Ruby Rose - Noon - The Emerald Forest - Vale

After their brief reintroduction the two newly designated partners had started moving again to try and find the ruins. Weiss had suggested that they travel alongside the river in search of it, as any settlement where people lived needed to be close to water to survive. So far they hadn't run into any more trouble past the initial pack of beowolves, just a random Creep and a tiny Nevermore, but there was no telling how dangerous this forest truly was and trying to set up shop any significant distance from a good water source was asking for trouble in a world with creatures like the grimm around.

Ruby couldn't be certain since she had interrupted the fight with the pack of Beowolves before the Weiss had gotten a chance to really show what she could do, but the white haired girl seemed skilled in her opinion.

Growing up Ruby had always been a geek for weapons and while she didn't freak out when she saw one that she liked anymore, she was still a big believer in the old saying 'the weapon makes the wielder'. Ruby had always felt like Crescent Rose was a reflection of herself. In rifle form it was small and unassuming but when it shifted into its scythe form there was no mistaking how dangerous the weapon truly was. She always treasured moments when someone saw it for the first time, the shocked faces of her classmates on the day when they got to show off the weapons they had made were some of her favorite memories of her time at Signal academy.

Yang's shotgun gauntlets, Ember Celica, were the same. Her older sister was gorgeous and anyone that saw her weapon in its unarmed form didn't give it any mind, sometimes they might even mistake it as some sort of jewelry. But once you got to know Yang you learned that past all the good looks and bright personality was a fiery temper that made her quick to throw the first punch and Ember Celica packed all the power she needed into it.

She felt like it held true no matter who you applied it to, a hunter or huntress' weapon reflected who they were. So when she had first seen Weiss' weapon she wondered how that old saying applied to the two of them? A rapier was a slender blade and one that, above all, required elegance, grace and poise to wield to maximum effectiveness. At first glance those qualities seemed to define the dignified looking heiress.

But Ruby had already seen some of the complexities in the weapon. In exchange for a typical guard that most rapiers had, this one had a revolver-like chamber instead. From what she could tell, each slot of the chamber was loaded with a different type of dust that she could cycle through by hitting the hammer and activate by pulling the trigger. She wasn't quite sure just what all the girl could do with the dust aside from simple things like throwing fire but she figures she would find out soon enough.

Despite being a simple weapon without any crazy surprises like mecha-shifting, the rapier may have more complexity to it than even her Crescent Rose. Ruby wondered if the person was the same?

"Well i...like...ace...fficult...to...nd."

Ruby snapped out of her musings as she could barely make out the distant sounds of someone speaking through the trees.

"Weiss did you hear that?" She asked her partner, who seemed a little startled at her breaking the silence. Other than the occasional communication about grimm, the two of them hadn't spoken much at all after their initial conversation. It had been a bit awkward for Ruby at first, but she figured that Weiss was just taking this seriously and Ruby decided to do the same and quickly let the discomfort go.

"No, I didn't. Was it a grimm?" Weiss questioned as her hand twitched towards her weapon. Ruby shook her head.

"It sounded like talking to me." Ruby said. Weiss raised an eyebrow, but nodded and walked closer.

"What did they say?" Weiss asked.

"I'm not sure. I could only really make out bits and pieces." Ruby gestured with her hand to their right and added, "I think it was somewhere in that direction, you want to go check it out?"

"I-"

Just as Weiss was about to speak a gust of wind whipped past them, ruffling their clothes and blowing around their hair followed by the horrible, loud screech of what could only be a grimm. Both girls had just managed to pull out their weapons when a black, feathered form of a giant Nevermore soared over their heads. Ruby was fully prepared for the creature to notice them and attack when another sound was heard.

"YEEE HAAAAW!"

Searching for the source of the sound, Ruby couldn't believe her eyes as she spotted an orange haired girl with some sort of black and white top and a pink skirt clinging to the back of the massive grimm. The girl let out several more cries of excitement as she and the black bird disappeared over the treetops in the exact direction she had heard the voice from.

"What-" Ruby tried to say but was also cut off as another person burst out of the forest, sprinting in the direction of the girl and the Nevermore. This time it was a boy wearing a green long-sleeved tailcoat with white pants and black hair with a single pink streak in it that matched his eye color. Ruby only had the time to acknowledge what he looked like before he too disappeared into the foliage.

Silence reigned over the two girls who remained in the clearing, both trying to comprehend what had just happened.

Ruby turned towards Weiss, who looked at her with an identical slack jawed expression. For several seconds they just stared at each other hoping that somehow their partner could explain what had just happened. It turned out, neither of them could.

Wordlessly they both ran in pursuit of a boy, a girl, and a giant bird.

Ruby Rose - Minutes Later - The Emerald Forest - Vale

Eventually they came across another clearing and stopped at its edge, this one containing the broken remains of some circular stone temple that Ruby could only hope was the location of the relics they were tasked to find. They weren't the only students there, however.

The boy in green they had been chasing after had already arrived and the girl he'd been chasing was still cheering loudly on the back of the giant Nevermore who was much higher up in the sky than earlier, circling above the clearing wildly in an attempt to get the girl off it's back.

Standing just in front of the temple were Blake and Yang, who were staring up at the girl and grimm in confusion, not noticing her's or Weiss' arrival.

Panting in exhaustion the boy trudged over to the temple and desperately tried to catch his breath.

"Did that girl just fly in on a Nevermore?" Blake asked incredulously. Yang looked like she wanted to say something, but before she got the chance she was interrupted.

"NORA!" The now recovered boy shouted. The tone of his voice somehow managed to sound exasperated, tired and endeared at the same time.

