Well in front of Y/N, a black bird is flying slowly and magnificently, right up to the moment it gives a final shriek and Ruby crashes through it in a burst of feathers as she plummets downward. She yells out as she falls.
"Birdie, no!"
Ruby fires off a few rounds from Crescent Rose to slow her down, then turns the weapon into its scythe form to catch the branch of a tree in her blade and fall downward at a slower pace.
Weiss, armed with Myrtenaster, summons a white snowflake circle under her and leaps off of it to the forest below.
Ren descends (with Nora Valkyrie briefly being seen next to him at a faster speed) and spins in the air, eventually using StormFlower's blades to spiral around the trunk of a large tree and hit the ground, brushing off his clothes before looking up to see...
"Woo-hoo! Yeah! Alley-oop!"
It's Yang, soaring right over the treetops, using her gauntlets and their fiery force to push her through the air further and further north, spinning and laughing with each blast, even when she crashes through the leaves of a tree and leaps off two trunks to tumble to the ground. Landing, she yells out proudly.
"Nailed it!" Then she runs off.
Pyrrha, her weapon in sword form and armed with a shield, crashes through several trees and rolls on a branch, immediately shifting her blade into a rifle and looking through the scope at Jaune as he continues to scream and fall helplessly. Pyrrha coolly transforms her weapon again to its spear form, takes a moment to evaluate her throw, and rockets the javelin deep into the forest until a "THUNK!" is heard. In the distance poor Jaune yells out.
"Thank you!" Pyrrah waves and yells back.
"I'm sorry!"
In the middle of the forest, Ruby lands in a crouch, then darts off with a single mantra in her mind.
Ruby is thinking only this mantra. 'Gotta find Yang! Gotta find Yang, gotta find Yang, gotta find…' She then shouts.
"Yang! Yaaaang!" Internally, she now sees herself partnered with various people. 'Oh, 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 very good in a fight, though. Though he is quite intimidating, Y/N is always smiling and seemed to be quite knowledgeable. Ooh! What about Blake?! So mysterious, so calm... Plus she likes books! Then again, I'm not sure I'd be able to hold a conversation with her... Ugh!' She shakes her head of daydreams. 'Okay... Who else do I know in this school? There's Yang, Jaune, Y/N, Blake, aaaand…'
Time seems to slow down as Ruby skids to a halt in front of Weiss as she is turning to face her. She stops just in time for their eyes to meet and a pregnant pause follows. This ends when Weiss turns on her heel and walks the other way. Ruby follows her a little bit.
"Wait! Where are you going?!" She then stops and kicks the ground dejectedly.
"We're supposed to be teammates…"
Weiss is seen struggling through the forest, giving an occasional grunt or "Ow!" as she pushes plants out of her way. She brushes herself off and sighs in relief when she hears a voice above her. Buuuut, it's Jaune, struggling to free himself of Pyrrha's weapon.
"Come on, come on! Stupid...!"
Weiss sees Jaune hanging a few feet in the air by the spear embedded in his hood and the tree behind him. As he gives up trying to pull it out, he looks down and sees Weiss, giving an embarrassed wave. Weiss simply heads back in the direction she came from and Jaune groans in dejection.
Weiss then passes Ruby and pulls on her hood.
"By no means does this make us friends."
Ruby is overjoyed as she's dragged away into the bushes.
"You came back!"
Jaune sees the scene and waving his arms.
"Wait! Come back! Who's going to get me down from here?!"
Pyrrha walks up underneath him and calls up to him.
"Jaune?" He looks down at his savior. She smiles and asks him a familiar question.
"Do you... have any spots left on your team?"
Jaune crosses his arms in frustration.
"Very funny…" He eventually looks down at her and gives a smile, which she returns."
Weiss trudges through the forest, with Ruby back a ways behind her. Ruby then asks her a valid question.
"What's the hurry?" Quick to answer and quick to be a snob, Weiss replies.
"I will not let my mission be delayed because you're too slow! I swear, if I get a bad grade because of your—" As if karma itself wants her to eat her words, asmiling Ruby suddenly appears next to her. Now Weiss is confused.
"What the...?" Then Ruby proudly states.
"I'm not slow, see? You don't have to worry about me!" Now Weiss is slightly amazed and looks back behind her where she last saw Ruby.
