Small Issues

AN: Welcome back everyone! It's time to start with some high-flying adventurers and the groups they form. Now on with the show!

Initiation: Part One

"Birdie no!" Ruby shouts as she soars through the air and begins her descent towards the forest below. But she had shouted because she saw a large bird in her trajectory and it looked up in surprise that a human was high above it.

"Caw! Caaa-aaach!"

"Not sorry!" Ruby shouts after finding that the bird was a small Nevermore- a corvid-like Grimm with a longer tail, a pair of clawed fingers on the front of each feathered wing, and the bone white mask for a head… with four eyes and a dull spike for a crest sticking up behind the head. And she had plowed through the avian Grimm feet first.

As she neared the tops of the trees, she deployed Crescent Rose and let herself slip through the branches while her scythe cut through branches. And with each cut, she lost momentum until she found a rather thick branch that her blade didn't go through but wound up having her swing up and over the branch to ride out the last of her momentum. From there, she unhooked her weapon and dropped to the ground only a short fall down.

Upon landing, she quickly surveyed her surroundings and to her disappointment, there were no Grimm but also some relief that there weren't any people either.

But with that established, she stowed her weapon and took off at a jog in the general direction she thought the temple was in.

—

Yang was laughing as she flew, enjoying the wind through her long hair and traveling fast without any propulsion of her own.

But that could only last so long as she had little in the means to keep herself airborne. Readying her gauntlets, she fired both at the same time right into a sturdy branch from a tree taller than most in the area. The resulting recoil boosted her altitude a bit while doing little to interfere with her forward momentum… and shattering the branch. But her time in the air was prolonged.

The next tree was a repeat of the first but the blonde was descending faster. Next branch was leapt off of and pushed her towards the trunk of another. From there, she slowed her momentum by jumping against three more trunks before finally grabbing a branch to spin around and launch herself from, landing on the ground and rolling out of the fall back to her feet.

"Nailed it." She smirks before jogging further into the forest.

—-

Ren guided himself towards a tall tree and drew his weapons from their holsters on his hips- a pair of automatic pistols with extended magazines and a telescopic blade under each barrel named Stormflower. He spread his arms and legs to slow his fall and when he reached the tree he dug one of his blades into the trunk and changed his trajectory into a spiral. The sharp edge carved a deep channel into the tree as the boy slowed to a crawl just above the ground.

Now on the forest floor where his green shirt helped to provide some camouflage, he brushed off his arms from leaves and splinters. With that done, he set off for his goal at a steady pace while being cautious.

—

Weiss made use of her Glyphs as platforms, allowing her to jump over the canopy for a fair distance before going down to ground level to save her aura for possible, and more than likely, encounters with Grimm.

—-

Nora slammed her massive hammer into a branch, reducing it to splinters, but it did slow her down a bit. Two more met the same fate before she hooked the head of her weapon on a branch and sent herself spinning through the air.

But in that renewed flight, she saw something that made her grin and used the weight of her hammer to adjust her flight path.

The Beowolf that had been watching with some confusion about the noise being made had its curiosity satisfied when it saw the girl coming right at it… and moments later it ceased to exist.

—-

Blake neared the treetops and slipped through the branches, using her Shadow to dodge as needed and with the direction change as part of her Semblance, she slowed herself down so that she landed nimbly on her feet on the forest floor.

Now that she was on her own two feet, she set out for the temple.

—

Pyrrha soared through the air and saw where she was headed- a small stand of trees taller than the others around them with the largest in the center of that stand.

She used her shield to help fine tune her trajectory so she could land on a rather large branch of the largest tree before having to use said shield to absorb the impact of slamming into the others in her path. At least one tree became a few feet shorter thanks to her passage and others lost branches. But her landing on her targeted branch was perfect, springing to her feet after rolling twice along its length to finish off her momentum.

With her sword and shield at the ready, she looked around to check for Grimm.

The good news was that there were none of the dark beasts that she could see immediately around her.

Bad news was that she spotted Jaune having trouble with his landing strategy, the blonde having tried to use his shield like a glider but that left him open for several small Nevermore to harass him… and what little control he had over his descent was failing fast.

