Emerald Forest

"Whoo--That was close!" shouted the sorcerer as he dodges the paws of an attacking Beowolf by rolling to the side and countering its attack with a hit from his heavy flail.

The Beowolf backs away due to the damage and Matthew noticed the Ursa, waiting, just right behind the injured Beowolf going for a surprise attack.

In quick thinking, the young Strange raises his left hand which has the Tao Mandala to block the attack.

The attack went ineffective and he uses the chance to turn around to the side of the unguarded portion of the Grimm, hitting it with a swing from the end of his flail.

Growling in pain, the Grimm staggers to the left with an injured left leg and Matthew follows his attack earlier with another swing, now coming towards the Ursa's skull, dead.

The Ursa disintegrates into black ashes that took the curiosity of the sorcerer, he was amazed by their strength and durability and Matthew notices that the Grimms he was fighting for five minutes are reduced to half of their original numbers.

"I wanted to have some more fun and mayhaps to learn more about you fellas, but-- I'm not going to lose my bet with that SDC brat. So... can you please die?"

The rest of the group of Grimms tilted their heads in confusion as Matthew twirled his flail and it changes back into the Staff. Whispering and doing some hand gestures, Matthew casts his spell.

"By the power of the Icy Tendrils of Ikthalon..."

The ground beneath the targeted Grimms rumbled and lit up in an icy color. They were levitated upwards helplessly and with his hands moving in an upwards gesture before he clenches it, the tendrils wrapped tightly around the Grimms.

"-Bury them!" he ordered.

*ZOOM!*

In a slamming motion, the tendrils slammed the Grimm beneath the ground and they vanished without any trace.

"Whoa... That spell will always remain on my top ten lists. I guess I should give credit to Stephen for teaching me that spell..." He muttered with a sad expression.

Taking a deep breath, Matthew enjoys the silence of the Emerald Forest, with the wind howling and making the trees around him dance.

But the silence was cut off by--

"YOU MONSTER!" An angry cry echoes near him and he could see a speck of yellow flare from the east. Garnering his attention, Matthew wasted no time running and helping whoever is in trouble.

He can sense that he is getting closer by the familiar sounds of shotgun bursts from that direction. Matthew speeds himself up by using the Boots of Vaultorr and hops into the air, then into the tree branches until he finally reached the area.

He stops and watches from the branches as he saw Yang Xiao Long fighting two Ursas with her hair burning bright and her eyes glaring red in anger.

"Oh, her semblance is doing its work again." He commented in observation because he had saw Yang's semblance when he 'accidentally' cut a strand of her golden hair.

Shivering at the memory, he shook his head and continues to watch Yang Xiao Long in action.

Yang begins her attack with a series of punches on the first Ursa. And like a combo move from a video game, she finishes it with a double punch in its body and sends the poor Grimm on a row of trees behind it.

The second Ursa went closer behind Yang and she turns around, glaring at it with anger.

"What? You want some of it, too?!" Yang angrily asked, eyes burning red in fury.

Matthew realized that Yang had walked into a trap since her anger drew three more Ursa as a backup of the final Grimm.

Yang cracks her knuckles and reloaded her weaponized gauntlets. Bracing for their attack, Yang smartly prepares herself for a defensive posture.

"I guess Ms. Anger-Management Girl needs our help, right Cloak?" Matthew whispered to the Cloak of Levitation disguised as a scarf on his neck.

The Cloak taps his shoulder in a Morse Code-like communication and Matthew reacted to its delivered one word, he was caught off-guard.

"What do you mean that I'm a simp?" Matthew exclaimed with his furrowed eyebrows. "Hey, for the record, I am not a simp. I'm just helping them and what's wrong with that?"

The Cloak taps again into Matthew's shoulders for its response.

"Hah?! 'Sure'? Are you messing with me, Cloak?" Matthew replied with a tick mark. The Cloak tilts itself slightly to mock him more.

"You know what, just help her..." Matthew sighs as the Cloak unwraps itself from his neck and flies to the Ursa.

With Yang, she handles the other Ursa and she was shocked to see a flying piece of an outer garment wraps itself on the Ursa's face, disorienting its vision.

"What in the world...?" Yang said with a puzzled look. She watches the Cloak doing its thing while the second Ursa charges straight at her.

She is about to punch the Grimm but she paused when Yang saw an orange circular rune flying between her and the Ursa. The rune cuts the Ursa in half as it went back to its owner like a boomerang.

Confused, she turns around and heard a familiar voice calling her.

"Need a hand?" The voice asks, revealing Matthew. The Tao Mandala went back to his hand before dismissing it.

"Matty? Did you see where Ruby is?" Yang goes straight to ask a question to him, he simply shook his head in response.

