In the lustrous Emerald Forest, there was a crow casually flying through the air waiting to peck at the next rock on the ground. As it flew above the trees and soared higher and higher before a big red ball of energy crashed into it.
"Birdie, no!" Ruby cried out.
Afterward, she pulled out her scythe in its rifle mode to use the recoil to slow her momentum. Getting eerily close to hitting the treeline, she transformed her scythe back to normal and hooked onto one of the tree branches to loop around and hop off from it. Upon landing, she immediately started to run in the direction ahead of her.
The Heiress had summoned a glyph, with her rapier as a medium, beneath her to step off of to impede her momentum and continued to repeat this until her momentum seized. Upon plummeting down to ground level gracefully, she analyzed her surroundings with her rapier out before sheathing it and walking ahead.
Ren used the blade hooks on his pistols to spiral down on one of the trees and carried the momentum all the way through until he reached the bottom. He holstered his pistols back into his sleeves before dusting off the woodchips on his body.
Nora noticed his descent before landing her feet on a tree as it cartoonishly curved downward for her descent. As she tried to step off the tree, it broke which made her fall flat on her face. She arose, unperturbed, while blowing away a few leaves on her face. Only then to look around the surroundings with her left hand to shade her eyes.
Still trying to kill time, Daniel continued to look through his scope at the plummeting students before they disappeared in the tree line. The instructor Bash had his scroll up to see on the cameras where the students were. Along with a tablet scroll, he made notes and began checking down on the actions of the students he was observing. On the other hand, the other Minute Men trainees were either playing amongst themselves or scouting lazily.
Meanwhile, Yang was continuously propelling herself through her shotgun bracelets as she effortlessly glided through the air. However, her recklessness ended up making her go through a heavily bushed tree and stumbled out of it. She managed to recover when she bounced from tree to tree to land on the ground in a parkour roll.
"Nailed it." She said as she continued charging forward.
After that stunt, Daniel looked over to see Pyrrha, which seemed to genuinely take him aback.
"Rookie…? Wait, I should be calling her Pyrrha now. She'll likely recognize me later on and it's already been half a year since the regional." He said to himself
Pyrrha was soaring through the air with her shield out, crashing through multiple trees before rolling onto a large branch. While rolling, she placed her shield on her back and transformed her javelin into a rifle to scout around the area. As she observed ahead, she noticed Jaune flailing in the air and flipped over her rifle for it to transform back into a javelin. With her left thumb to help with the aim, she hurled her javelin as she pressed a trigger on it to send it further. It took the javelin a while to travel over as it stuck Jaune to a tree through his hoodie's hood.
"Thank you…!" Jaune weakly cried out.
"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha shouted back.
Daniel nodded in approval and switched over to see Blake using a summon of herself to propel off into the one of tree branches. He observed all around to see if there were any stragglers, but that did not seem to be the case. His boredom crept onto him again before the instructor announced,
"S-Since all the first-years have now landed, you a-all need to split off i-individually and s-scout t-these areas o-on your scrolls." Bash stated in a shaky tone.
Pulling out his scroll, Daniel saw that he was stationed north of the forest which seemed to be where the students were headed. This also meant that it was the farthest and he grimaced at the thought of it since he needed to drop down to ground level.
Back to the Beacon Cliff, Glynda and Ozpin observe the students on their scroll tablets as well. In every nook and cranny, there seemed to be a camera to look for any students in the forest. Including, the Minute Men who are at their post, either lazily scouting around or having to deal with creatures in the forest with ease.
"Almost all the Minute Men trainees aren't taking this part of the initiation seriously." Glynda scoffed.
"Now, now, Glynda, scouting is a pretty loathsome task." Ozpin said as he casually pressed some prompts on his scroll.
Through the screen, some of the structures in the forest shift in a certain direction which none of the students notice until the deed has already finished. Causing them to move in a different direction and end up with a partner. Daniel happened to be where a shift occurred from one of the destroyed buildings from a distance. A few minutes later a Huntsmen trainee ran into another one.
"So, this is going to be more matchmaking rather by chance… The Voice must be guiding me to notice this kind of structuring…" He thought to himself.
Coming back to the scroll tablet, Ozpin witnessed Plate Mail jerking a student who had their upper half stuck in the hole of a tree. The student was revealed to be a punk rocker with a green mohawk.
"Hey twerp, the name's Cardin Winchester. I guess we're going to be partners for four years."
"Urghh, I'm Russell- Wait you're a Winchester?!" Russell exacerbated while still recovering.
"Now that's out of the way, don't you dare slow me down!" Cardin pompously said as he walked off.
"W-Wait!" Russell exclaimed as he forced himself to get up.
On another part of the forest, Ruby had been aimlessly running north with her fast legs as she panicked. At some point, a ruin wall had shifted out of the way for her to pass through to which Ruby did not notice as she was lost in her thoughts.
"Gotta find Yang…!" Ruby thought, "Gotta find Yang, gotta find Yang, gotta find Yang, gotta find Yang!"
She continued her pursuit through the forest as thought of alternatives in case Yang was taken.
"This is bad, this is really bad! What if I can't find her! What if someone finds her first…! Well, there's always Jaune, he's nice. He's funny. I don't think he's good in a fight though. Oh, what about Blake?! So mysterious, so calm… plus she likes books! Then again, I'm not sure if I'd be able to hold a conversation with her."
At another point, Weiss had been strolling around the forest and keeping watch of her surroundings. She then heard something bristle from a bush which prompted her to pull out her rapier in response. Inching close to the bush, she stabbed into it to find nothing which made her a little flustered and sheathed her rapier. Before hearing footsteps rapidly closing in on her.
"Okay who else do I know in this school…? Yang, Jaune, Blake, and…" Ruby thought right as she noticed someone in front of her.