"Coming, Ren!" Nora, the girl riding on the back of a grimm for reasons she wasn't sure she wanted to know, responded. Then, with a laugh, she jumped off the Nevermore.

She pulled out a weapon and aimed it at the ground. Due to the distance Ruby couldn't tell what it was other than that it was some sort of firearm but whatever she had planned to do to stop her fall was thwarted by Jaune crashing into her in mid-air sending them hurtling into a tree.

'This is the most ridiculous series of events I have ever seen.' Ruby thought to herself. Then, as if hearing her thoughts and finding amusement in her naivety, the multi-time Mistral Tournament Champion, Pyrrha Nikos was chased into view by a Deathstalker the size of a large truck.

"What in the world is going on here?" Weiss questioned. Ruby wasn't sure if she was meant to answer that question but if she was she didn't know how.

"I don't know." Ruby answered. After some impressive successes at attempting to dodge while in a full sprint, Pyrrha got clipped in the side and sent sprawling onto the ground several feet forward. Seeing this, Ruby turned to her partner. "But we need to help her."

Weiss nodded and the two of them charged at the moss covered scorpion. She heard Yang call out her name as they passed but kept moving, activating her semblance she sped directly at it and then turned right sharply when it took a swipe at her. She stopped using her semblance for just long enough to take several shots at its side with Crescent Rose in its rifle form. The bullets bounced off of the white bone plating that covered a large portion of the grimms body, but it did turn towards her to try and attack again with a stab of its stinger.

Once again she sped off in a burst of rose petals and fired a round into it every few feet just to keep its attention. This grimm would be an annoying fight for her, its armor was strong enough that her bullets didn't do much of anything and it had the reflexes to force her to dodge when she charged at it even with her speed.

Fortunately for Ruby, Weiss had noticed that the Deathstalker had its focus off of herself and made her move once its back was turned. She attacked with a speed that surprised Ruby and thrust the length of her blade into the gaps in the plating near its hind legs.

The grimm gave out a high pitched shriek and attempted to turn and swing its heavy claw at her. For some reason it stopped mid-turn and its body started shaking in random spasms. Weiss retracted her sword and used the Deathstalkers inability to move to her advantage, cocking the hammer of the dust revolver portion of her blade twice and then pulling the trigger. Her rapier glowed a pale blue that Ruby identified as ice dust being activated.

"Ruby, the Nevermore!" Ruby heard Yang shout. Ruby looked over her shoulder and her heart jumped into her throat when she saw the avian grimm diving at her. Before it got close to the ground it flared out its wings, stopping all of its own momentum and firing out pitch black feathers down on her like a hail of knives.

Without hesitation Ruby activated her semblance and started running, but the knife-like feathers would cover such a large area when they struck the ground that even with her semblance she wasn't sure she could get out of the way in time. She heard several people cry out to her and one voice stood out among the rest.

"Ruby get down!"

Weiss' voice rang out loud and clear and without a second thought Ruby dove to the ground and curled in on herself to make as small a target as possible, it was her best chance of coming out unharmed either way.

The air around her grew cold and she heard a series of rhythmic thunks for a while until the sounds stopped. Finding the courage to open her eyes she saw a wall of ice had erected itself between her and the feathers. One of them looked like had it passed through the barrier of ice it would of pierced right through one of her legs and Ruby doubted her auras defense would have done anything to stop it. Where the wall stopped a long trail of frozen grass extended all the way to where Weiss had stabbed her blade into the ground.

After climbing to her feet all of the air was knocked out of her lungs as Yang crushed her in a hug.

"Ruby! I'm so glad you're ok. You are right? Nothing hit you?" Her sister questioned, voice heavy with relief. Ruby's heart sank at that sound and immediately started trying to placate her worries.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, see? Not a scratch." To her embarrassment, Yang actually looked her up and down searching for anything that would convince her otherwise. She was beyond thankful when Weiss, Blake, and Jaune all ran up to them, prompting Yang to free her from her grasp.

"That thing is circling back around. What are we gonna do?" Jaune said. A look to the sky showed that the Nevermore which had flown off after its previous attack and was now turning back to try and finish the job. The group's attention then turned to the Deathstalker who let out another shrieking sound, its legs, claws, and tail twitching rapidly as it gained more control over its actions.

"We need to complete our objective while we have time. I'm not sure how much longer my lightning dust is going to keep that thing stunned." Weiss said, looking to Ruby for confirmation. Ruby nodded.

"Right. The relics are here?" Ruby asked, looking to her elder sister.

"Yup. On pedestals in the temple." Yang confirmed. Ruby started running toward the decaying stone structure and heard the rest of the group follow behind her. Waiting at the entrance was Pyrrha, Nora, and the dark haired boy that Nora had called Ren.

Ruby moved past them and saw the pedestals which were positioned in a large semi-circle around the room and on top of the pedestals were a multitude of black and gold chess pieces. Walking over she picked up a gold knight piece. Jaune stopped next to her and picked up his own relic, a gold rook piece.

"We should leave." Ren stated to the group as she and Jaune exited the temple.

"Yeah, there's no point in fighting these things right now, we need to get back to the cliffs." Ruby agreed.

"Let's make it fast." Blake said as the Nevermore close in on their location.

And so, the eight potential Beacon Academy students fled the clearing with two deadly grimm in hot pursuit.

Not too long after my chapter five, I'm pretty happy with that. Another thing I'm pretty happy about is that this story hit 100 followers which I did not expect. Thanks a lot for following and thank you to all the favorites and especially the reviews. Everyone of them put a smile on my face. I would give you guys more in this authors note, but I finished this up after work and i'm nodding off just writing this. I hope you guys enjoy and if you don't, consider letting me know why. See you guys next update. Maybe next week. Maybe.