7

Chapter 7:

Present day:

Ruby descended towards the forest, her eyes ahead of her, but the rest of her senses locked on Jaune, tracking his movement behind her. Jaune certainly made it easy, his continuous scream broadcasting exactly where he was to her senses. Ruby focused downward, then kicked out behind her, expelling her Aura from her feet, practically stepping off the air itself as she used her technique, not to slow her descent, but accelerate it.

The forest canopy rose up to embrace her and Ruby shifted her balance, going into a roll that reversed her position so that she was now falling backwards. Now she had a view of Jaune. Compared to everyone else, who were all descending towards the forest with perfect balance and coordination, Jaune was tumbling through the air, his limbs flailing. Ruby felt the trunk of a tree looming up behind her and shifted her position a little.

She hit the tree in the side, her legs flexing to absorb the impact as her momentum braced her against the vertical trunk. She felt the entire tree bend slightly under her impact, the wood creaking, followed by a faint crack running up the trunk. Then Ruby channeled her Aura through her feet again as she kicked off, launching herself almost in the same direction she'd come from, only shifting the direction of her launch so that she was flying on a course to intercept Jaune.

Leaving a trail of red petals in her wake, Ruby flew towards Jaune like a red comet. As her course crossed with his, she flared her arms and legs out, her Aura flushing out through her cloak, causing it to spread and stiffen, maximizing her air resistance and abruptly slowing her speed, so that she was in the perfect position when Jaune slammed into her.

Ruby's arms went around his shoulders. "HOLD ON!" she shouted over the rush of wind as the impact sent the both of them on an uncontrolled plunge into the forest below.

Jaune responded reflexively, his arms wrapping around her waist. Now Ruby let her momentum sweep her cloak around both of them so that it completely enfolded their bodies. Using her Aura again, she reinforced the cloak as much as she could, transforming it into a sheet of armor around both their bodies as they crashed through the canopy at full speed.

Ruby moved a hand up to the back of Jaune's head, bracing his head and neck as they slammed into the trunk of a tree...and smashed right through it. They hit another, but, this time, their momentum had been slowed, so that they bounced off it after crushing a portion of the trunk, which also set them spinning. From there, the world became a complete blur as they careened down, bouncing off one tree after another. Finally, they slammed into the ground with crushing force, before bouncing off and hitting again, the impact of their landing ripping a shallow trench through the earth before they finally slowed to a stop.

When the noise and movement faded, Ruby slumped back, gasping for breath. Her cloak had taken the brunt of the impact and protected the two of them from damage. But it didn't change the fact that she was rattled and dizzy from their wild descent.

"R-Ruby..." began Jaune.

"Please...just...don't...throw up," begged Ruby, remembering Jaune's motion sickness on the airship ride over. If that was enough to make him lose his lunch, she didn't want to think what their dizzying descent had done to his equilibrium.

"I make no such promises,"Jaune jested weakly, before lifting his head up from Ruby's shoulder. "Thanks for the save, though." He smiled down at her, an expression she returned. Jaune's blue eyes met Ruby's silver ones and, for a moment, they simply stared.

"You're welcome," said Ruby. Whatever else, she was relieved that Jaune was all right.

They rested there, panting, for another long moment.

Finally, after catching his breath, which wasn't hard, as Jaune was more winded from all his screaming than anything else, he began to realize what their current situation looked like. "Uh...Ruby...You wanna let go?"

Ruby gasped as she realized the situation they were in. They were lying on the ground, in the middle of a Grimm-infested forest, wrapped in each other's arms, staring into each other's eyes. Almost simultaneously, their faces flushed red and they rapidly disengaged, sitting up on their knees as they took another moment to recover, from embarrassment this time.

Finally, both their feelings and their physiology were back under their control and they looked at each other again. Jaune flashed Ruby a goofy smile. "So...considering what Professor Ozpin said...I guess this makes us partners now."

Ruby couldn't help it, she giggled, then broke out laughing, almost doubling over. "I...I guess...I guess you're right," she said, forcing herself to recover, even as she wiped tears of mirth from her eyes. "I gotta say...as landing strategies go...that kinda sucked."

"Heh!" snorted Jaune. "Yeah."

They got to their feet. Ruby shuddered, her legs a bit shaky after their rough ride down. More to the point, the initiation had already begun, but she'd burned through a considerable portion of her Aura already. She'd have to be careful with what she had left. She still had a little over half, by her reckoning, but it wasn't good that she'd already used so much up in just the first few seconds.

"Sorry about your cloak," added Jaune, looking at the garment, which was definitely looking a good bit more ragged around the edges after their tumultuous descent.

"Don't worry, it's an easy fix," Ruby said with a wry smile, even as she continued to evaluate the state of her Aura.

Thinking about her Aura drew her thoughts back to the reason she'd needed to save Jaune in the first place. She looked at him, her expression much more sober than before. "Jaune..."

"Yeah," said Jaune, feeling a trifle nervous at the sudden change in Ruby's tone.

"We need to talk," she said.

"About what?" asked Jaune.

"Why isn't your Aura unlocked?"

"Well...it seems we have our first pair," noted Glynda dubiously, watching an image of Ruby and Jaune as they got back up after their rough landing.

