Chapter 7: Players and Pieces
Before Ruby and Weiss fell from the sky, they were riding on a giant Nevermore. For the record, it was completely Ruby's idea that Weiss got dragged along with against her will.
"Ruby! I told you this was a bad idea!" Weiss shouted at the top of her lungs, doubting her partner could hear her at this incredible height.
"We're fine!! Stop worrying!"
"Oh, I am so beyond worrying!"
Ruby paused for a moment, comprehending those words, before responding. "In a good way?!"
"In a bad way! In a very bad way!"
"Well, why don't we just jump?!"
"What are you, insane!?"
Weiss didn't get a response. Instead, she saw Ruby fly past her and down. Not wanting to be left behind at the mercy of a giant flying Grimm, that too a Nevermore, Weiss instinctively let go of its feathers and freefell with Ruby.
Fortunately for them, Jaune, for all his uselessness, had managed to save them.
He was still on his flight path from the Deathstalker's tail, and conveniently managed to crash right into the girls at the perfect moment. A loud grunt was formed from the combination of the grunts of all three, and they flew right into a nearby tree, sprawled all over the wood and leaves.
Weiss was the first to get up and she immediately jabbed a finger at Ruby as she coughed and rubbed the back of her aching head. "You are truly unbelievable, you know?"
Ruby got up and cradled her head. "It was Jaune who screwed up our epic landing, though."
"Yeah, before it could even happen, right?!"
"Right!"
Weiss rolled her eyes and looked at Jaune, who had ended up hanging upside down from the treetop. He still hadn't recovered from his truly traumatic experience.
"Ruby!"
Ruby looked down to see Yang calling out to her.
"Hey, Yang!" she called back to her, waving and grinning nonchalantly.
"Never a dull moment with you around, huh? But seriously, from the sky this time?"
Weiss looked back and forth between the sisters, horrified. "Does she do these kind of reckless stunts all the time?"
Yang let out a nervous laugh as she replied. "Well, this kind of crazy stuff, yes, but this is the first time she's fallen out of the friggin' sky."
"You see, we came across a massive Nevermore in the forest. So, it only made sense to hitch a ride!" Ruby exclaimed, spouting those words as if they were common sense.
Weiss chided her even more angrily. "'Hitch a ride'!? We were nearly devoured by that thing!"
"But we found this place, didn't we?"
"By accident!"
Yang whistled as she heard this banter. "Sounds like you two had quite the fun."
"I know, right!?" exclaimed Ruby, filled with excitement and unfazed by the danger they had been in.
"I know, right?" said Weiss, imitating Ruby and feigning an excited expression.
Suddenly, trees to the far right of Blake and Yang began falling down as an Ursa appeared from the shadows. It roared in pain before being struck by something powerful in its back and dropping dead. Nora rolled off its back, shouting "Yeehaw!"
"Aww…it's broken…" she said, scanning the Grimm she just used to ride her way to the temple ruins.
Ren appeared from behind the corpse, panting, probably from the heart attack from all that panic. Or she had just left him to run all the way. "Nora. Please…don't ever do that again."
Nora had already rushed off to the ruins and had already picked out a 'relic': A White Rook piece. "I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the castle…" she chanted as she toyed with the piece.
"NORA! Did you hear what I just said?" Ren called.
"Yep! Totally did!" she replied, giggling gleefully. Ren sighed as he made his way to his partner.
"Did that girl just ride in on an Ursa…?" Blake asked, nearly dumbfounded.
"Yeahhhh…" Yang trailed off, equally dumbfounded.
Trees began collapsing again as Pyrrha emerged from the shadows, with the Deathstalker on her tail. She dodged a swing from one of its pincers and called out for her partner. "JAUNE!" she shouted. It was loud enough to wake him out of his trance.
"Pyrrha!" he shouted back, struggling to get out of his upside-down prison of leaves.
Weiss was just giving off 'are you serious?' expressions everywhere at this point. Ruby suddenly shot up, looking directly at the newly-arrived Deathstalker. "Woah!" she said, admiring the Grimm.
'Seriously, what is wrong with this girl?' Weiss asked herself. Before she knew it, Ruby had leaped down from the treetop, wanting to face the Deathstalker. Weiss followed after her, not wanting to be left alone with Jaune.
