Groaning from having to chase Ruby, Weiss loudly called out to her in a fit of rage,
"Ruby, stop this instance!"
Ruby stopped in her track to look back at the heiress with a smug smile,
"What? Am I too fast for you?"
Weiss jogged her way to Ruby as she scolded her,
"Do you even know where you're going?!"
"Uhhh…"
"Never mind, just follow-"
A howl followed by multiple growls could be heard as Ruby and Weiss are surrounded by a pack of wolves and the two ready themselves. Ruby had gone ahead and started speed blitzing the wolves on her side while Weiss spun the revolver mechanism on her rapier. The lines on the rapier indicate different kinds of Dust and it landed on fire dust cartridge that ignites the blade.
"Remember your training, Weiss. Head up, shoulders back, right foot forward… Not that forward. Slow your breathing, I'll hit the first in the front, slash the next on the right, and pursue every wolf afterward! Wait for the right time to strike and…" Weiss thought to herself before crying out, "Now!"
She lunged forward to stab one of the wolves jumping at her, but Ruby had gotten the wolf first. This caught Weiss by surprise and she swiped away her rapier to the side to avoid stabbing Ruby. The emergency maneuver ended up causing the fire Dust from the blade to spread onto a nearby tree and set the forest around them on fire. Ruby, paying no heed, attempted to keep fighting before Weiss dragged her away.
"Hey!" Ruby exclaimed.
"We have to go!" Weiss bit back. "And now the forest is on fire!"
Confused by her remark, Ruby finally realized the levity of the situation and the wolves were running away. After running away from the fire and reaching a safe location, Weiss berated Ruby after recovering from running
"Y-You attacked out of turn! Did you not realize that I could have killed you there!? Do you have a communication disorder?!"
"Well, I'm sorry that you're just too slow then and need help with winning a fight! I'm just fine on my own! And in a real fight, you shouldn't need to prepare every step in a fight!"
"And everything could have been avoided if you had not run off alone and listened to me. We would have completed our mission and avoided that situation entirely."
"And I knew which direction we were heading!"
"Well, congratulations on being the strongest and wisest child to sneak your way into Beacon. Bravo!" Weiss stated as she flailed her arms into the air and walked away.
Ruby tried to blurt out something, but the words would not come out and she growled at Weiss. In her anger, Ruby unsheathed Crescent Rose and slashed a tree cleanly through as she bitterly followed Weiss.
Meanwhile, Jaune and Pyrrha have been treading through quite calmly with Pyrrha being the one to primarily lead the charge. However, at some point, a branch that Pyrrha was holding ended up snapping back and hitting Jaune in the face. He fell flat on his butt and Pyrrha apologized,
"I'm sorry!"
"Heh, it's okay, just a scratch." Jaune said in assurance before revealing a cut on his face.
"Why didn't you activate your Aura?"
"What, c'mon it's not that serious. And of course, I do…! Do you know what it is?"
"Well okay," Pyrrha smiled in amusement, "It's a manifestation of the soul, bearing our burdens and shields our hearts; an energy that can protect the person from harm. It strengthens them from within even when their body is exhausted and activates automatically when danger occurs."
"Do monsters have this kind of Aura as well?" Jaune curiously asked.
"No, they cannot, they are the manifestation of anonymity. They are the dark, while we are the light. It can be projected outward to form a barrier and our armor and weapons can be conduits to have it flow through in combat."
"L-Like a force field!"
"Yeah, something like that." Pyrrha chuckled.
She walked up to Jaune, cupping her hand around Jaune's cheek where the cut was and stated,
"Close your eyes and concentrate."
"Are you sure this isn't-"
"Please…"
"Fine…" Jaune cheekily smiled.
The two closed their eyes and Pyrrha recited a mantra,
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality through the Light. Doing this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to all under the Light. Infinite in distance and boundless from death. I release your soul and by my shoulder I protect thee."
After reciting the mantra, both of them start to glow; Jaune's white Aura and Pyrrha's red Aura. Moments passed as Pyrrha opened in her eyes wide before closing them again and leaning over a bit winded. Jaune opened his eyes after Pyrrha's hand left him and became worried at the sight.
"Pyrrha?!"
"Don't worry, I only used my Aura to unlock yours but the energy that protects you now is your own. And from the look of it, you have a lot." Pyrrha said as the cut on Jaune's face healed swiftly.
During their conversation, Ren had been fighting the King Taijitu off with great effort and as he bounced around while shooting the gigantic snake with considerable damage to his body, it persisted.
"Seriously, is he using only 9mm bullets!? Let me take the shot!" Daniel said aloud with underlying anger.
"Wait…"
He rode along its slithering body and acrobatically jumped around while continuing to fire at it. During one of his acrobatic jumps, Ren managed to land on one of their snake's heads and stabbed into the carapace of it. This only made the Grimm flail its body even more as it kicked up a lot of dust and dirt all around the area. It ended up with Ren getting slammed into a tree and the Grimm was moments away from finishing him off. Daniel had his finger on the trigger at this point as he gripped his handle so tightly his hands turned red.
Right as the Grimm was about to ready its strike against him, Nora, riding on top of a bear, yelled a weird animal-like sound out from behind Ren. She jumped off of the bear and slammed down on the head of the black snake and splattered its bones everywhere. Witnessing what happened, Daniel breathed a sigh of relief as the weight of the situation had subsided for now.
After recovering, he held his sight on the King Taijitu as it was writhing in pain. Meanwhile, Nora had drifted over to where Ren was while the bear she was on laid on the floor tired.
"I-I still don't think that's what a sloth sounds like." Ren said while looking up at her.