"When did...?" Ruby keeps on going, already in her groove.
"Weiss, just because I don't exactly know how to deal with people doesn't mean I don't know how to deal with monsters!"
She gets an arm around a skeptical Weiss' shoulders.
"You're about to see a whole different side of me today, Weiss, and after it's all over, you're going to be like, 'Wow! That Ruby girl is really, really cool…'" Adding this last part quietly, Ruby keeps going.
"'...and I wanna be her friend!'"
Ruby disappears in a shower of rose petals, which Weiss waves away from her face just as she hears crackling and rustling in the bushes around her. Weiss then calls out to Ruby.
"You may be fast, but you still excel at wasting time!"
There is silence, save more noises. Weiss softly calls out Ruby's name again.
"Ruby?" The forest darkens, forcing Weiss to lean in to try and find her new partner as a pair of red eyes are seen glaring behind her.
"Ruby...?"
The view moves around Weiss, as multiple pairs of red eyes stare at her from the bushes and a deep growl is heard. She turns around until she spots a large, jagged Beowolf emerging from a bush and approaching her. Then in a panic, Weiss yells out at the top of her lungs.
"NOT RUBY! DEFINITELY NOT RUBY!"
That scream hangs in the air as Y/N finally comes towards the ground. Part of his semblance is spinning up in his head. There are several possibilities in front of him, he could calculate the perfect branch(es) to use in a braking maneuver before softly landing on the ground, he could use Quake's rifle rounds to slow down before burying it in a tree or two to stop, he could use his semblance to look for the right time to catch a tree trunk in his hand and gracefully spin around it till he hit the ground running, or his personal favorite option. That was to activate his odd semblance fully, pump out some of his flaming aura, and just land on the ground unharmed.
It was pointless, had no benefits whatsoever over the other options, but, he did it anyway. Why? Because it was more fun that way. Activating his semblance to the max, he let his aura loose, and aimed for a small opening in the forest. A few seconds later, a crater the size of a small swimming pool was created as he landed. Y/N brushed off his cape, pulled out Quake, and started heading North.
Just as Y/N is wondering how Yang managed, Yang Xiao Long is walking and looking around. She starts to call out
"Helloooooooo?" A shadow quickly passes by but she doesn't see it.
"Is anyone out there? Helloooo?" She stops and raises her arms, exasperated.
"I'm getting bored here!" Then she hears a rustling in the bushes behind her and turns.
"Is someone there?" The rustling continues as Yang comes over and peaks inside.
"Ruby, is that you?"
A low, inhuman growl is heard, and Yang's head rises up as she stares at the creature. Handling it a bit better than Weiss, Yang only yells out one word.
"Nope!"
Yang quickly rolls to the side as an Ursa charges out of the green. She gets up and activates her Ember Celica, staring at the monster before another Ursa runs out behind her. She leaps over it, and its companion runs at her again, only to get knocked back by a fiery punch. The other Ursa and Yang charge at each other, and Yang manages to get under it and deliver several punches and a kick to send the creature back. She then starts to interrogate the beasts.
"You guys wouldn't happen to have seen a girl in a red hood, would you?" The Ursai merely growl at her. She then in effect growls back.
"You could just say 'no'."
One of the Ursai stands on its legs and swipes at her twice, Yang barely dodging the attacks. She then laughs and starts to insult the beasts.
"Geeeez, you two couldn't hit the broad side of a ba…"
Before she can complete her insult, a single strand of her golden hair falls in front of her face and lands on the forest floor.
"You…" Quivering in rage, she closes her violet eyes, then opens them to reveal red, making the Ursai look at each other confusedly before Yang screams.
"You monster!!!"
An inferno surrounds Yang for a moment, and she rockets forward, unleashing a devastating combo of flaming hits and blows on the offending Ursa, making it fly through several burning trees. The other monster runs over, but stops short at Yang's gaze while a tree falls to the ground behind her.
"What! You want some, too?!"
The Ursa rears up and prepares to strike... right when a whirling noise is heard and the monster makes a befuddled noise, falling down a second later to reveal Blake Belladonna with her Gambol Shroud in the beast's back.