"Indeed," agreed Ozpin with a soft chuckle. "Though it's rare for students to be so...proactive...about choosing their partners."

Glynda hummed pensively, her eyes focused on the pair on the screen. "Ms. Rose burned a considerable portion of her Aura on that landing," she said. "I admire her desire to help her peer, but she needs to be more concerned about her own condition." Secretly, Glynda had to admit that she was impressed. It appeared that Ruby's assertion in the interrogation room hadn't been an exaggeration. If she could use her Aura to reinforce her cloak to such a degree, then she could have easily used it to shield herself from a barrage of fire from a bullhead.

Then her attention fixed itself on Jaune and her frown deepened. "What truly worries me is Mr. Arc. I don't care what his transcripts say. That boy is clearly not ready for this level of combat."

Ozpin said nothing, instead quietly raising his mug to his lips and taking a slow sip.

"My what?" asked Jaune, blinking cluelessly.

"Your Aura," said Ruby. "Why isn't your Aura unlocked?"

"What's Aura?" asked Jaune.

A tremor of horror ran through Ruby's body. He doesn't even know what Aura is. How? Why? "Jaune...you mean...you can't seriously not know what Aura is."

"Nope," said Jaune frankly.

Ruby looked down. Then her face hardened and she looked up, anger and worry clouding her expression, making Jaune falter and step back. "R-Ruby! What's wrong?"

"Jaune..." said Ruby in a stern tone, "...as my partner, I want you to be completely honest with me. Did you go to Combat School?"

"Huh?" Jaune blinked. "O-of course I went to Combat School. My transcripts were approved in a heartbeat."

"You're lying," said Ruby frankly.

"N-no I'm not," said Jaune, growing more nervous and stepping back from Ruby.

"Yes you are," said Ruby, her eyes narrowing. "Your Aura isn't unlocked. You don't even know what Aura is. It's the single most important thing you need to know if you want to be a Huntsman, but you don't have a clue about it! That's one of the first things they teach you about in Combat School, if your family doesn't teach you first. But you don't know a thing about it. What's going on?"

Jaune retreated until he found his back up against a tree. His gaze was frightened, worried, almost like that of a cornered animal. Ruby's eyes were angry, but her expression was also worried. Jaune's own gaze faltered and he looked away...only for his eyes to fix on the trench he and Ruby had plowed upon their arrival. She saved my life...I...I can't lie to her.

"I...I lied about my transcripts," said Jaune, slumping with a sigh, his eyes drifting to the ground. "Almost everything on the application form I sent in, except my name, is a lie. I was never trained...I never got to train. I've always wanted to be a Huntsman, to be a hero. But...I..." He sighed. "I got my hands on some fake transcripts and lied my way into Beacon."

Ruby's expression softened slightly. But Jaune could still see disapproval in her gaze. "Jaune...do you have any idea...do you have any clue about what you did?"

"I uh..."

"Aura is the power of our souls," said Ruby. "Learning to utilize it is what allows Huntsmen and Huntresses to do things ordinary people can't. It's why the people here are perfectly fine with tests like this."

"Yeah, but...everything worked out all right," Jaune pointed out.

"Ozpin just chucked us off the side of a cliff!" exclaimed Ruby. "If I hadn't been there, if I hadn't realized the trouble you were in, you'd have broken your back on the first tree you hit, maybe your neck, or your skull...you'd probably have been dead before you hit the ground!"

Jaune shivered, his skin going pale and his legs suddenly feeling weak.

"And the worst thing is...that's just the beginning," said Ruby. "Things are only going to get more dangerous from here. We haven't even had to fight any Grimm yet. At this rate, you won't even survive the day, forget your first semester. What the hell were you thinking?"

"I..."

"We need to go back," said Ruby. "I don't want to leave the Initiation, but I can't just stand by and let you get yourself killed like this."

"You can't-!" exclaimed Jaune.

"Why can't I?" asked Ruby. "Are you that desperate to get yourself killed?"

"N-no!" protested Jaune. "I want to be a Huntsman!"

"How?" demanded Ruby. "How can you be a Huntsman when you don't understand the most basic things about what it takes to be one? How can you fight without any training? This isn't a game, Jaune."

Jaune shuddered. "L-look. We can just split up," he said. "We don't have to be partners. I can go ahead on my own, if you want to find someone better."

"This has nothing to do with partners!" snapped Ruby, glaring at Jaune. "I can't stand by and watch you kill yourself. If we're going anywhere, we're going back!"

"I'm not going back!" shouted Jaune, glaring at Ruby.

"Why?" asked Ruby. "Why are you so determined?"

Jaune sighed and turned away, resting his forehead against his arm as he braced it against the side of the tree he'd been backed up against, ironically mirroring the same posture Ruby had used when she'd fled from her sister.

"I...I told you about my father," said Jaune.

"He was a Huntsman," said Ruby.

"I have seven sisters," said Jaune.

Ruby's mental processes ground to a halt, her anger and worry momentarily forgotten as she struggled to comprehend the idea of sharing a home with that many siblings.