Pyrrha was ultimately smacked by the Deathstalker, sending her crashing right in front of the gathered pairs of students.
Yang's fuse finally snapped, and her sarcasm spilled out. "Great! The gang's all here! Now we can die together!"
Unfortunately, Ruby was oblivious to sarcasm and gave a bold reply. "Not if I can help it!" she said, charging straight for the Deathstalker. "RUBY NO WAIT COME BACK!" Yang called after her, but Ruby was determined.
Ruby propelled forward with a shot from the fully extended Crescent Rose and attempted to slice at it with the most basic scythe move. The Deathstalker simply intercepted it with the bone armor on its pincers, causing Ruby to fall back in recoil. "D-don't worry!" she said, nervously laughing as she got herself up. "To-totally fine!"
She glanced behind her and saw the menacing eyes of the Deathstalker. She quickly propelled away by firing at it and sprinted away from it with all her might. She was clearly sobbing, probably filled with soul-crushing regret for her decision.
The giant Nevermore circled back and was now directly above the Deathstalker. Yang saw this and charged towards her sister. "RUBY!" she called, running with all she could muster. The Nevermore stopped its flight and flapped its wings together with strength, launching feathers off its wings at high velocities. The feathers struck the ground from the bone end one after the other behind Ruby, quickly catching up to her, until one of them struck down on her cape, stopping her in her tracks and from being impaled by a feather that landed in front of her. The feathers continued piercing the ground in front of her in line, even reaching till Yang, who was forced to get down to avoid being struck by the feathers.
"Ruby, get out of there!" she called, steadying herself up on the large feathers.
"I'm trying!" Ruby shouted back, tugging at her cape, trying to free it from the feather that pierced it. She then saw the Deathstalker approach and poise its tail to strike her, her eyes widening with fear.
"RUBY!" Yang called helplessly, before catching a white figure sliding past her at great speed towards her sister.
Ruby closed her eyes as the stinger rapidly approached her, only catching a momentary glimpse of the sheets of white that formed a barrier around her against the strike of the Deathstalker.
"You are so childish." rebuked a familiar voice with a familiar tone. Ruby opened her eyes to see Weiss kneeling down in front of her, her back turned to Ruby, her rapier driven into the ground and a large glyph underneath fading away after forming a large barrier of ice that stopped the bright yellow stinger just short of Ruby's face.
"And dimwitted, and hyperactive," she continued, standing up and turning to Ruby, "and don't even get me started on your fighting style. And I suppose…" she said, turning her eyes away as Ruby looked at her, "…I can be a bit…difficult." she said, rolling her eyes.
"But if we're going to do this, we're going to have to do it together." She said, bending forward and extending her hand out. "We're partners, aren't we? So stop trying to show off, and I'll be…nicer." she said, with less of a sour face and more a decent one.
Ruby took her hand and got up. "I'm not showing off…I just want you to know I'm not some kid and that I can do this."
Weiss sighed, rolling her pale blue eyes, before looking at Ruby in her silver eyes. "You're fine, Ruby." she said, before walking off.
"Thanks, Weiss." Ruby called after her, relieved. She closed her eyes and took a few breaths, calming herself down. When she opened them, she walked to the side of the ice barrier and was awestruck at the sight of the giant Deathstalker, struggling as it tried to pull its tail out.
As Ruby turned around, she only caught a glimpse of yellow hair as she was given the toughest bear hug yet. "I'm so glad you're okay! What the hell were you thinking!?" Yang said as she held her sister close.
"Haha, sorry sis…got a little carried away." Ruby responded, breaking free of her sister's grip. The two then looked up as the Nevermore squawked from up high. It was returning for round two.
"Guys…" Jaune called out to everyone. "That thing's circling back." he said nervously, pointing at the Nevermore. "What are we going to do?"
Weiss walked up to them and took over. "Look, there's no point in dilly-dallying. Our objective's right in front of us." She nodded at the chess pieces.
"She's right." Ruby approached the rest of the group with Yang. "Our mission was to grab a relic and return to the cliffs, so there's no point in fighting these things." As she said this, she smiled as Weiss nodded and smiled at her in satisfaction.
"Run and live. That's an idea I can get behind." said Jaune, feeling relieved.
Ruby and Jaune grabbed a relic each - the second White Knight and White Rook pieces respectively - and nodded at each other. The ice holding the Deathstalker in place began cracking.