Yang pants in exhaustion while Blake recalls the weapon back to her hand, sheathing it on her back and smiling to the side. Yang, now purple-eyed again, speaks to her new partner over the smoking remains of the monster.
"I could've taken him."
Speaking of close calls with Grimm, Weiss is deflecting the swipe from a Beowolf with her Myrtenaster and is getting pushed back into the middle of the beastly circle. She holds out her sword as she goes through her dueling motions and practices.
Weiss then thinks clearly in her head. 'Remember your training, Weiss. Head up, shoulders back, right foot forward — not that forward! — slow your breathing, wait for the right time to strike, and…' Bringing her rapier up, the revolver spinning, she basically yells in her head. 'Now!'
Weiss dashes forward with her loaded weapon at the Beowolf in front of her, just when Ruby suddenly appears between the two in a blur of rose petals and a swipe of her Crescent Rose scythe, landing a hit on the monster.
"Gotcha!"
Weiss widens her eyes and screams as she quickly has to stop, swinging the sword in a random direction and creating a line of fire that sets a nearby tree ablaze, followed quickly by the rest of the forest around the clearing.
Ruby, distracted by Weiss' mess-up, is barely defended when the same Beowolf scratches at her weapon, knocking the younger girl into the heiress. Ruby exclaims in frustration.
"Hey, watch it!" Weiss isn't too happy either.
"Excuse me! You attacked out of turn! I could have killed you!" Almost snorting, Ruby says proudly.
"You'll have to try a lot harder than that…"
The duo wield their arms as the pack of Beowolves whine and growl around them. Ruby reloads her scythe just as a flaming tree falls near them.
Weiss grabs Ruby's arm.
"We have to go!"
She leads Ruby out of the blaze as it engulfs the grass and sets the Grimm to running back the way they came or suffering in the fire.
Ruby and Weiss stop a safe ways from the smoke and flames. Weiss leans over and pants as Ruby looks behind her before yelling at Weiss.
"What was that?! That should've been easy!" Weiss isn't having it.
"Well perhaps if you had exercised even the slightest amount of caution with the placement of your strikes, I wouldn't have set the forest on fire!" Ruby scoffs before looking at Weiss angrily.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm just surprised someone who talks so much would communicate so little during an encounter!" Ruby gets even angrier at this.
"Well, I'm sorry you need my help to win a fight. I'm just fine on my own!"
"Well, congratulations on being the strongest child to sneak your way into Beacon. Bravo!"
Weiss begins to walk off on her partner yet again. Ruby, with an agitated shriek, unfolds Crescent Rose, slices a tree down to the stump, refolds it back, and follows her partner as the tree crashes behind her. Neither notice the large dark feather floating onto the fallen trunk behind them.
Y/N can hear fires, guns, and...is that thunder? Looking up at the sky and seeing no clouds, Y/N ran towards the sound. This he had to see. A few moments later, having already cut down a whole pack of Beowolves, Y/N arrives to see the spiky haired blonde levitating in the air, throwing lightning bolts at a whole group of Ursai. Seeing the blonde's weapon on the ground, Y/N called out of him.
"Catch, sparky!" The blonde looks up to see Y/N's Deagle, Storm, fly at him. He caught it, pushed himself back onto a tree and started to shoot the Ursai while his new partner went to town on them from behind.
The blonde was impressed by the (H/C) haired giant in a black hooded cape. With each swing of his massive blade, the guy took another Ursa out. He dodged and rolled like it was an after thought, but just in case there were too many, the blonde kept firing until the heavy pistol was empty, then he switched it to the Saxe form and jumped from the tree. He landed on an Ursa, digging the Saxe deep into it's eyesocket. The Grimm then vanished as it died.
The blonde looked over at Y/N and gave him a cheeky smile.
"I'm Tobias, Tobias Ferro." Y/N nodded out from under the hood and came forward to shake Tobias's hand.
"I'm Y/N, Y/N Lennox. It's nice to meet you sparky." Then the two of them leaned the opposite way and cast their semblances past the other. The final two massive Ursa had been hiding in the shadows and had tried to pounce on the two guys while they shook hands. Pure red flames leaped out and disintegrated the Ursa behind Tobias and a massive yellow lightning bolt turns the Ursa behind Y/N into dust. Laughing, they looked at each other and let their hands go as the thunderclap from their explosive semblances rang out. Then in sync, they said.