Jaune pressed on. "My older sisters are all brilliant. Each of them is talented in her own way. But me...I don't have anything. I'm basically worthless."

"Jaune..." whispered Ruby.

"Don't get me wrong, they love me," continued Jaune. "Oriana taught me how to play the guitar. Xanthe taught me how to dance. But I..." He sighed and let himself slump down to sit at the base of the tree, his arms draped over his knees. "From the moment I knew what it was Dad did for a living, all I wanted was to be a Huntsman like him."

"Didn't he train you?" asked Ruby.

"For about a month," said Jaune with a frown, his gaze distant. "A single, solitary month, then he decided that I just didn't have it...drive...talent...whatever. He told me that I wasn't cut out to be a Huntsman, told me to give it up, said it was for my own good."

Ruby choked, the pressure of tears starting to build behind her eyes.

Jaune was hardly paying any attention to her now. "Mom...my sisters...they all agreed with him. They told me that I'd do much better if I found a safer line of work. I tried training on my own, but Dad did everything he could to keep me from managing that. He'd find random chores for me to do, or he'd ask my big sisters to keep me occupied. I tried to find out what I needed to do to become a Huntsman, but they wouldn't let me find anything. They even locked down my scroll. Only Saphron, my oldest sister, ever seemed to support me, but she moved out a few years back, and couldn't help me."

Ruby's arms rose up to wrap around her shoulders.

"I...I got desperate," continued Jaune. "I avoided going home for as long as I could, fell in with some unsavory people. One of those people even managed to get me fake transcripts." Jaune looked up at her. "I jumped at the chance. I filled out my application and sent it in without letting my family know. I sent it in. I half expected to get rejected right away. But then my acceptance letter came in the mail. I felt so proud of myself when I showed it to my family...even though I didn't actually do anything to earn it.

"But my family: Dad, Mom, my sisters...they just laughed. Dad slapped me on the back and told me that, if I'd gone through the trouble, I might as well go. They all told me that it was okay if I had to move back in with them. Then they all saw me off on the airship, waving and shouting, telling me that they'd see me soon..." Now Jaune was sniffling, wiping at his eyes. "So here I am, a stupid faker, probably about to die stupidly for trying something I had no chance of achieving. But I'm still going to do it, because it's what I want to do."

Tears ran freely down Ruby's cheeks. Even though the specifics of Jaune's circumstances were different from her own, so much of his story was familiar to Ruby. It was all there; the controlling family, who stifled their child's hopes "for his own good;" the casual dismissal of his hopes and ambitions before he even got a chance to try and fulfill them; the desperation to seek any way out of that hopeless situation, before the path to his dream was closed off to him entirely. So many pieces of Jaune's story Ruby saw in her own.

Ruby reflected that she'd been lucky, unbelievably lucky, if she was being honest. Sure, her own family had tried to clamp down on her life, to the point that her father was about to pull her out of school so that he could keep her at home and monitor her behavior all the time. Sure, she'd been forced to run away and risk dying on the streets to have even the slightest chance of realizing her dream. But, because of that, she'd met Sasame and Kyo. She'd gotten to train in the Mibu Clan, under amazing teachers, learning things that most people in the outside world, even actual Huntsmen and Huntresses, hadn't even heard of. It had given her skills that Ozpin himself had recognized, and had invited her into Beacon two years early for. Meeting Sasame, that day on the streets, had been a stroke of luck like no other. It was almost enough to make Ruby believe in divine providence.

Now, here was Jaune, in much the same situation she had been, yet he'd never gotten that chance. The closest he'd gotten was a folder of fake transcripts that had let him get accepted into Beacon. His family had watched him set off, even though his father presumably knew what training to be a Huntsman entailed, which meant they expected Jaune to be rejected and sent back home almost immediately.

Ruby wondered if they'd be near as happy with their decision, if they'd learned that Jaune had gotten as far as being chucked off a cliff before anyone realized that he'd had practically no prior training. But that was neither here nor there.

The real issue was what to do now. She could just drag Jaune back to the cliffs. For all that he was older and taller than her, he had no training and no Aura. Knocking him out and lugging him back would be the simplest of things. It would certainly be a better choice than his idea of just going their separate ways, so that he could be mauled to death by the first Beowolf that crossed his path.

However, looking down at him, Ruby could see something, true determination in his eyes. For Jaune, this was something worth risking his life for. He might not have wanted to become a Huntsman for the same reasons she wanted to become a Huntress, but Ruby could tell he wanted it badly enough that he'd be willing to keep marching ahead, straight to his imminent death. Were my eyes like that when I left my home behind? she wondered.

But what then? What did she do? She couldn't let Jaune get himself killed, yet she couldn't bring herself to force him back to safety either.

What if I helped him? It seemed ludicrous initially. If she had to escort and protect Jaune throughout the Initiation, then it defied the reason he was here in the first place. But there wasn't anything else she could do, short of clocking him in the head and hauling him back...Or is there?