"About time we left." said Ren, noticing this.
"Right. Let's go!" replied Ruby, gesturing everyone to follow her as she ran. As everyone departed, Yang was the only still standing, smiling at the thought of her socially awkward little sister leading the group. As an older sister, nothing right then could have made her feel prouder.
Blake stopped next to her. "What is it?"
"Nothing…" Yang replied, broken out of her trance but still smiling. She ran along and Blake smirked as she followed after her, somewhat understanding what she was feeling.
After what felt like fifteen minutes of continuous movement, the group finally broke out of a thicket of trees to find a clearing with a grassy path going slightly uphill with large stone colonnades and stone paths on top of them on either side. Many of the stone columns were broken, and there were ruins of structures here and there.
"Seems like this is the cliff we're looking for." Blake said, looking at a tall cliff with a tall stone tower standing before it. Although the tower was much shorter, from the group's angle, it appeared as though it was the same height as the cliff. As the group got further uphill, the path flattened and revealed a circular stone platform with two stone pillars on the furthest end that acted as a gate to a long stone bridge that connected to the stone tower, which was actually standing on the roof of a ring of stone colonnades surrounding a large, circular stone platform that rose from deep within a canyon in between the group's cliff and their target cliff. The canyon seemed so deep, there was mist covering what lay under the stone structures. The central tower structure had a multitude of stone paths leading to different locations, some at the same height as the one the group of students were heading for, some higher.
The Nevermore from earlier came into view up in the sky, causing the group to take cover on two different sides behind the colonnades in pairs. Jaune and Pyrrha and Ruby and Yang were at the front, while Weiss and Blake and Ren and Nora were hiding in the rear.
The Nevermore circled around the stone structures and perched atop the tower, before giving off a loud screech and fully extending its large shadowy black wings, as if challenging the Hunters-in-training.
"Well, isn't that great?!" exclaimed Yang, highly irritated by the Grimm's reappearance.
From behind them, trees collapsed as the Deathstalker also made a reappearance, charging straight at the students.
"As if it couldn't get any worse!" remarked Weiss.
"Oh man, RUN!" called Jaune. He and Pyrrha charged out of their cover towards the stone path, with Ruby and Yang following suit.
The Nevermore screeched again, launching off its perch, diving towards the group.
"Nora, distract it!" called Ren, as he moved ahead. Nora listened and rushed out to the side, dodging a volley of feathers, before pulling out her weapon, which was now in the form of a grenade-launcher, and firing several grenades at the flying Grimm. One of these grenades landed right on the Grimm's bone-covered face, releasing a momentary burst of pink. It recoiled from the blast and flew away. Nora laughed like a madman (or madwoman?) as the Grimm escaped the crossfire in fear.
The Deathstalker rapidly approached her from behind and attempted to strike her with its pincers. Before it could, Ren and Blake appeared from the side and slashed at its pincers, releasing a supporting force as their weapons glimmered in colors of Aura. Weiss jumped in next to Nora and pulled her along as she launched off with another one of her white glyphs. Blake and Ren retreated with the rest of the group, too.
As Jaune and Pyrrha arrived at the stone path, Pyrrha turned to see the Deathstalker still hot on their tail.
"Go, go!" she said, beckoning the rest forward as she set her right knee down, pulling off her shield onto her left and her javelin into her right, transforming it into a gun and aiming it straight at the Deathstalker. Ren stopped next to her and the two fired away at the Deathstalker's bony cover, retreating along with the last one through, Blake, as the Grimm swiped at them with its pincers. It remained there, continuing to swipe, unable to continue forward on the relatively narrow stone pathway.
As the group charged forward, the Nevermore circled back and was charging straight at their footing. The Nevermore broke through, causing the group to split as their footing was left in two separate sections. Jaune, Nora, Ruby, Yang and Weiss rushed forward, and as Ruby, Yang and Weiss took aim at the Nevermore, Jaune lifted himself up and saw Blake, Ren, and Pyrrha on the other side of the path, facing the Deathstalker, pretty clearly at a disadvantage.
"We gotta get over there and help them!" he told Nora, the two of them standing near the edge of the path.
"Alright, let's do this!" she said, aiming her launcher at the Deathstalker.
"Yeah, but, uh…" Jaune started. Nora looked at him. "I don't have a gun, and I can't make that jump…" he looked down nervously at the misty canyon below.