"I like your style."
Meanwhile across the Forest, Pyrrha Nikos, armed with Miló and Akoúo̱, and Jaune Arc are making their way through the bushes. Jaune hears a noise far away and turns his head.
"Did you hear that?" Pyrrah considers the sound for a second before answering Jaune.
"Gunfire. It seems some of our comrades have encountered the enemy. And maybe that last one was thunder, but I doubt it, there aren't any clouds.
They keep moving forward, Jaune still staring in the sound's direction as Pyrrha raises a branch to pass by and accidentally releases it right at Jaune's face, flooring him instantly. Pyrrah then looks back to see him on the ground.
"Jaune! I'm sorry!"
Jaune laughs, lowering his hand from his cheek to reveal a gash from the wooden recoil.
"It's okay. Just a scratch! He gets back up when Pyrrha approaches him. Confused, Pyrrah inquires about his mistake.
"Why didn't you activate your Aura?" Clearly, Jaune is clueless.
"Huh?" Persistent, Pyrrah asks again.
"Your Aura." Still not realizing what she's saying, he answers.
"Gesundheit." Then Pyrrah cocks her head and asks Jaune a different question.
"Jaune, do you... know what Aura is?"
Jaune waves the question off, avoiding eye contact.
"Psch! Of course I do! Do you know what Aura is?"
Pyrrha smiles at him and gets ready to explain. Then all of the sudden Lie Ren's trek through the forest's tall grass is visible and Pyrrha's Boise is still audible.
"Aura is the manifestation of our soul. It bears our burdens and shields our hearts. Have you ever felt you were being watched without knowing that someone was there?" Now it's Jaunes turn to speak.
"Uh... yeah."
Ren stops and narrows his eyes, looking around him while a huge black Grimm serpent rises up from the grass behind him and quickly surrounds him with its large, hissing body. Ren adopts a fighting stance as the snake coils together in front of him and attacks with its long fangs.
Pyrrha is visible again as she continues.
"With practice, our Aura can be our shield. Everyone has it, even animals." Dropping the pretense of knowing what it is, Jaune asks a question.
"What about monsters?" Pyrrah quickly answers and Ren is visible again.
"No." Ren as he leaps out of the way, the snake's mouth hitting the ground and instantly coming up again to hit a jumping Ren back with its snout.
"The monsters we fight lack a soul. They are creatures of Grimm, the manifestation of anonymity." Ren lands in a crouch when the serpent encircles him again, and he unleashes his StormFlower before jumping up and firing at the creature. Pyrrha's calm voice contrasts with Ren's fight.
"They are the darkness, and we are the light."
Then as Ren kicks the snake's snout and slashes at its head, Jaune proudly speaks up.
"Right, that's why we fight them!"
"It's not about why; it's about knowing."
Pyrrha's voice continues the explanation. The snake flows around Ren and tries to bite him again, but he flips over it and drives his weapons into its head, pausing a moment without sensing the serpent's white head behind him.
"Understanding dark and light helps us manifest our Aura. Everyone has some of both."
Ren turns and looks up at the white head as it launches itself at him, dodging it and landing just in time to see the head slither towards him. As it gets closer, he runs at it and leaps onto the black head, sliding over its body and blasting the other head.
"By baring your soul outward as a force, you can deflect harm. All of our tools and equipment are conduits for Aura. You protect yourself and your soul when fighting." Ren is unprepared for the white half to hit him with its head, knocking him off as he drops his weapons, and leaving him to merely raise his arms and distantly cry "No!" to the mouth of the black head. Then Jaune's excited voice cuts in again.
"It's like a force field!" Amused, Pyrrah replies.
"Yes, if you want to look at it that way."
Ren is now holding the front fangs of the colossal snake in his hands, glowing a faint, pulsating pink as he grips the teeth and yanks them from the monster's mouth, causing it to flail away. It attempts to bite him again, but Ren spins to the side and stabs a fang into its eye, rotating his arm to deliver a final blow that drives the makeshift weapon into its skull, which ripples, expands, and blows apart in a dark mess as its headless body falls over its fellow creature. Wasting no time, Ren runs right at the white head.
Pyrrha is now visible again and she walks up to Jaune.