Ruby's mind went back to that fateful day, six years ago, Sasame cheerfully tapping her on the nose and unlocking her Aura. Ruby was not the same girl she'd been back then, with no clue of how to use Aura. She knew how to send her Aura into another person without harming them. She was even proficient in rudimentary healing techniques. I could unlock his Aura, thought Ruby. At least then he won't be completely helpless. He still wouldn't know the first thing about using it, or fighting really, but if we can just manage to muddle through the Initiation, maybe I can help him fix that.

It was a very big "maybe," but it was something, something other than ripping Jaune's dream away from him or just leaving him to die. Indeed, the more she thought about it, the more it appealed to her. Just as meeting Sasame and Kyo had been the stroke of luck that opened up a world of opportunity to her, she could now be that same stroke of luck for Jaune.

And, to her thoughts at least, she owed him the willingness to try. After seeing Yang for the first time in years, Ruby had been on the verge of running away again. She'd been almost ready to throw away this unprecedented opportunity, because she couldn't stand the thought of having to face Yang and her father again. Jaune's embrace, his earnest encouragement, they'd given her the resolve to continue on. She and Jaune were partners now. It was up to her to be the best partner she could for him.

"All right," said Ruby.

"Huh?" Jaune looked up, confusion swirling in his gaze.

"I'll help you," said Ruby.

"Help me?" Jaune blinked in confusion. Ruby extended a hand down to him and he, somewhat hesitantly took it, allowing her to pull him to his feet.

"You want to be a Huntsman, I'll do what I can to help you," promised Ruby.

"Y-you shouldn't..." Jaune looked down. "I'll just hold you back. I need to do this on my own."

"But you can't," said Ruby firmly, making Jaune's eyes snap back to her again. "No one can. That's why we have things like partners and teams."

"But you..." began Jaune.

"I never got anywhere on my own," said Ruby with a sigh, beginning to walk. Jaune fell into step with her automatically. "The blonde girl that was going after me earlier, that's my older sister."

"I figured that," said Jaune.

"When I was nine years old, I ran away from home," said Ruby.

"Wha-why?" asked Jaune, flabbergasted by the idea.

"There was an...incident...when I was younger," said Ruby. "My Mom died when I was little. Then me and my sister were attacked by a group of Grimm. The story's a little complicated."

"Okay," said Jaune.

"Dad and Yang...they got super-overprotective," said Ruby. "They told me that I couldn't be a Huntress. They wouldn't let me train. Every time I wanted to try something that they thought was remotely dangerous, or that might let me work on becoming a Huntress, they stopped me. They started trying to control things like the books I read, what I watched. Dad basically started chasing all my friends away."

"Ohh..." Jaune swallowed, beginning to see the similarity.

"The last straw was when I overheard Dad saying that he was gonna pull me out of school," said Ruby, sniffling. "He was going to lock me away from all my friends and keep me at home, basically turn me into some kind of doll that he could keep with him all the time."

"That's...sick," said Jaune.

Ruby nodded. "I knew I had to leave, so I left. I got together what money I could and got out. By the next day I was in Vale."

"Wow!" said Jaune. "That's really gutsy of you. I'd have never been able to do that."

"It wasn't gutsy," said Ruby, looking up at him again. "It was stupid. I nearly died out there. I ran out of money in a few days, and I was about to start stealing food to survive." She sighed. "But I got lucky. I was found by someone."

"Who?" asked Jaune.

"An older girl, named Sasame," said Ruby. "She found me and she helped me. She and her friend, Kyo, took me on the road with them. They taught me how to use Aura, how to fight, how to survive. They took me back to their homeland, and the people I met there taught me even more. More than that, my teachers were powerful, influential people. I got the privilege to learn from them, things that a lot of their citizens would kill to have, but would never get the chance to. I was lucky, I was privileged. Thanks to their teaching, I got strong enough that I could travel across Sanus by foot, and walk straight into Vale with almost nothing more than the clothes on my back and my sword."

"That really is lucky..." said Jaune with a sigh. "I wish I had that kind of luck."

"Look, that's not really my point," said Ruby. "The point is, I didn't get where I am alone. You're not going to magically make yourself stronger by going out here and doing something stupid, Jaune. You need help."

"So...you're going to help me?" Jaune stopped and turned to look at Ruby. "How?"

"For starters, if you're going to be a Huntsman, you need Aura," said Ruby with a grin.

"Right...what's Aura again?" asked Jaune.

Ruby sighed. "We'd better make this quick, or the day is going to be over before we get halfway there..."

Pyrrha sighed as she carefully stepped through the undergrowth. With Ozpin's announcement about how partners would be chosen, she had immediately hoped that she might get the chance to partner with Ruby or Jaune. Breakfast had been such a refreshing experience with them. It had been so wonderful to sit and chat with other people, like a normal girl, talking about normal things, well...as normal as subjects got for students aiming to become Huntsmen and Huntresses.

She supposed it was more dumb luck than anything else that she would happen upon two people who didn't recognize her on sight. But she would take what she could get. Everyone else was swept up in the glamor of Pyrrha Nikos: the Invincible Girl, the four-time tournament champion, who had become a celebrity icon. Some wanted to get close to her to see if they could get famous themselves, if only by association. Others wanted to rely on her skill…in lieu of their own. Others might have had intentions she didn't want to think about.