Nora gave a mischievous grin before smacking her gun into Jaune, sending him falling behind her. She then transformed her weapon into its hammer form and charged forward, jumping and turning around, lifting her hammer to strike the path.
Jaune saw this a tad bit too late. "No wai-" he started, but before he could finish, Nora slammed her hammer into the platform, probably firing a grenade at the same time for extra force, which broke off a part of the path and sent Jaune flying to the other side, wailing. Nora then flipped her hammer to have the barrel face the crumbling ruins of the path, set her feet on the hammer's extensions, put her hand extended at her forehead as if looking into the distance, and gave a crazy grin as she pressed the trigger, launching her off to the other side as well. "Wheee!!"
Ren flipped backwards, dodging another strike from the Deathstalker, before he saw Jaune flying over Blake, to his right. He then heard Nora behind him and smirked.
"Ahhhhhh, SMASH!" Nora shouted as she landed in front of the trio and slammed her hammer into the Grimm's bone-covered head. The Grimm was only pushed down, causing a small break in the platform, as it poised its stinger at Nora. Nora saw this and exploded another grenade, pushing her back and dodging the stinger. She slid backwards and slammed into Blake, who was pushed off the path.
"Sorry!" Nora called after her.
Blake spun in her freefall before coming to her senses and seeing the Nevermore flying overhead, explosions bouncing off of it. She then extended the ribbon wrapped around her arm and morphed her black katana into its gun mode, a part of the folded blade still jutting out of the pistol. She then threw and fired it simultaneously, sending it spinning into the air before digging into the side of a nearby path. Blake swung on the trajectory she made for herself, passing through the columns holding the path up as she approached the beak of the Nevermore, which was flying straight in her path. Her weapon returned before she could land, but she activated her Semblance and launched herself further with a push that came from creating a shadow clone of herself. The shadow dissipated as she hovered over the Nevermore's face, hacking away at the bones on it with her weapon, extended into its katana form, and its sheath. On her last strike, she rose above it and pushed herself onto it with another shadow, landing on its head. She rolled forward after striking it and ran down its back, slashing at every opportunity, before arriving at its tail and pushing off, landing on a broken stone wall next to the open roof-base of the stone tower. There, she reunited with Yang, who stood alongside Ruby and Weiss on the wall, watching as the Nevermore circled back.
"It's tougher than it looks!" she informed the three.
"Then let's hit it with everything we've got!" Yang said.
The four ladies stood along the irregular and broken ruins of the stone wall, watching the Nevermore rush towards them.
Ruby glanced at the three girls to her left before extending Crescent Rose into a scythe and cocking the gun and reloading. At the same time, Blake cocked back her weapon in its gun mode, Yang readied her gauntlets to fire, while Weiss spun the Dust chamber in Myrtenaster, locking onto a cyan-colored slot of Dust. The ladies fired in unison.
Weiss spun around on her spot, releasing a harmless wave of cyan energy that followed her blade, before producing several small cyan glyphs in front of her and launching them as projectiles. Yang punched the air, firing explosive ammunition at the Grimm. At the same time, Blake and Ruby fired rounds of bullets at the Grimm, striking wherever they could.
The Nevermore took all of these shots head-on, unfazed, and continued its flight. The four jumped just as it crashed through the colonnades supporting the tower. As the broken structure fell down into the canyon, they each climbed up, rubble to rubble, using their own methods of moving up; Weiss with her white push-off glyphs, Ruby with Crescent Rose's firing propulsion, Yang with her shot-gauntlets' explosive propulsion, while Blake ran up a pillar before pushing off with her shadows and swinging to a path.
Yang was the first one to acquire steady footing, landing on one of the stone pathways. As soon as she did, she hurried to one of the two pillars left standing. Ruby and Weiss rose up next, with Ruby landing smoothly and Weiss flipping overhead before setting foot. Weiss scoffed, irritated, and turned to the Nevermore. "None of this is working!" she complained.
Ruby looked away to see Blake swing onto a stone pathway nearby, and then turned her sight to what was ahead of her, seeing Yang shadowboxing as she continued firing away at the Nevermore. An idea popped in her head.
"I have an idea! Cover me!" she told Weiss, before propelling herself towards Blake. Weiss rushed forward to assist Yang.