"Now, close your eyes and concentrate." Jaune complies.
"Uhh... Okay."
Pyrrha smiles and closes her own eyes, opening them as her skin glows and her irises shrink before shutting them again. The two stand there, now with Pyrrha glowing a faint red and Jaune a bright white.
Pyrrha focuses on the mantra to engage another's aura. '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.' She places a hand on his chest. "I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee.' Pyrrha stops glowing red and hunches over in tiredness. Jaune is still glowing a bright white and looks at the tired Pyrrah, concerned.
"Pyrrha?" She gets back up quickly to respond.
"It's all right. I used my Aura to unlock yours, but the energy that protects you now is your own." She grins as she watches the scratch close up and vanish.
"You have a lot of it."
Jaune is smiling and looking at his hands as the glow stops.
"Wow…"
At the same time, Ren stands atop of the body of his enemy, sliding the weapons into his sleeves and brushing them off before a strange, animal-like noise is heard above him twice. He looks up and meets the upside-down eyes of Nora Valkyrie.
Ren then chuckles.
"I still don't think that's what a sloth sounds like."
In response, Nora gives her friend a "Boop!" on the nose.
Professor Ozpin watches the students on his Scroll at the Beacon Cliff overlooking the Emerald Forest when Glynda Goodwitch walks up behind him, holding her own tablet.
"The last pair has been formed, sir." She taps the screen to show Nora and Ren.
"Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren. Poor boy... I can't possibly imagine those two getting along. Still, he's probably better off than Miss Nikos." She changes the video to Pyrrha and Jaune Arc's trek through the woods.
"Mmmm…"
"I don't care what his transcripts say. That Jaune fellow is not ready for this level of combat." She then deactivates the tablet, walking back a little.
"I guess we'll find out soon enough. At their current pace, they should reach the temple within just a few minutes. She turns back to Ozpin.
"Speaking of which, what did you use as relics this year?"
"Professor Ozpin?"
Ozpin doesn't answer, watching his tablet with a contemplating interest as it shows the footage of Ruby Rose sitting in the grass and picking stray leaves while her "partner" Weiss Schnee walks in random directions.
Then Weiss's perspective is visible.
"It's definitely this way." Unsure where to go, she stops and starts walking left.
"I mean... this way! It's definitely this way." She stops in front of Ruby.
'Alright, it's official: We passed it." Ruby is very annoyed and stands up.
"Weiss, why can't you just admit that you have no idea where we're going?"
'Because I know exactly where we're going! We're going... to... the forest temple!"
Ruby sighs, frustrated. Weiss snaps back at her.
"Oh, stop it! You don't know where we are, either!"
"Well, at least I'm not pretending like I know everything."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're a big, stupid jerk and I hate you!"
Weiss sighs to herself, spinning around and walking in another direction.
"Just keep moving!"
Ruby does a pretty good faux imitation of Weiss' voice.
"Oh, just keep moving! Hurry up! Waaaah! Watch where you're going!" She then reverts back to her normal voice.
"Why are you so bossy?"
Weiss turns back around to face Ruby.
"I'm not bossy! Don't say things like that!" Clearly Ruby has struck a nerve. Now it devolves to them arguing excessively.
"Stop treating me like a kid!"
"Stop acting like a kid!"
"Well, stop acting like you're perfect!"
"I'm. Not. Perfect! Not yet... But I'm still leagues better than you." Having said her piece she continues to walk away.
Ruby says to herself, dejectedly.
"You don't even know me…"
Y/N and Tobias arrive at the ruins first, they have their pick of the chess pieces. Smiling, Tobias reaches for the King, explaining his reasoning.
"Let's take the King! It is the most powerful piece after all." Y/N shook his head and deflects Tobias's hand to the golden queen.
"Strictly speaking, it is the weakest actually, why not take the queen. That's the most powerful piece. Don't you know anything about chess?" But Tobias wasn't listening, he was dancing around holding the golden queen in the air, telling "Power!" Then as if running from something, an Ursa speeds past, catching Tobias unaware and getting him stuck on one of it's spines. Y/N rolls his eyes. Tobias is powerful alright, but he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Y/N sighs, picks up the Golden Queen and safely tucks it in his pocket. Then he takes off after his idiot partner.