That was what had been so nice about hanging out with Ruby and Jaune. The conversation had actually been about something other than herself for a change. She knew it wasn't meant to last. Even if they didn't know now, Ruby and Jaune would learn who she was sooner or later. Even if they didn't do it on their own, there was practically an entire dining hall full of people all too happy to fill them in, and explain why they weren't even worthy to walk in her shadow, or some such stupidity.

That being the case, they were definitely Pyrrha's first choice for partners. Hearing Jaune's scream after her launch, she'd made getting to stable footing a priority, using her shield to crash through several trees to slow her speed, before landing on a solid branch. Drawing Milo, her main offensive weapon, she'd transformed it into rifle-mode, sweeping it up to catch Jaune in her sights as he tumbled through the sky, clearly out of control.

Knowing what she had to do, Pyrrha had readied herself to save him, only to stop when she saw a red comet launch itself up from the canopy to intercept Jaune. She'd watched as Jaune and Ruby collided, then fell back down into the trees. Pyrrha hoped that they were okay. As landings went, that had to have been a painful one. But, at the very least, she figured that they would be partners now. There was no way they could go through something like that and not meet eyes at least once.

With both her prime candidates out of the running, Pyrrha decided to resign herself to doing the best she could with whoever she did find. Descending to ground-level, she'd decided to make her way north. Even if she landed apart, she figured that the other students would be heading in roughly the same direction. So she was bound to meet up with someone sooner or later.

As fate would have it, it was sooner. Pyrrha hadn't been walking long, when she heard the sound of crashing undergrowth, accompanied by low growls and barks. Beowolves! Pyrrha snapped her arms out, her weapons sliding into place. She rushed in the direction of the noise. If these Grimm were making so much noise, it was because they'd found prey.

Pyrrha emerged from a bush in a space that was relatively clear of undergrowth, the trees slightly more spaced-out. There the Beowolves were, rearing up on their hind legs as they loomed threateningly over their intended victim. Pyrrha's eyes widened as she recognized the girl in white, who faced the beasts with elegant composure, her slender rapier leveled at the monster directly in front of her. Weiss Schnee.

The heiress' weapon was as elegant as she was. The slender blade, gradually tapering down before reaching a fine point, was a gleaming silver, clearly made from the most advanced alloys available on the market. The weapon's ricasso was encased by an unusual mechanism, an arrangement of colored cylinders, which indicated it was armed with Dust.

As Pyrrha watched, the chambers rotated, spinning like the chambers of a revolver. The cylinder of red fire-Dust lined up with the top and Weiss shot forward, gliding across the ground in a graceful, sliding lunge. Thrusting forward with her weapon Weiss launched her attack, a jet of flame shooting out from her rapier and surging forward to immolate the Beowolf in front of her. The monster burned away with a pained yelp.

Of course, the rest of the pack weren't about to sit idly by and let the heiress take them down, one by one. Two of the beasts that had been flanking her lunged at her from either side, their clawed forelimbs raised, their fanged maws wide open. Still another came at Weiss from behind.

Pyrrha's body burst into motion automatically, her finely-honed reflexes triggered by the sight of someone in need. She ran forward, then jumped. With a rapid series of clicks, Milo shifted, the handle elongating and the blade shortening and narrowing, becoming a gold and red javelin that Pyrrha raised over her head. Taking aim at the Beowolf on the other side of Weiss from where Pyrrha herself was, Pyrrha hurled her weapon. At the same time, she triggered the rifle built into Milo's body. In its current form, the rifle's muzzle opened at the javelin's butt-end so that, when it fired, the recoil added a burst of acceleration to Milo's flight as it left her hand.

The javelin streaked past Weiss, just barely missing clipping her ponytail as Weiss turned to her right to deal with the Beowolf on the other side. Milo took Pyrrha's target right in the chest, the Beowolf's charge abruptly terminating as the beast was instead thrown back. At the same time, Pyrrha' pulled back her right arm so that she would swing her left in an arcing motion, allowing her to throw Akouo, her shield, like a discus. The circular shield flew at the Beowolf lunging for Weiss' back like a frisbee. Its sharpened edge cut clean through the Beowolf's neck, neatly decapitating it.

Even then, the shield's momentum allowed it to carry on to strike another Beowolf right in the skull. While it had lost enough force that it couldn't cut through the hardened bone-plate of the Grimm's mask, it still snapped the Beowolf's head back and sent it reeling as the shield ricocheted of its head to strike a third Beowolf. By this time, Pyrrha's charge had carried her past Weiss to where the Beowolf she'd impaled had fallen. Pyrrha retrieved Milo from its dissolving corpse, and raised her left arm just in time to catch the shield as its second rebound sent it hurtling right back at her.

Pyrrha took a step back, putting herself back-to-back with Weiss as the rest of the Beowolf pack closed in. It was a few minutes of furious fighting as the pair danced around each other, doing their best to take down the Grimm. Pyrrha noted that Weiss' form was incredibly refined, but that her movements were rather linear, and she was still obviously somewhat new to adjusting to the dynamic nature of actual battle against multiple opponents. Fortunately, Pyrrha's experience competing in multiple tournaments stood her in good stead, allowing her to read Weiss' actions and then shift to cover her blind spots and exposed weaknesses.