Meanwhile, Jaune, Pyrrha, Ren and Nora faced the Deathstalker on the broken stone path. It drove its stinger into their side of the path, creating cracks along it that began to break it apart.
"We gotta move!" Jaune called, drawing his sword, and everyone charged at the Grimm.
Pyrrha rushed forward, blocking a strike from its pincers with her shield, before cutting away at the exposed, black underside of its pincers. The Grimm recoiled in pain for a moment before attempting to strike again with its other pincer, but this time Jaune intercepted with his shield, allowing Pyrrha to jump over him and strike the other pincer. As the two broke formation, Ren charged forward, firing rounds at its face. He dodged the thrust of its stinger and latched onto it, being pulled back along with it. He regained his balance and fired rounds at point-blank range at the base of the stinger, where it connected to the tail, cutting it occasionally.
Jaune and Pyrrha continued striking at the Grimm. Nora aimed her grenade launcher at its face and fired. As the Grimm saw this, it covered itself with its pincers, pushing Jaune and Pyrrha back, as they intercepted with their shields, before they could get caught in the crossfire of the pink burst. As it recoiled its pincers in pain, Pyrrha readied her javelin and launched it with a loud grunt, pulling its trigger at the same time, allowing it to rapidly pierce one of the Deathstalker's left eyes after it passed through the gaps in its pincers. Its recoil of pain caused Ren to be flung off its tail, although the damage had been done to it already.
"REN!" Nora called with concern as he was slammed into a nearby stone wall with a grunt.
As Jaune stood up, his eyes caught a sight of hope; its stinger was hanging thin on the tail. "Pyrrha!" Jaune called, gesturing at the tail.
"Done!" she said, reading his mind as she threw her shield like a deadly discus at the tail, cutting of the stinger, causing it to pierce the Grimm's bone. The shield bounced off a pillar and was somehow able to return to Pyrrha's hands, even though it wasn't exactly on that trajectory.
More importantly, Jaune turned to Nora. "Nora, nail!"
Nora understood and charged forward. "Heads up!" she said, causing Pyrrha to rush ahead and turn around, her shield braced in front of her face. Nora jumped onto it, carrying an excited smile as she sat on the handle of her hammer, fingers on trigger. Pyrrha mustered her strength and concentrated her Aura into her legs. After a brief moment of building up power, she launched herself off the ground. Simultaneously, Nora pressed the trigger, pushing Pyrrha down and her higher up into the air.
Nora giggled before spinning back to the ground. As she did, she lifted her hammer again and propelled herself, this time spinning forward with her hammer poised to strike. She landed her hammer, along with the momentum that brought it down, right on the stinger that pierced the Deathstalker's head, causing the stinger to drive right into its head, breaking the pathway in the process. Jaune wailed as he and Pyrrha were launched off their footing from the sheer force of that strike onto the grass and stone platform ahead. Pyrrha retrieved her javelin, which was hovering over the Grimm, just as the two passed over its head. Nora balanced on her hammer momentarily, before propelling herself again with another grenade and landing alongside her fellow students. Jaune crashed onto the stone floor, sprawled all over, Nora landed seated on it after spinning a few times, while Pyrrha managed to stick a perfect landing with her right knee and arm on the ground, just as Ren walked up to them, clutching his side, panting, before sprawling on the floor himself.
Pyrrha, Jaune and Nora stood up as they heard the Nevermore's screech, turning to the other battle that was taking place before them to see Yang, perched atop one of the two pillars left standing after its crash, continuously firing off explosives after explosives at the Nevermore, seemingly keeping it at bay, until she landed one straight at its face. She reloaded, returning to her battle-ready stance with the Ursai earlier, as the Nevermore circled around and came charging straight at her, its beak wide open.
This time, she jumped right at it, landing in its open beak and holding it open with her legs and left arm, while she fired rounds down its throat. "I! Hope! You're! Hung-ry!" she told it, feeding it explosives continuously in a very annoyed manner.
She turned around to see the cliffside approaching rapidly and leaped off its beak, spinning once before landing on her knee on a stone path below, as the Nevermore crashed head-first into the cliffside, sliding down onto the large elevated stone structure standing several meters above the path and leading into a tunnel, clutching its head and screeching in pain. Yang looked up and smiled as she saw Blake standing atop the other unharmed pillar and Ruby standing on a shorter, broken one, her cloak flowing in the wind, while Weiss was sliding down the path towards the Grimm. Yang launched off towards Ruby and Blake just as Weiss slid past her.