With a flick of a small switch on her sword's hilt, it shifted to become a rifle. She spun her weapon halfway around as it shifted since the barrel extended from the pommel and the blade retracted into the hilt which itself split down its length to expand to double its original width while a trigger was extended.

By the time it was done, Pyrrha held a red stocked rifle with a bronze barrel, already positioning it to sit firmly against her shoulder as she looked down the iron sights. A steady breath and she squeezed the trigger.

—

For Jaune, this day couldn't have been more crazy. He had finally made it to Beacon, but not without spilling the contents of his stomach. Then he made a friend… sort of, who he soon lost. After the speech from the Headmaster, he wound up talking to some girl who seemed to both want a friend and to not be noticed. Then he found the first girl again… and her sister who he had gotten some vomit on her boots. And now, the initiation began by throwing the students off a cliff into a Grimm infested forest!

Somehow through his panic of being so high, he had the passing thought of 'So this is what a kite feels like', which led to the idea of using his shield as one.

His shield expanded as usual and he was very glad he kept his grip as the wind caught the large surface area immediately and his fall slowed.

At least slow enough that an impact with the ground or tree wouldn't be instant death.

And that gave him some time to try to plan how he'd survive except as soon as he started, a couple of small Grimm birds flew up and began pecking and scratching at him.

And with all of the wriggling he was doing trying to get them away from him, whatever control of his fall he had was lost.

Then one of the Grimm exploded in a burst of black feathers. And another. And the last one. Their bodies fell towards the ground trailing black smoke as they began to evaporate as all Grimm do and they are small enough that they'd never hit the ground before they were gone completely.

But Jaune was on his way to join them in rapid descent except he was sure to hit the ground… after going through some tree branches. He tumbled through the air, struggling to get his shield in a position to either slow his fall again or at least take the hit for him when he got to the trees. Yet just as he reached the trees without any real success on his end, a streak of red and gold went past his head and he was jerked back by the object.

"Ooof!" Armor or not, the impact with the tree still hurt his back but now he found that he was saved by a spear through his hood. Though now he was only saved from being strangled by his own hoodie thanks to his armor holding it down from his neck.

"I'm sorry!"

He heard someone shout, sounding much like the girl he had been talking to on the way to this forest, but he did at least have good manners. "Thank you!" He shouts back.

Now he just had to wait for his rescuer to… rescue him again. He was glad that somehow he kept hold of his sword and shield.

—

Ruby heard others in the forest as she ran through, mostly by the sounds of gunshots and a few roars and yells. The "Not bad Russel!" She overheard indicated that teammates were already finding each other and she had yet to see anyone.

"Let's see… if I'm going to choose a teammate… I want Yang!" Not only were they sisters but they knew what the other was capable of, making them an instant hit and a dangerous pair to be enemies of.

Then again, Yang did try to push her to find others to be her friends.

"Well… there's Jaune. He's a good guy… and kinda funny." She kept running, on the lookout for anyone and anything. "There's that Pyrrha girl, she seemed nice. And that girl from the explosion earlier… she might be good but I don't even know her name. And then there's…" Ruby burst through some bushes and immediately slid to a stop thanks to the figure in white with red linings and blue fades on her sleeves and skirt.

And their eyes met, silver staring into icy blue.

And Weiss turned on her heel and marched away, ignoring the cry behind her of "Aren't we supposed to be partners?"

Weiss didn't walk for more than a minute before something caught her eye- Jaune pinned to a tree by a spear and fruitlessly trying to pull it from the wood.

The blonde paused in his attempt for freedom when he saw Weiss, waving and weakly laughing at being seen like this.

"No." Weiss spun around and reversed course.

"You're back!" Ruby was almost right behind her but that didn't stop the heiress as she simply grabbed her hood and dragged Ruby with her out of sight.

Jaune slumped as best he could from his position, watching the two girls leave but then Pyrrha strode up with a small smirk on her face. "I believe that we're partners now." She crossed her arms under her chest, seemingly not minding that the blonde's eyes flicked from trying to focus on her face and not the clear view down her cleavage thanks to his position and the rather low cut of her armored corset.

"Yeah."

Next thing Jaune knew, Pyrrha threw her shield up at him, striking her spear so hard that it dislodged from the tree and both came down to be deftly caught in her hands. Jaune… didn't land very gently.