"Nope, I haven't seen a single soul after I landed here. You're the first one."

"Ooh~ I'm your first, huh~" Yang winked and Matthew rolls his eyes.

"I swear, I'm going to leave you here if you continue to do those teasing." He sighs as they both looked at the third Ursa glaring at them. "Besides, can we deal with those Grimm first?"

Yang nodded in acknowledgment by reloading her shotgun gauntlets.

"With pleasure," Yang added with a grin.

"Hey, Cloak! Drop your hold onto the Ursa's face on my mark...!" Matthew ordered as he changes the Staff into a poleaxe. "Ready?" He said to both Yang and the Cloak. "NOW!"

The Cloak quickly unwraps itself at the Ursa's head as the swing from Matthew's poleaxe and an assault from Yang destroyed the Grimm in one move.

With their combined attack, Matthew cleanly cuts the head off while Yang maximized its punch to move the headless Ursa away.

A bang echoed after that and the last Ursa fixes its gaze at the duo before the Grimm fell out of nowhere, dead.

The newcomer, Blake, arrived from the back of the dead Ursa and this made Yang deactivate her semblance, and Matthew holstered back his Staff to its original form, and the Cloak wrapped itself back to Matthew's neck as a scarf.

"Well, whaddya know..." Matthew said with his arms crossed.

"I could've taken him," Yang replied.

"Hey, Blake." Matthew greets the black-haired girl. "Ever saw another participant in this initiation rather than us?" He asks to which Blake shakes her head in reply.

"I see..."

The silence between the trio emerged as they all looked at the headless body of the Grimm.

"Matty, do you know which way we're going for?"

Matthew looks around the trees and up to the sky to see where's the sun's location currently.

"If Professor Ozpin told us to go north then..." He traces his location earlier before he found Yang and to the new direction, he's pointing to. "If the sun is in that area, and we got launched from that way... Then north is this way." Matthew pointed to the North and towards the treeline.

"Great, what are we waiting for?" Yang remarked.

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×Several Minutes Later×

The trio reached the end of the tree line and they stopped at the edge of a small cliff, only to see a clearing with a circular stone temple.

Matthew can say that the temple is very old because of the broken and mossy pillar structures, the central platform has cracks on it and it has several chess pieces placed on every platform around the center.

"Looks like we found it," Matthew remarked.

"Think this is the right one?" Yang asks.

"Best to go down and see," Matthew replied as Blake went down the temple without any comment.

They followed Blake below, observing the relics in the shape of chess pieces.

"Did any of you guys remember Professor Opzin saying the appearance of the relics?" Yang asks.

"He didn't say anything," Blake replied.

"Chess pieces...?" Blake stated.

"Some of them are missing." Yang pointed out.

"It seems people already have their pieces. And the missing pieces are pawns..." Matthew realized.

"I guess we should pick one," Blake said.

"Ladies first?" Matthew replied with a smile.

"Aww, thanks!" Yang happily went to the nearest one which is a black rook and a gold knight piece. "How about a cute little pony?"

"Sure," Blake noted. "Then-- I'll pick... this one." Blake selected the black queen piece and the girls met up in the middle of the temple to wait for Matthew to pick his piece.

"A queen is one of the most important pieces in chess, yes, we all know that-- But, what's a queen without its king?" Matthew commented as he decided on the golden king piece, he grabs it and catches it before joining the two.

"That wasn't too hard." Yang proclaimed.

"If you meant the Grimms we fought off earlier are like paper tigers, then, yes. It was too easy."

"Well, it's not like this place is very difficult to find," Blake summed up.

"We should thank Matty as our walking GPS!" Yang joked.

"And thank me also for saving your angry ass earlier, Senator Armstrong."

Both of them tilted their heads in confusion, and yellow question marks are floating above them.

"Senator wha--?"

"Forget what I've just said. We should go back and--"

*Girlish screaming SFX a.k.a. Jaune Arc*

The three heard a high-pitched scream from the south and this instantly turned their heads in that direction.

"Some girl is in trouble!" Yang said with a gasp. "Blake, Matthew did you both hear that?"

The two did not respond and this grabbed Yang's attention because they were both looking up at the sky with worried looks.

"Did you guys hear me? Hey! Blake, Matthew!" Yang marches back to them while they continue to stare at the sky.

"Uhh, Yang? Look up..." Matthew told her, pointing his fingers in the direction he is looking from.

Yang squints her eyes in that direction and she saw a lone red and black individual falling from the sky.

"I-Is that--?!"

"We both share the same idea about who that was, Yang."

"Heads uuppp!!" The faint, yelling voice from Ruby Rose went clearer and closer as the three looks at her in shock.

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