Weiss launched herself to the Grimm just as it was preparing to fly away. Before it could raise its body entirely, Weiss locked in a blue slot of Dust and activated a similarly-colored glyph under the Nevermore's tail, which was still in contact with the stone. A cluster of ice shot up from the ground, catching the Grimm's tail in place, locking it in its location. Weiss flipped backwards onto a push-off glyph and launched herself back to her allies.
Once Yang had arrived to where Ruby and Blake were, Blake launched her weapon, connected to a black ribbon, to the other pillar, which Yang grabbed and pierced into the stone, creating a long black rope between the two pillars as the two pulled at the ribbon. Once it was formed, Ruby, who stood waiting between the Nevermore and the rope, launched herself off the floor, turning around and setting proper footing on Crescent Rose's blade and frame midair, landing on the rope and stretching it back while facing the Nevermore. Weiss, who was now standing behind her, activated a white glyph, which was transformed into a black glyph with a twist of her fingers and pulled at Ruby and held her in place like a slingshot pulled back.
"Of course you would come up with a plan like this." she remarked at Ruby, standing to her right and her eyes unmoving from their giant winged target.
"Think you can make the shot?" Ruby asked, crouched down on the footing she had on Crescent Rose, her fingers set on the trigger.
"Hmph. Can I?" replied Weiss, smirking at her sarcasm.
Although, characteristic of Ruby, she didn't get the sarcasm. She gave Weiss a confused look. "Can-"
"Of course I can!" Weiss cut in, looking at Ruby with irritation.
Ruby turned her eyes back to the struggling Nevermore and reloaded, her body pumping with adrenaline from the excitement and danger of her new stunt. "Let's do it."
Weiss rotated Myrtenaster's Dust chamber and focused for a moment, causing the glyph to change to red in color. She then spun around with energy flowing out of the blade like before as she, through the glyph, launched Ruby off. At the same time, Ruby fired and tapped into her Semblance. The combined force and the recoil caused the stone behind them to erupt and sent Ruby flying at incredible speed, as well as leaving a large trail of red rose petals in its wake.
Ruby continued propelling with recoil as she closed in on the Nevermore, who finally broke free of the ice holding it down. Before it could fly away, Crescent Rose clipped its throat and pulled its head along with its entire body into the cliffside. It struggled against the weight of the weapon leaning on its neck.
Just as Ruby landed, the rose-red Aura around her feet shimmered, and a white glyph formed under them. As Weiss mustered all her stamina, a long line of white glyphs formed in front of Ruby, leading up to the top of the cliff.
Ruby roared as she fired at every opportunity and brought out every last bit of her Semblance, charging up the side of the cliff at incredible speed, sticking to it with the row of glyphs laid out in front, while pulling the giant body of the Nevermore along with her, her scythe miraculously handling the burden, and leaving large trails in the rock on the cliffside, a torrent of rose petals following after her red cloak in the wake of her Semblance.
As she arrived at the edge of the cliff, she charged straight up and lost her footing, hovering upside down for a moment while gripping Crescent Rose and seeing it dug deep into the Nevermore's throat, and within a split second she slammed the trigger again with her thumb, this time allowing the scythe to cut right through its tough neck and send her flying overhead from recoil.
As the Nevermore's large head came off clean and tumbled its way back down the cliff with the rest of its body sliding down slowly into the misty canyon, Ruby spun in the air before landing on one knee, her scythe laid out horizontally over her back, the blade planted into the grass. Red rose petals flew around her in the wind.
The seven other students down below stood in awe as they bore witness to probably one of the most savage Nevermore kills ever. Weiss had barely managed to watch Ruby carry it up the cliff as she panted from all the energy it took for her to create that many glyphs at once.
"Wow…" was all Jaune could say in reaction to the battle that took place before him, while the other three next to him all stared in awe.
"Well. That was a thing." Yang commented, cheery as ever, as she and Blake came up next to Weiss, who gazed up at Ruby and the rose petals spinning away near her, remarking the strategic genius of her plan. Weiss felt a tad bit more respect towards Ruby after witnessing her come up with and execute it perfectly.