"I'm sorry."

—

In another part of the forest, Ren found himself locked in combat with a King Taijitu, a massive snake Grimm whose body is as thick in the middle as he is tall… but the big threat besides the sheer size of the beast and the fangs that came with it was that this Grimm has two heads- one on each end. Both heads were independent and the easy way to track one end from the other was that one half has white scales and the other has black and both have the usual bony white mask with some red details around their yellow eyes.

The Grimm had first encircled the young Huntsman with its coils to cut off any means of escape before closing its snare to crush him, only for Ren to jump straight up and aim Stormflower at the white head, releasing a burst of bullets from both guns.

The bullets were too small to really get through the scales, let alone do much to the massive body that wore them, but they did annoy the beast.

Ren's white pants and long black hair fluttered in the wind as he landed on the coils and slid over the scales as if he were surfing and he kept up the fire as he tried to find a weak point.

The white head struck at him but he leapt over the snapping jaws and landed on the mask, stabbing his twin blades into the less protected spot right behind the skull as deep as they could go.

The black head rose up behind Ren and flicked its tongue once before striking, ramming the boy off its other end and dislodging the weapons in the process.

Ren hit the ground hard but rolled out of the fall well enough but didn't seem bothered that he was disarmed. In fact, he took it in stride as the black head struck again, this time with its fangs bared with the full intent on ending this skirmish now.

—-

"We may be partners but that doesn't mean that I have to like it." Weiss states as she continues to march through the forest with Ruby trailing behind her.

"You weren't my first choice either."

"Hmph! That makes two of us."

A few more minutes of walking and Ruby could almost swear that she had seen the same tree at least twice now.

"Weiss, do you know where you're doing?"

The heiress rounded upon the darker clothed girl with a frustrated look on her face. "Of course I do!" She turned away again and pointed forward. "We're going… to the forest temple!"

"Ugh…"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I don't think you know where you're going!" Ruby jabs her finger at a tree next to her. "That's three times we've gone by this tree!"

"Really? How can you tell? The trees all look the same!"

Ruby adjusts her aim a little to direct her unwilling partner's gaze to the heart carved into the bark, complete with 'MxG'.

"Oh… ummm…"

"My turn." Ruby marches ahead leaving Weiss to stare at her cloaked back, the girl not even flinching when a Beowolf leapt out of the undergrowth, simply reaching back and deploying a massive scythe that cut the Grimm down. The attack was so fast that Weiss almost missed when the weapon had completed its transformation before the attack landed. Still, it was collapsed and stowed back on her hip just as the halves of the Grimm stopped moving on the ground.

"Okay." The heiress spoke quietly to herself. Apparently some adjustments to her initial thoughts about the girl needed to be made.

—

Pyrrha had successfully gotten Jaune down, though the blonde was left a little sore from the fall. Still, he had stood up claiming that he's had worse before. And now they were wandering the forest looking for the temple with the relics they were tasked to retrieve.

The redheaded warrior pushed aside a low hanging tree branch to pass through the small gap in the bushes, accidentally letting it go too soon and smacking Jaune in the face with it.

"Argh-oh-oh! That hurt!"

"Jaune! I'm sorry!" While deeply apologetic, she wasn't too concerned until she saw the small gash on his cheek and the red welt already forming across his face.

"I'm…I'm okay, it's just a scratch."

"Jaune?" Her tone was full of worry but there were several reasons for her to be worried about now.

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't you activate your aura?"

That question got the blonde to take a step back and get incredibly nervous. Of course, he had given himself a crash course on being a Huntsman which included reading up on aura and semblances but between his duties at home and everything else… he had forgotten about looking up HOW to unlock his aura.

"Umm… would you believe that my dad didn't want me to be a Huntsman? He… never unlocked it hoping that without it I'd never try." As much as he wanted to say something better, the vast majority of that was true. The shock and almost scathing look at his only son when he received his acceptance letter was more than enough to prove that.

"That's awful!"

"Dad… he's always cared for us, a lot. And I've seen him fight when Grimm would attack when we were on vacation or at our fields… I wanted to be like that but what little training I did get seemed to be more that I could protect myself and my sisters." The knight was morose about his past. "He… just didn't want us going into anything dangerous and did everything he could to provide for our family business so we'd be comfortable and happy."

Hearing him talking about his home life filled Pyrrha with sympathy. In many ways, he was the exact opposite of her- she was trained to be a fighter from a young age because she showed talent while he was denied the training so he'd stay home. She had great confidence in her abilities while he did not. She was looked to as an example of the perfect warrior while Jaune wouldn't be given a second glance.

And to be quite honest, it instilled a sense of duty to help him prove his father wrong, to help this young man accomplish his dream.

"Then I'll unlock your aura for you."

"Wait, what?"

"I'll unlock your aura."

"Umm… okay. You can do that?"

"Yes, now close your eyes." She requests as she steps towards him, placing a hand on his chest and the other cupped his cheek, the position feeling rather intimate to them both but she pushed through that thought as she began to glow red as her aura reaches out.

Pyrrha spoke gently and firmly. "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee."

As Pyrrha spoke those lines her aura grew brighter, bathing their immediate area in a red light and at the height of the brightness from her, Jaune began to glow as well, his aura shining white and quickly drowned out the red.

"Woah…" Jaune had opened his eyes during the display and was amazed. But that was almost nothing compared to how he was feeling. The rush of power running through his body, feeling a bit stronger, more energized, he even felt the cut and welt on his face heal and vanish in seconds. Looking down at his hands, he saw them pulsing with white light before that faded. "It's… like I have my own force field."

"That's… ha, one way to look at it." Pyrrha gasped for breath as unlocking an aura took a lot from her. Not that it took aura from her, at least not much, but it was rather mental and a bit physically demanding to touch another's soul like that and help it unleash its potential.

"Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine in a minute." She was glad for the concern but it wasn't totally needed. "But your soul powers your aura, protecting you from physical damage and healing your wounds." She explained, and noticed that his face had healed already. "And you have a lot of aura."

"Oh wow…th-thank you, Pyrrha."

"It was my pleasure, Jaune." She smiles broadly. "Now, I believe we have a task to complete."

"Y-yeah! Let's go!"

Pyrrha followed him as he rode out the confidence high, glad that she had helped him so much already. And she was going to remind him that his aura needed to be consciously maintained but as she watched him, she noticed that his aura wasn't in flux as everyone else she had known did when their's was freshly unlocked. Even she with her talent took a week to maintain hers for over an hour at a time.

In fact, it looked like he had so much aura that it maintained itself. And that gave her many questions that she was sure that she wouldn't have all answered while still in this initiation.

—

Ren grunted under the pressure put on him by the black half of the King Taijitu. The reason being that he had managed to stop the strike by flooding much of his aura into his hands to stop the fangs, his hands glowing pink as they pushed against teeth as large and sharp as swords.

The stalemate lasted a few seconds, enough that the serpent made its frustration known with a hiss that blew Ren's hair back. But that only galvanized the young man for his next maneuver- grabbing hold of the fangs and twisting his wrists so they snapped.

The fangs might be great for piercing but they were surprisingly weak when it came to sheering forces.

The black head pulled back in pain but not far enough as Ren slid around and threw a fang directly into its right eye. That elicited a screech that wasn't expected from a serpent but Ren paid it no mind as he adopted a wide stance with his arms outstretched before slamming his right palm into the fang with a well timed aura enforced strike.

Not only was the fang driven deep within the head of the beast from the attack but the aura pulse from Ren rippled through its target and caused it to explode.

"Wow! Nice one, Ren!" A familiar voice tells as the white head gains full control of the body. It struck at the newcomer only to find something thrown into its mouth. A cylindrical object that erupted from its place in the Grimm's throat, severing the head through sheer internal forces that were trying and unable to find an easy way to expand.

"I should have known you'd find me." Ren shakes his head at his longtime friend. Nora stood proudly among the remains of the massive snake, her pink skirt and gloves standing out while her black and white top helped her bright orange hair stand out. Her white boots with pink laces, linings , and soles complete her appearance. All with some sort of armored belt and suspenders on her while also holding a large grenade launcher in hand.

"Ha! We're in this together, always." She skips over as if this was a walk in the park and that she didn't just kill half of a two hundred foot long snake.

—-

Yang walked through the woods with a general sense of where north is where the temple is said to be with the relics she was to collect. So far, since her earlier flight and landing, things have been otherwise quiet and boring.

Sure, she had heard gunfire from the others fighting Grimm but she hasn't had an encounter yet. Then there were the two boys she ran into a while back, a tall lanky guy with slicked back hair and a long polearm and a shorter, stockier one with a sword. The three of them barely exchanged greetings before deciding to split up, with both of them and Yang heading in the general direction of the temple.

Now, ten minutes later Yang was wishing that she had gone with them, if only to have someone to talk to.

"Hello!? Is anybody out there? Hello!" And she began calling out to fill the quiet and possibly find a teammate in the process. There was also the passing thought, "Hehehe, imagine if I wind up soloing this test. Maybe I'd get extra credit for that."

Ten more minutes passed.

"Ruby! I know you're out here somewhere! And I know you've been looking for me!" Of course her concerns turned towards her sister. After all, what kind of sibling would she be if she didn't worry about Ruby when thrown into a dangerous situation and place? And she didn't like her mind going down the line of thought that she could forget about her family as that would leave her with a bad taste in her mouth and betray her own sense of self.

Some large, thick bushes rustled a little, drawing the blonde's attention enough to investigate. "Ruby?" She pried a few branches back and poked her head in to see. "Nope!"

Yang threw herself back and transitioned to a few handsprings and flips to give herself some distance as a trio of Ursai tore through and crushed the bushes that once hid them.

Two of the bear-like Grimm were larger than the third, well onto their path to becoming Ursa Major as they also had more white, boney plates and spikes than the smaller one.

The Grimm growled as they stared down their target, the larger two having lived long enough to have learned some amount of caution was warranted in this area because of the mortals who are trained to fight them.

Meanwhile, Yang smirked at the trio, glad for the chance at some action to relieve her boredom and having three Ursai to fight would present some measure of challenge for her. "You guys wouldn't happen to have seen a young girl in a red hood, have ya?" As much as she was joking because she was talking to Grimm, she was still the dutiful sister looking out for her family.

RRROOOAAOOAARR!

"Sheesh, you could have just said no."

Her cheeky attitude only appeared to agitate the Grimm further and that agitation pushed the older pair past whatever control over their instincts they had, resulting in the pair charging at the spunky girl.

One tried to bite her but she spun out of the way of that attack along with dodging the massive body attached to those jaws. The other reared up and swiped at her with paws larger than her head and claws as long as her hand, only for the girl to duck and weave around easily, almost laughing as she did.

"Oh jeez! You guys couldn't hit the broad side of a barn!" Yang teased before turning to the smaller Ursa. "How about you, Baby? Wanna take a shot at little ol' me? I should warn ya, I'm said to be a bit tough to take down."

RRROOOAARRR!

"Eh, I'll take that as a maybe." Yang shrugs as she activates her gauntlets. "Maybe I should shake hands with 'Daddy' first!" The second Ursa took a swing at Yang again, only for the girl to step into the attack and grab its wrist with her arms, yanking down and throwing the beast over her shoulder and slamming its back into the ground.

The fallen Grimm let out a whine, either from pain or surprise, she couldn't tell but she was satisfied with the result.

"Oh Mamma!" The biter tried again to lock the girl in its jaws, receiving an elbow to the cheek for its trouble before Yang spun with her momentum to drive her left fist into the furred ribs and unloaded a shell upon contact, eliciting a roar of pain.

"Ha! Too much for ya? If it's not enough I got plenty more!" Yang boasts as she bounces on her feet and is ready to keep going.

RRROOAARR!

'Baby' charged and leapt at Yang, swinging its claws in an attempt to grab her. As a result, Yang ducked down under the attack and sprung back up with a double uppercut shot to 'Baby's' gut. Not only did that send 'Baby' flipping to land on its back but gave it deep wounds that trailed smoke not just because her shells are laced with Fire Dust but from the 'blood' evaporating from its gut.

'Mother' reared up and went for a hug on the human but that left the Ursa open for several shots to the soft underside and when it came down, Yang delivered a massive right uppercut to its jaw punctuated by a shot that finished the Grimm for good.

'Daddy' had spent the time trying to roll over but its spikes had been buried deep into the soil by its own weight, only managing to free itself and get back to its feet once the other two Grimm had been dealt with.

"Haven't had enough yet?" Yang teased, still ready to go another round.

RROOAARR-gggh!

The roar of challenge was cut off by a black blur slicing its throat, the Grimm gurgling as smoke poured from the wound, collapsing to the ground a few seconds later.

"Ah man, you took my fun away." Yang whined as she turned to the new arrival, ignoring that 'Mother' was mostly dissolved by now and 'Daddy' was just starting to evaporate.

"You were taking too long." The girl says as she walks towards 'Baby' with her sword in hand.

"Were… you following me?"

"Not really." She finished off 'Baby' with a flick of her wrist, decapitating the heavily wounded beast. "You just happened to be the only person without a teammate that I've seen so far."

"Ummm…" Yang rubbed the back of her head. She wasn't used to being seen as a last option, anytime at Signal that they had to group up she had always been in the top three most desired choices in the class.

"Anyway, let's get going and find that temple."

"Right, I'm Yang, by the way."

"Blake."

"Umm… you haven't seen a girl-"

"In a red hood? Not since we entered the forest."

"Damn, now I am really starting to worry about her."

—

Glynda stood with Ozpin on the cliff overlooking the forest that they had thrown their potential students into. It was a traditional test used for a few decades now, helping to weed out those who weren't ready for this degree of difficulty, their line of work.

It was never a secret that the profession of being a Huntsman and Huntress is tough and demanding, both mentally and physically. Many who go into this career die at some point and those that don't often are scarred one way or another.

But it is a job born of necessity.

An army can only do so much given that they are often raised from the average civilians. Not to mention the lack of specialized training needed to deal with Grimm.

An army may have numbers on its side but given that a single average Huntsman is worth a platoon of soldiers, it fell into practice that the military arm of the Kingdoms takes on the tasks more suited to use its numbers by being the last form of defense to a population center, getting Huntsmen to and from their assignments, and overall information gathering.

Meanwhile a Huntsman became the tip of the spear, their years of training in preparation for sending them into the worst situations with the hope that they can succeed and repeat. It was the Huntsman who whittled down the Grimm before they could get in range of the army stationed at the walls of civilization, who risked their lives in conditions that would kill others in seconds.

And many veteran Huntsmen and Huntresses developed… 'quirks' that helped them deal with the stresses of their jobs. But those quirks were often seen as something that made those Huntsmen even more unique.

As for this first part of the initiation… Professor Port is old enough to have been one of the first to be subjected to the launch system. In fact, it was among one of his favorite stories to tell.

The first year of it being implemented

"Hello new potential year of future huntsmen, in order to provide a bigger challenge we've installed these new launching platforms.

No need to worry, they were tested much like bungee jumping cords and the survival rate was found favorable enough to use for young adults like yourselves.

Each one however was not adjusted for each of your height and weights but luckily that will add in a chance of randomness, good luck"

"It seems that all of the students have found their teammates." Glynda comments as she watches her tablet displaying images from multiple hidden cameras scattered throughout the forest. Given their quality to cover such a large area, they cycled through fairly quickly but she was able to take notes on who paired with who.

"Hmm."

"What did you use for relics this year?" The blonde teacher asks. Ozpin had made it a tradition that the Headmaster personally placed the relics at the temple in the Emerald Forest and a shrine in Forever Fall. Last years had been playing cards, a bit oversized than standard, but there was no mistaking them.

Ozpin was busy watching his own tablet, focused on a few prospects that had caught his interest.

"Professor Ozpin?"

"Oh, sorry. Did you say something?"

As much as she respected the man, antics like this tempted her to throw the man off the cliff to join the students. She could only hope that the other group of initiates were doing better with their guides.

—

"Ah, how are our students doing, Barty?"

"All but one has found their teammates."

"All but one?"

"Yes, we had an odd number for the initiation test, Peter, remember?"

"Hmmm…" Peter stroked his impressive mustache. "Can't say I do. I believe that I was regaling that I was among the first at our fine academy to be launched from the cliff as part of the initiation to the young men and women in our charge."

Barty smacked his head before going back to watching the screens on his tablet. He may be a longtime friend and colleague of Peter but it was obvious that the decades of being a Huntsman has taken their toll on the shorter man. Still, Peter didn't last as long as he did in this profession without having considerable skill, acquiring a massive amount of experience along the way that he'd pass onto his students.

It didn't make his habit of telling tales of his adventures and pontificating at length any less bearable, especially when he's heard most of them at least a dozen times over.

—-

"Think that this could be the temple?" Jaune asks as he and Pyrrha stood outside of a cave that looked almost carved into a small cliff. Adding further suspicion that it could be a temple were the crude drawings outside. The biggest problem was that it was exceptionally crude, several figures that looked like people with weapons and another larger one, a scorpion Grimm.

"Hmm… maybe?" She wasn't sure as not only was the depiction not exactly clear about its intent but a cave?

"Saw a couple movies where a cave is where a hidden meeting spot is. Maybe it was for organizing hunts on Grimm? Or a safe spot to go if they were being chased?"

Something gnawed at the back of her mind about the possibility of dangers inside but she had to admit that the idea had merit. "Very well, let's investigate. If we don't find anything in five minutes we leave to search somewhere else."

"That's reasonable."

With that agreement, they entered the cave and used their scrolls to help them see.

—

"We're lost, aren't we?"

It may have been hypocritical of Weiss to say that after going in circles but she got a bit of petty revenge with those words as they seemed no closer to their goal… and they had no idea of where their goal was at this point besides somewhere north.

"Then let's get a better view!"

"What?" Weiss turned around to find Ruby missing. But the branch above her shook, causing her to look up as the girl climbed higher. "You have got to be kidding me."

A few branches higher, Ruby paused to look down, expecting to see Weiss staring up at her with a frown. The problem was that the girl wasn't there.

"You are so childish."

"EEP!" Ruby almost fell from her perch from the unexpected voice next to her, barely clinging to the tree.

"You realize that you are proving my point, right?" Weiss stood next to Ruby using a glyph for support.

The younger girl swung herself back upright and looked to the canopy. "How big is this tree? I can't even see the sky from down here."

Weiss looked skyward as well, noticing how dark it is. This is an old forest with many large trees and she had rather limited exposure to plant life that wasn't kept in a pot or greenhouse.

"Hmm… sooner or later we'll climb high enough to see." And with that they kept climbing.

—

"Hey Ren?"

"Yes Nora?"

"Think we can ride that?"

"Wait… what?"

"Do you think we can ride that?" Nora asks again as she points across a small clearing.

"That's… not a good idea."

"…"

"Nora?"

And somehow, the ninja-like boy had lost track of his best friend who was never known for being subtle.

"Oh no…"

—

"Think we lost them?"

"I want to know why you thought it was a good idea to shoot a wasp nest."

"Eh, they're pesky little buggers who always have a bad attitude and go where they aren't wanted.I was doing the world a favor."

"Do you have a problem with all bees?"

"Well… my motorcycle is named Bumblebee. As for the bugs… pretty to look at from a distance and good for cash with honey but I'd rather avoid them if I can help it, no better when wasps if you get on their bad side."

"Hmm… fair enough."

The two girls emerged from the treeline to find themselves on top of a small but steep hill overlooking a valley. But what was in the valley was of interest was the stonework.

What looked to be the remains of a small temple in a grassy field, broken, worn, and eroded from centuries of neglect, reduced to little more than the circular floor, several pedestals, half a dozen columns with only two of which intact enough to hold the slab of granite that connected the two. Anything else was little more than unrecognizable rubble scattered around inside and out.

"Think this is the temple?" Yang asks with a smirk.

Blake simply rolled her eyes at the lame joke. "It's not like it's exactly hard to find."

"Ha! Alright, let's go check it out." Yang laughs as the two of them make their way down the hill.

AN: So... How did you all like it?

Probably the biggest thing you all noticed, besides not following RT's version besides some of the basics, was that Jaune wasn't used as an idiot to have a more knowledgeable character to explain everything. A Watson to Sherlock, if you will. Honestly, I'm not a fan of that trope as not only does that make a character seem dumber for the sake of pushing a narrative and indirectly addressing the audience, but it generally takes away from the experience as one who lives in that world should have at least a passing familiarity with a subject that they are interested in.

Anyway, with that bit aside, how did the rest of things go? Reviews are welcome and encouraged!