She only responded by playfully poking his nose with a smug expression on her face,
"Boop!"
The King Taijitu had finally subsided its pain and Nora quickly pulled Ren onto the bear to ride as fast they could. The snake Grimm took one glance at where Daniel was before giving the childhood friends chase.
"I guess my scouting is complete."
He hastened to go back the same path he took to make it back to his post near the ruins. As he narrowly dodged one of the cameras, Glynda and Ozpin had been keeping tabs on Nora and Ren on their tablets.
"It's good that they were able to make it out safely and even take care of one of the heads. Although, I'm more worried about how the rest of the students will fare with the other Grimm."
Ozpin paid no mind to what Glynda had mentioned as he observed another pair through his tablet. Through the tablet, he witnessed Yang punch a frog and an alligator hybrid called lashgators.
"Yeah…! That's what you get for being in the way!"
A pod of the same creature were seen hissing at Yang from a nearby pond and Blake equally narrowed her eyes at Yang.
"Was that really necessary? Lashgators are primarily ambush predators, would have been easier to walk around them."
Yang shrugged back, "From where I was in the air, the fastest way to the ruins was through this way; straight ahead."
This only irritated Blake even further and responded back, "You know they never gave us a time limit. So what's the rush?!."
"I have a sister that I need to look out for. Making it over to the ruins means I'll most likely be able to find her." Yang said as she shook her head.
"You're sister is going to be fine. I mean she made it to Beacon so what's there to worry about? You two are twins aren't you? You'd just be guiding… yourself?"
"We're not twins…!" Yang groaned, "My little sister got moved up a couple grades and she's not ready… Nevermind…!"
Blake sighed as the blondee continued to lead the charge through the forest. The bow girl then changed the topic,
"There's no point in causing a ruckus when we could get there just as fast if we stuck to the edge of the forest."
"Boring~! I mean, we're Huntsmen; where's the fun in that!?"
As Yang finished her sentence, she pushed some branches to the side to see a pack of chimpanzee and squirrel hybrids that filled the entire area. The two girls looked at each other before hearing the angry growls of the scampers.
"Whoa!" Yang said as she hopped onto her heels.
They immediately ran away from the scampers as they shrieked from behind them. Yang then grabbed ahold of Blake's hand to drag her away in a different direction in a jerking motion; deeper in the forest. The chase was intense as Yang dragged Blake into multiple corners of bushes to avoid the creatures. Eventually, Blake and Yang managed to escape the horde after passing into enough bushes to lead them in one direction.
Now out of breath, Blake forcibly pulled herself away from Yang's grip before exclaiming,
"You need to look where you're going!"
"I-I was…!" Yang said as she caught her breath.
She pointed over the small cliff they were on past a couple of trees to show Blake the stone ruins. Not knowing how to respond, she sighed as she gave Yang the cold shoulder walking past her.
"What, nothing?! I got us here intact! It should be at least a little praise!" Yang in disbelief.
Dropping down from the cliff, they go across the fields to see that some of the relics, being chess pieces, have disappeared already.
"I guess some of them are already missing." Yang waiting for a response.
Blake continued to ignore her until Yang grabbed a gold knight piece from one of the pedestals. Yang waved over to Blake while excitedly saying,
"How about a cute little pony!?"
This earned a little chuckle from the bow girl,
"Sure."
They reconvene out of the ruin and discuss with one another.
"Well, that wasn't too hard."
"It's not like this place is very difficult to find."
Shocked, Yang's jaw was wide open before transforming into a smile which prompted Blake to smile back too. Not long after, they started to notice something loud in the air and witnessed a small plane-like black creature in the air. Then multiple other sounds came around the forest; prompting the girls to ready themselves.
Eight minutes before Blake and Yang to the ruins, Ruby and Weiss were bickering at each other.
"I can't believe you got us lost you dimwit!" Weiss angrily said.
"Well, maybe if you followed me then we wouldn't have gotten lost!"
"I swear, the only thing you're good at is your stupid speed semblance."
"Maybe if you didn't wait around so long, then maybe your smarts would be able to do something."
Upon the two hopping over a large root, they noticed a large tree out in the open that housed something large. It was a large bird with a notable Grimm bone mask on the face of it sleeping, which caught the two off guard.
"Whoa, t-that's Nevermore…!" Ruby whispered.
"I-It has to be extremely old considering the size of it." Weiss murmured to herself.
"Wait," Ruby shaking her head, "didn't Professor Ozpin say that there were no Grimm in the forest?"
"Does it matter now!?" Weiss hissed.
"I guess not… But we should start heading the other way to not wake it up."
Not a second passed before they could hear the shrieks of scampers heading their way. Flummoxed by the sudden hoard of them, the two try to weigh their options as Weiss drew out her rapier.
"We can't take them on if it means waking up the Nevermore too…!" Weiss panickingly said.
At the same time, the Nevermore had begun to wake up which Weiss did not seem to notice, but Ruby was able to. Observing the situation more critically, Ruby had a bright glimpse of inspiration and murmured,
"Not if we don't fight the Nevermore…"
"What..?" Weiss not hearing what Ruby had mentioned.
"Come on, I have an idea of how to get out of here!"
Ruby then grabbed Weiss's hand to drag her off in the direction of the Nevermore, but Weiss tried to resist. This did not matter as Ruby used her speed semblance to propel her and Weiss into a huge white and red rose petal blob.
"You can't be serious, Ruby! Let me go this instance!"
They go up the tree in zig zag motion through the branches and make it up to where the Nevermore was. Flinging Weiss onto its body, Ruby made sure to grab ahold of the Grimm and caused it to screech into the sky while spreading its wings.