Ruby, on the other hand, seemed to have shaken off her achievement as if it was nothing, and walked up to the edge of the cliff, holding out her scythe as she waved down with her regular bright smile. She then curved her hands in front of her mouth, seemingly shouting something out.
"How are you guys gonna get up here now!!??"
That evening, crowds applauded and cheered as teams were officially formed in the amphitheater.
"Cardin Winchester. Russel Thrush. Dove Bronzewing. Sky Lark." Headmaster Ozpin said, calling out four young men who had participated in the Beacon Initiation, including the guy who was posing like a gorilla earlier. "The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward, you will work as Team Cardinal." The letters CRDL formed on the screen, the first letters of their names, forming the official team name. "Led by…Cardin Winchester."
Gorilla boy led the young men off the stage as Ozpin called out another group of students. "Jaune Arc. Nora Valkyrie. Pyrrha Nikos. Lie Ren. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as…Team Juniper." The letters JNPR formed on the screen, signifying their bond as team. "Led by…Jaune Arc."
Jaune was caught in utter surprise as he heard his name from the headmaster's mouth. "M-me!?"
"Yes, you." Ozpin replied.
"Good for you, Jaune!" Pyrrha said happily, smacking his shoulder, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the floor.
Regardless, they exited the stage brimming with positivity as Ozpin called up the final team. "Ruby Rose. Weiss Schnee. Blake Belladonna. Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces." He looked at each one of them in the eye. Ruby was wearing a casual smile while being easily distracted, her eyes moving all over the place. Weiss wore a serious face, Blake wore her usual poker, and Yang was grinning cheerfully. "From this day onwards, the four of you will work together as Team Ruby." The letters RWBY formed on the hologram screen above, knitting the four girls together for eternity. "Led by…Ruby Rose."
Weiss was caught off-guard by this, expressing some surprise as she turned her head to look at her new team leader, who was as surprised as she was but gave a nervous smile instead. Yang suddenly leaped in at incredible speed and hugged Ruby tight.
"I'm so proud of you, my marvelous little sister!" she exclaimed, holding her tightly. Weiss could not deny that it was adorable, but she was frustrated. A single question resonated in her mind; Why?
'Why was someone as irresponsible and immature as Ruby chosen to be leader? Why wasn't I chosen, with all my remarkable qualities to offer? This can't be fair - is the Headmaster being biased? She even got to skip two years...there's no way this is fair!' These thoughts circled Weiss's mind and only amplified with nothing to break the chain. She was incredibly close to lashing out right then and there.
'No. Get a hold of yourself. This is no place or time to be complaining or demanding better.' she scolded herself, repressing her doubts and frustrations deep inside her.
Ozpin chuckled at the sight of the sisters. "Looks like things are shaping up to be an…interesting year."
Meanwhile, in a warehouse on one of the many ports in Valorie…
Roman Torchwick groaned as he listened to radio chatter, slamming the radio down, setting his arms down on a desk, standing in front of a large map of Valorie stuck to the wall. As he lighted a cigar, a man wearing a white buttoned vest with coattails, a black undershirt along with a cowl covering most of his head, metal forearm bracers, a thick black belt, black pants, and a grey mask covering most of his face with a design symbolic to that of a certain violent organization, pushed in a large tray holding containers.
Roman narrowed his eyes as he pulled out several cards of Lien, the currency of Remnant, and set them on the desk in front of the man. "Open it." he ordered, as the man took the cards. The man took a crowbar and opened one of the containers, revealing the glowing crystals of various colors within; Dust.
Roman picked up a sky-blue-colored crystal, analyzing it while within his thoughts. He then looked up and turned to the map behind him. The map displayed the neighborhoods and streets of Valorie at a much smaller size than real. It even displayed part of a small island to the far left, labeled as 'Patch'. There were many red markings; crosses, small circles, notes and titles, all of them written all over the map, communicating the locations of the residential districts, ports, police stations, the dumb police stations, the commercial, agricultural and industrial districts, and such information. It even showed the location of a popular forest, Forever Fall, labeled over the top section of the map. There was one larger red circle around a spot at the far right of the map, labeled in bold red as 'Beacon'. There was then another large red circle around a spot in the southeast that seemed on the outskirts of the city, labeled as 'Special Training Grounds'. Roman sighed as he came to a conclusion.
"We're gonna need more men."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone