if there was something she wanted, was to make sure her sister was in her team. Deciding to stop in the following clearing, Ruby took stock of her options, she could either continue north towards the relic and hopefully reunite with Yang or continue to actively search for her.
Suddenly a shrub rustled, breaking Ruby out of her thoughts. Reacting instinctively, she readied Crescent Rose transforming it into its sickle form, prepared for a fight only for Pyrrha to appear into the clearing. Both establishing direct eye contact with each other.
"Well, it could be worse" - Ruby thinks in defeat, Pyrrha seemed nice and her accolades spoke wonders of her fighting prowess and there was always the possibility of her and Yang ending on the same team, after all, teams were made up of four people.
Pyrrha meanwhile could help but feel a bit conflicted, while Ruby seemed like a nice person she didn't know if the silver eyed girl would see her just as a peer or would fall into the same pit all other people who adored her fell into.
"Well, it seems we're now partners Pyrrha" - says Ruby to the red-haired champion trying to break the ice.
Pyrrha nods in agreement, a small smile on her face.
"Also, where is your weapon Pyrrha?" - asks Ruby now concerned, getting right beside Pyrrha using her semblance looking for the missing sword/spear/rifle - "Did you lose it?"
"Oh no, I didn't" - answers Pyrrha calm if slightly unnerved due to having Ruby so close to her, trying to calm Ruby - "It's just that I noticed Jaune was having difficulties during the landing so I launched it to help him. I was now going to retrieve my weapon"
The explanation manages to calm Ruby who accepts it.
"So, in the search of Jaune now?" - ask Ruby
"Correct" - nods Pyrrha back - "Considering the trajectory he should be in this direction"
Says Pyrrha before starting walking, Ruby joining at her side, as both leave the clearing and continue through the forest.
Both continued to walk in silence, not an awkward one but one seemingly born out of understanding, neither of them was planning to end as teammates, much less partners to each other and both needed some time to process that fact.
That said, both found a very small and odd sense of familiarity towards the situation, as if it was something that was to be expected. Before they could ask themselves about that new and odd feeling both finally reached the tree Jaune was pinned to as if he was a painting in a wall.
Looking up and finding Jaune in that position, Ruby couldn't help but to start laughing at Jaune's situation while Pyrha looked in barely covered amusement. Jaune meanwhile took it in stride, he knew his position, from their point of view, was amusing.
"So? Are you gonna help me with this?" - asks Jaune pointing at Miló.
"Give us a moment please" - says Pyrrha before she and Ruby help him down.
"I assume you two are partners?" - asks Jaune as soon as he is on the ground
Both Ruby and Pyrrha nod in confirmation. Jaune can't help but to sigh in frustration, his two preferred options had teamed up with each other.
"What were the chances?!" - think Jaune crying on the inside
"Well, I suppose I'll have to search for a partner" - says Jaune sounding half defeated, not only he had needed to be saved but he would most likely, need to partner with a complete stranger.
"Well, we might not be your partners but we can still work together to get the relics" - says Pyrrha
Jaune looks at both of them and nods in agreement, with that the trio then starts going in the direction they think they need to go.
Weiss Schnee was currently not having a good time, not only had she been launched before Pyrrha making her lose track of her but also she was now fighting a pack of beowolves. Sure, the pack of Grimm was not really a problem at all but it was a big waste of time. After all, the more time passed, the higher was the probability that Pyrrha would find a partner.
Finally dispatching the last beowolf, Weiss started to move again, she had lost far too much time fighting the grimm. Thankfully the headmaster had told them that the relics they needed to find were north of the cliff, so going north would be the easiest way to find Pyrrha.
"Now if only you knew in which direction the north is" - said a traitorous part of her mind
Shaking the thought aside, Weiss continued to walk through the forest, always on guard, despite the apparent peaceful environment. She knew better than to lower her guard inside a forest filled with grimm.
Suddenly a bush started to sound, Weiss instantly putting herself on guard waiting for the grimm to appear.
Only that it wasn't a grimm, first Pyrrha appeared, establishing eye contact with Weiss. This made Weiss mentally squeal in happiness, she had been successful, Pyrrh was her partner now!
Those thoughts however were soon crushed by Ruby appearing after Pyrrha with Jaune appearing right after the smaller girl, both of which also established eye contact with her.
Noticing Weiss, the group of three give their greetings to the heiress which Weiss responds to before asking the most important question that needs an answer right now.
"Are any of you paired? I am lacking a partner"
"Yes! Me and Pyrrha are partners!" - responds Ruby with her trademark energy confirming Weiss' worst fears, not only Pyrrha had already been taken but it also meant her partner was … Jaune.
Weiss turned to look at Jaune who just put a smile and waved, his face betrayed both his happiness and being uncomfortable about the fact.
"It seems we're partners then" - says Weiss to Jaune, unable to cover her dislike of the idea, something which made the other three wince and make Weiss realize she had let her emotions show.
Mentally cursing at herself, Weiss went on to correct her mistake - " It doesn't matter anymore, we should get to the relics?"
Everyone agrees and start prepare to move again before Jaune interrupts
"Ahhh, does anyone know in which direction the north is?" - asks the blonde to the others.
The simple question makes everyone stop in their tracks, making everyone realize that no, no one knew in which direction the north was.
"I don't know, I was following Ruby" - says Pyrrha, her showing both shock and worry at the idea they were lost
"I don't know either, I was following Pyrrha" - says Jaune looking at the champion.
"I was following Jaune!" - practically shouts Ruby
"I don't know either" - ays Weiss facepalming at the obvious and critical problem that had escaped the four of them - "it seems we're lost"
The idea makes the four future students uncomfortable, if they were indeed lost it meant that getting to the relics and retrieving them would be much harder than anticipated.
Suddenly heavy steps started to be heard and most importantly felt, suddenly the ground exploded from under the team sending them flying and creating a massive cover of dust.
Pyrrha landed on her feet Miló in spear form and Akoúo̱ at the ready, Weiss used a glyph and a tree to also land on her feet immediately pulling out Myrtenaster, Ruby used Crescent Rose in sickle mode to grab a branch landing there before changing it to sniper rifle form and finally Jaune fell on his back but rapidly got up getting ready with Crocea Mors, both sword and shield at the ready, all watching the massive cloud of dust.
A few seconds later the cloud of dust fell enough to reveal what was inside. A Petra Gigas, an ancient one.
As one the four huntsmen hopefuls got ready for the upcoming fight as the ancient grimm took stock of the four of them before charging directly at Jaune.