Before long, the pair of them were surrounded by fallen Grimm, their carcasses dissolving into streams of black particles that drifted upwards like smoke.

"Thank you," said Weiss, her words a little stilted as she recovered her breath. "I knew we'd do well together, Pyrrha."

"Of…course…" said Pyrrha, keeping her smile in place, but not yet turning to look at Weiss. Throughout the battle, the pair of them had actually yet to make eye-contact with one another. If I could find a reason to get away…

But Pyrrha knew it wasn't realistic. Now that they had fought together, Weiss would be stuck on the idea of the pair of them being partners. Pyrrha had no choice. She supposed she'd have to make the most of it she could. Resigning herself to her fate, Pyrrha turned to face Weiss, meeting her eyes and taking in Weiss' eager smile.

"With the two of us together, we're sure to be the best-performing pair in the initiation," said Weiss. "I doubt anything can get in our way."

"That sounds…grand," said Pyrrha, defaulting to her usual polite facade.

"Come on," said Weiss, already turning to march in a direction that Pyrrha knew wasn't north, "let's get to the temple."

"R-right," said Pyrrha, falling into step behind Weiss.

Gotta find Ruby! Gotta find Ruby! Gotta find Ruby!

The mantra had been running through her head from the moment Yang's feet had touched the ground. Ruby was out here in the Emerald Forest, with Grimm lurking behind every tree, just waiting for helpless prey. There was no way Ruby could be prepared for this kind of trial. I can't let anything happen to her…not this time!

Yang's mind went back to that fateful day. She remembered the abandoned cabin, the glowing red eyes, the snarls of the Beowolves as they lunged for the pair of helpless children. It had been her fault. She'd been the one who'd put Ruby in danger. If it hadn't been for Qrow, they'd have been dead. There was no way Yang could allow Ruby to put herself in danger ever again.

I'll find you, Ruby. I'll make sure to get you home, safe.

Abruptly, Yang winced, grimacing in pain as her hand went to gently press against her stomach, where Ruby had struck her with the pommel of her sword. The power behind the blow had been more than Yang had ever thought Ruby would be capable of. But being able to use a sword didn't mean that Ruby was ready to be a Huntress.

In her pained confusion after the incident, Yang had been in too much of a daze to approach Professor Ozpin and let him know that Ruby was two years too young to be at Beacon. She'd numbly taken her position on the platform and, before she knew it, the briefing for their initiation was underway. Yang was sent flying into the air, only able to hope that Ruby would be able to land safely. At the moment, finding her way to the temple was the last thing on Yang's mind.

From her own position, Yang had roughly tracked the path of Ruby's descent before crashing down through the trees. She didn't mind that her landing had been less than graceful, instead turning east and aiming for where she'd seen Ruby coming down.

Pushing through a barrier of shrubbery, Yang found herself in a relatively clear section of the forest floor, the canopy open enough that she could see patches of blue sky and white clouds above. According to her guess, this should have been the general area where Ruby had come down.

"Ruby...?"

The bushes nearby twitched and began to shake. Yang turned to face them, frowning. She wasn't surprised when the large, burly, black form of an Ursa lunged out from the foliage with a roar, its massive paw swinging straight for her head. Yang jumped backwards, avoiding the arc of the beast's swing. Skidding to a stop, she glared angrily at the Ursa as it came out into the open, followed by a second of its kind.

I don't have time for this, she thought irritably. Ruby should have been somewhere nearby. Then a horrifying thought occurred to her. What if these things found Ruby?

It was a horrifying possibility to consider. But Ruby was nowhere to be seen, and the Ursa were here. With a roar of her own, Yang launched herself at the nearest Ursa, her eyes turning a blazing red as she slammed her fist into the side of its head, her gauntlet, Ember Celica, discharging and snapping its head to the side. Yang pressed on, launching a barrage of blows to either side of the bear-like Grimm's head before unloading an uppercut into its chin and following it up with a full-power haymaker to the Ursa's stomach. The monster was launched backwards, slamming into the side of a tree with enough force to crack it in two, the tree collapsing with the sound of creaking and groaning wood.

The second Ursa almost looked taken aback by how ferociously Yang had demolished its partner. However, the instinctual aggression of its kind soon took over again and it roared loudly as it reared up to its full, intimidating height.

"Bring it!" snarled Yang, clashing her gauntlets together.

Then the Ursa's body abruptly jerked. The light faded from its eyes and it collapsed forward, a black sickle, attached to a black ribbon, sticking out of its neck, having pierced a vital with such perfect precision that the massive beast had been brought down by that single, tiny wound. Yang's eyes traced the length of that ribbon to meet the amber eyes of the girl that held it. Yang remembered her sitting apart from everyone else during the previous night, her nose buried in a book.

Yang took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. Finally, she managed a smile. "I could'a taken him," she said.

Blake Belladonna smiled wryly.

Yang frowned and looked around. "You didn't see anyone else around here, did you?" she asked.

"Are you looking for someone?" asked Blake.

"Black hair with red tips," explained Yang, "black dress...thingy...red armor on her hips and shoulders, red cape, like some kind of silly superhero."