Ruby tried to stop herself, resulting in her sliding on her boots and Weiss turning around to see Ruby charging right at her. Ruby came to halt and made eye contact with Weisss. The two stare at each for a moment, only for Weiss to walk in the opposite direction. This made Ruby panic and tried to chase after her,
"Wait, where are you going we're supposed to be teammates!"
Ozpin witnessed the two girls' interaction with amusement and went to another camera of a Minute Men trainee sleeping on a tree branch. Not long after, Glynda received a message from one of the instructors that made her face turn worried.
"Professor Ozpin, one of the Minute Men has informed one of the instructors about this." She said as she showed him an image from her scroll tablet.
Ozpin narrowed on the image as Glynda asked,
"Should we cancel initiation?"
With a pensive sip from his mug, Ozpin responded, "...No, let us see how they handle this. But inform the other instructors on stand-by along with the Minute Men."
Back to Ruby and Weiss, the two eventually ran into Jaune who was pinned from the tree above with Pyrrha's javelin through his hoodie. He struggled to pull it out, but to no avail. Weiss contemplated her next move,
"Well, he was actually my partner before you showed up." She lied.
Dejected, Ruby walked away with her head hanging as Weiss then looked up to Jaune. He gave a simple wave before she adamantly decided to walk back to Ruby. She grabbed her by the hood as she stated,
"By no means does this make us friends."
"You came back!" Ruby excitedly said as she let Weiss drag her.
Now flailing his arms to the girls, Jaune cried,
"Hey, wait, come back! Who's going to get me down from here!?"
"Jaune?" A voice coming from below.
He looked down to see Pyrrha right below him and she continued in a teasing tone,
"Do you… Have any spots left on your team?"
"Very funny…" Jaune said while looking away and crossing his arms.
Not long, he met eye to eye to Pyrrha, and the two smiled at each other.
"Actually, could you get me down now…?"
"Oh, right, sorry…!"
She activated her Aura to increase her ability to jump up the tree and get on top of the branch above him. She held out her hand to him and he took it before she pulled out her javelin.
"Hehe, thank you."
At some point, Ruby caught off Weiss's grasp which does not catch her off and she kept strutting ahead.
"What's the hurry?!"
"I will not let my mission be delayed because you're too slow." Weiss said with underlying impatience. "I swear if I get a bad grade- What the!"
Interrupting Weiss with her speed semblance to catch up, Ruby does a cutesy paw motion in front of Weiss.
"I'm not slow see! You don't have to worry about me!" Ruby proudly stated.
"Well, I can see why your semblance matches your personality." Weiss haughtily said.
"You think so?"
"Yes! Do you even know how semblances work?!"
Ruby only gave her a confused look before Weiss facepalmed.
"Semblances are essentially a manifestation of your soul. Typically reflected in your personality as well. Like how my glyphs reflect my elegance! While you're barbaric nature matches your speed semblance quite nicely. Now stop showing off, you're wasting time-"
Weiss had closed her eyes during her explanation only when she opened them to notice Ruby was not in front of her anymore. She could hear the footsteps ahead of her and growled at Ruby for rushing ahead. From behind, a wolf growl could be heard, but her anger clouded it.
"Ruby!" Weiss exclaimed as she ran after her.
At another point in the forest, Yang casually strolled around the forest, while seemingly heading in a certain direction. She brushed past some branches which led her to run into some black bears. In return, the bears immediately start attacking her from where she stood.
Yang took their attacks in stride as she cockily dodged them with ease. She leapfrogged over one of the bears mid lunge then to back flipping over the other. She continued to toy with the bears until she started to giggle in place. This gave one of them a chance to swipe from behind her and almost snag her.
"Whoa, that one was close. Too bad you're too slow-" Yang noticed a strand of hair having been cut off. Now infuriated, sparks of fire protruded from her hair and her purple eyes turned crimson red. "YOU'LL PAY!"
She rushed toward one of the bears to send a devastating blow against one of the bears, killing it instantly. Turning to the other bear, she started shouting match with the other black bear until the creature stopped roaring back at Yang.
Dropping to the floor, a kusarigama-like blade had impaled the back of the bear with Blake holding a ribbon from it. Yanking out the blade, the handle is revealed to have a trigger, and the blade transformed into a sword. This made Yang confused at first, but pushed that concern aside and when they locked eyes said,
"I could have taken him."
From Daniel's point of view, he received a message from the instructor that made him grimace. Putting away his scroll, Daniel went to scout away from his station. Making sure to keep out the line from any potential cameras, he summoned a device that held a red dust crystal. Turning the device on and waved it around to detect any hidden cameras from his vicinity. Noticing a few, he avoided any area that housed a hidden camera and made sure the noise made was minimal.
From what the message stated, he assumed that a threat was close by and treaded through the trees as fast as he could. At some point, he located something that shook Daniel.
"King Taijitu…!" Daniel thought.
The humongous two-headed snake Grimm was seemingly looking at someone before staring at Daniel. He was a bit far from the King Tiajutsu, but it was still in range of his hunting rifle. Calmly preparing a magazine of .338 Lapua, he loaded up his hunting rifle and hammered in a new round.
"Wait…"
"Huh…?" Daniel caught off guard.
Before he could fire off his shot, the King Taijitu started to flail around its head to attack something in the tall grass. Daniel aimed his scope to see Ren holding back one of the King Taijitu's heads with a barrier from the palm of his hands. It was pink with cherry blossom leaves flowing around it. Daniel attempted to ready a shot again until he heard,
"Wait…"
Trying to ignore the Voice, he became tempted and itched to pull the trigger, but he upheld the Voice's words.
"You better show me how this plays out…!"