"You mean Ruby?" asked Blake.

"You know her?" gasped Yang, her gaze immediately snapping back to her new partner.

"We talked a little," said Blake. She glanced around. "I haven't seen any signs of anyone around here. I don't think this is where she landed, if that's what you were looking for." She returned her attention to Yang. "Why are you looking for her?"

"She's my sister," said Yang.

"Really?" Blake raised a skeptical eyebrow, noting that they didn't look anything alike.

"Half-sister," admitted Yang with a sigh. "She ran away six years ago. We've been looking for her all that time...and now she just shows up here...now...I don't know how. She's only fifteen. She shouldn't even be allowed in Beacon yet."

"And yet she's here," said Blake, her eyes narrowing slightly. When she'd overheard Weiss' accosting Ruby the previous day, she'd heard Weiss claim that Ruby looked a little too young to be at Beacon. She herself had noted that Ruby looked rather young for an aspiring first-year student. But she had chosen not to press the matter, seeing as they were at that age where a person's age couldn't be so easily determined just by appearances.

Of course, while Yang appeared to be assuming that Ruby had used some illegitimate manner to enter Beacon, Blake figured that it could be just as likely that she was a special exception. But there would be no way to know that for sure now. However, she had her own aspirations, becoming a Huntress herself foremost among them. Right now was not the time to be dealing with some kind of bizarre family drama. What they needed to do was get to the temple, claim a relic, and get back. They could worry about Ruby's age and presence later.

The question was how to convince her new partner of that. Then Blake hit upon an idea. "Well...if she really is trying to become a student, she'll be heading the same way we will," she pointed out.

"Huh?" Yang blinked in surprise and gave Blake a confused look.

Blake rolled her eyes. "She'll be heading north," she explained. "Ruby, and whoever she's partnered with, will be wanting to go to the temple and get a relic for themselves. If we move quickly enough, we can get there when they do, or even before them. But we should go now."

That appeared to be something Yang could handle, and she nodded fervently. The two of them set off.

"It's like a forcefield!" exclaimed Jaune as Ruby wrapped up her explanation of what Aura was, and the basics of how it worked.

Ruby giggled, reflecting that Jaune's exclamation would have had Kyo and Sasame rolling on the ground, laughing. In the meantime, some of the prouder members of the Mibu would have been gravely affronted by such a statement and insist upon clarifying the nuances of what Aura truly was to Jaune.

"Well, that's oversimplifying it...a lot," she said after she recovered. "But it's good enough for now." She came to a stop and turned to face Jaune. "So...the first thing we need to do is unlock your Aura."

"Right," said Jaune, swallowing. "Uh...how?"

Ruby grinned. "Don't worry, it's not too hard. Hold still and close your eyes."

Jaune did as he was told. Ruby reached up, resting her right hand on Jaune's shoulder, while she rested the palm of her left against his chestplate. She knew what she needed to do, but she was still a ways from being able to unlock a person's Aura by tapping them on the nose, as Sasame had done with her. Instead, she focused a small amount of her Aura into the palm of her left hand and, very gently, yet somewhat forcefully, Projected it into Jaune. Her Aura pulsed into him and impacted against the latent power of Jaune's own soul. There was a popping sensation, and Ruby felt Jaune's Aura open up and flow outwards to suffuse his body. She gasped.

He has so much! Ruby had spent six years of constant training nurturing and cultivating her Aura, increasing her capacity constantly. But Jaune's Aura dwarfed hers by a considerable margin. In the Mibu, Ruby had found that other students her own age had larger Aura reserves, as would be natural, considering they had additional years working on the same exercises Ruby had been practicing. But Jaune's Aura dwarfed theirs as well. In fact, she was fairly certain that only the elites of the clan, amongst the Goyosei and Taishiro, as well as Sasame and Kyo, had more Aura than Jaune did. And I only just unlocked his...What was his family thinking? This is incredible!

"Uh...Ruby...?" Jaune looked down at her slightly. He'd felt something pulse through him, and then had felt something within him respond, a warm feeling that bordered on feverish, before quickly fading into normalcy. But Ruby hadn't moved, and remained with her hand gently pressed up against his chest.

Ruby looked up at Jaune. Her cheeks colored slightly and she hurriedly backed away. "Sorry," she squeaked, fidgeting a little. "I was just surprised."

"By what?" asked Jaune.

"I wasn't expecting you to have so much Aura," explained Ruby. "It's incredible!"

"Really?" asked Jaune skeptically, looking down at himself.

Ruby nodded. "If you have this much Aura already, I think you might be cut out for this after all."

"Thanks," said Jaune with a sigh.

"But the important thing is that you'll be a lot safer now," added Ruby. "With your Aura, you'll have some basic protection from attack. With that out of the way, we can keep going."

"Good idea," said Jaune. The two of them set off.

"A-are you sure this is the right way?" asked Pyrrha as they made their way through the darkness.

"O-of course," replied Weiss, her own voice just as shaky, despite her own efforts to maintain a confident face. "I mean...it looks like a dingy cave, but it has old carvings at the entrance. Besides, Professor Ozpin told us to find a ruined temple. If this doesn't qualify as 'ruined,' I don't know what does."

Pyrrha bit back her response that Ozpin had told them to look for an "abandoned" temple, not a ruined one. Though she imagined that it was one and the same really. Furthermore, this certainly didn't seem to be any kind of temple.

What Weiss had described as "old carvings" had looked more like paintings to Pyrrha, cave paintings left behind by some ancient civilization, showing a crude tableau of stick figures being menaced by a dark, scorpion-like shape. Nothing about those struck Pyrrha as indicators that they'd actually found their destination, but Weiss seemed sure of herself.

In truth, Weiss wasn't all that sure of herself. However, she couldn't back down now. She had succeeded in partnering with the Pyrrha Nikos, without question, the strongest student in their year. Between Pyrrha's brawn and Weiss' brains, Weiss was certain that the two of them would be the best pair of their school year, outclassing all the others (not that Pyrrha was some kind of boneheaded brute, but Weiss had been the recipient of a first-class education from her earliest days). With the two of them partnered together, there was no obstacle they couldn't overcome. More to the point, Weiss couldn't let Pyrrha think they were lost...not that Weiss actually believed that they were.

They pressed on, gentle flames lining the blade of Weiss' rapier, like a slender torch as she swept it ahead of her. Maybe it was a bit wasteful to use her Dust this way, but Weiss figured it was better than stumbling around in pitch-blackness.

Unfortunately, the cave was not the most suitable of environments for maintaining a lit flame. Water dripped from the ceiling constantly, spattering across Weiss' jacket and getting in her hair, making her grimace in disgust. Worse still, it continually splattered with a hiss of steam against her flaming blade, threatening to extinguish it.

Then...somewhere from deeper within the cave, a gust of warm air came rushing up, its occurrence so sudden that Weiss didn't react in time. The sudden wind snuffed out her flames in a second, plunging the two of them into the dark.

"Uh..." said Pyrrha, looking worriedly at the solid black where she knew Weiss was.

"D-don't worry," said Weiss quickly. "I have plenty of Dust. I'll just-" She triggered her weapon, sending another burst of flame washing down Myrtenaster's blade...only for it to go out almost immediately as she realized that she'd finished off the Dust in her weapon's chamber. "Drat!"

"Um..." Pyrrha swallowed, feeling less and less sure about their situation.

"Don't worry," said Weiss quickly. "It'll be fine. I just have to reload. It'll only take a few seconds." She reached into her jacket, feeling for the pouch where she kept her vials of replacement Dust. As her fingers closed around one, she realized she had no way of telling which type of Dust she was currently holding. For all she knew, she was loading up her weapon with a vial of ice or water-Dust. Dammit! I should have prepared for the possibility of not being able to see what I was doing.

"Weiss..." said Pyrrha, her voice still nervous.

"I-it's all right," said Weiss quickly. "I'll get this taken care of."

"No...Weiss..." Pyrrha reached out, a little uncertainly, for where she thought Weiss' shoulder was. It took a few tries, but her hand finally closed over her target. "Look."

It was kind of pointless, given that Weiss couldn't have seen Pyrrha well enough to know what she was pointing at. However, Pyrrha's hand and voice had gotten Weiss' attention, and she turned her eyes up and in front of her...and gasped.

There was a light in the darkness.

It was like some kind of golden lamp, seeming to hang in the midst of a background of pitch-black, throwing off just enough illumination to be seen, but not enough that they could see the walls and ceiling of the cave around it. It was a rounded, bulb-shape, but inverted so that the broadest portion was facing upwards, before tapering down to a fine point that curved in their direction, somewhat reminiscent of a distorted, upside-down teardrop. There was something about it that was vaguely familiar, but Weiss couldn't figure out what.

"That must be the relic!" Weiss exclaimed, her inability to reload her weapon with the proper kind of Dust winding up forgotten, with the prospect of their success hanging right in front of them. She immediately began to stumble towards it as Pyrrha followed after her.

"Weiss! Hold on..."

"Don't worry, Pyrrha, I can reach it," Weiss called back. Then we can get out of this damn cave. Coming within arm's reach, she extended her free hand out to touch the glowing object...only for it to suddenly jerk back out of her reach. What?

Weiss frowned and stepped forward, reaching for the object again. Yet again, it jerked out of her reach.

"Weiss...I don't think that's a relic," said Pyrrha, her voice much more nervous.

Weiss was about to turn and ask what Pyrrha meant, when the light pulled back even further, rising upwards as well. Other sounds emerged from the darkness, sinister skittering and clicking noises. Weiss felt a cold sweat break out across her forehead. Suddenly, the golden bulb wasn't the only light in the darkness, a pair of widely-spaced orbs of a familiar red color appearing in front of her. They were joined by another pair, a little smaller and closer together...then another...and another...continuing on until a set of ten eyes, glowing red with ancient malice, glared at the girls out of the darkness.

"Oh..." was all that Weiss could squeak.

The eyes lunged forward with a vengeful shriek, and both girls screamed.

Their screams carried deeper into the cave, echoing through the darkness. Deeper within the cave, another set of glowing red eyes opened...and something even more sinister began to stir.