A month of classes passed before anything really started to become comfortable between the teammates of Team Pristine. Whilst a blond-haired boy named Jaune, a black-haired girl named Blake, a white-haired girl named Weiss, and the bubbly blonde-haired girl named Yang, whom Ruby still could not shake the feeling of familiarity from, started bonding together, the mood in the Pristine dorm room was... interesting.

Ren and Nora had known each other for a while back, and to Ruby, it seemed like both saw the other as the most important thing, if not the only thing they had left. Ren was incredibly calm, a stark contrast to Nora's extroverted personality. To all three other occupants of the room, the entire routine seemed forced from the girl, but they kept their mouths shut.

Pyrrha's dorm placement was now common knowledge around the school, and the first few week had been full of fans of all years making their way to their room, sometimes in the dead of night, in hopes of sparking a conversation or a friendship with the Amazonian Warrior.

Speaking of friendships, Pyrrha and Ruby were... not getting very far. As many people know, saying things and doing things are very different, and circumstances can often get in the way. Thus, the mood in the dorm was very tense, with Pyrrha struggling to remain compassionate and incompassionate at the same time as the team leader.

However, a month in, the first-year students went on their first off-campus adventure to a forest called Forever Fall. Their task was to collect Red Sap from the inner trees of the forest and bring their filled jars back to Professor Goodwitch, who would wait at the entrance to the forest. They were given a fair warning, however - the forest was filled with creatures of darkness, as well as Rapier Wasps, which were lethal insects who loved the Red Sap excreted by the trees.

Halfway through the project, however, the blonde haired boy that had annoyed Weiss shattered multiple jars of the sap, attracting hordes of Rapier Wasps. The feelings of fear and dismay spread quickly throughout the student population, serving as a beacon for the multitudes of Grimm in the forest.

Now, this wasn't a horrible problem, as Professor Goodwitch had come rushing into the forest to save the day, successfully subverting the population of Wasps, and, seeing her, the student population had been revitalized, and struck against the Grimm with renewed energy. They had started to head back to the Bullhead that had brought them to the forest, somehow managing to forget something very important... The Professor had redirected the entire horde of Rapier Wasps to the lone team of PRTN.

Now, Team Pristine was easily the most advanced class of its year, but hundreds of deadly Wasps, combined with dozens of Grimm, was a lethal combo. A grueling fight was unfolding for the quartet as the rest of the students were evacuating.

"Pyrrha, got any extra weapons?" Tori called as her rifle was proving very inefficient for the beasts. The redhead snorted as she shield bashed a Wasp before stabbing it with her spear.

"What do I look like, a walking arsenal?" She asked rhetorically. Tori thought for a second.

"Yep!" Smiling like a maniac.

"Well, I'm not. On your left." Pyrrha spoke calmly, spotting the stray Grimm out of the corner of her eye, who's head disappeared a second later.

"I already saw it."

"Sure you did." The mindless banter was commonplace between the two. Their conversations had been almost entirely limited to small talk about things like homework and classes.

On the other side of the clearing, Nora, an orange-haired pixie, was wildly swinging her hammer around, gleefully smashing anything unlucky enough to be in her way. She and Tori had hit it off immediately.

"Nora, on your six!" A call came out from her long-time companion, Lie Ren. Nora didn't even turn around, rather, she just swung her hammer back to smush the Rapier Wasp before bringing it around in an arc to decapitate another Beowolf.

On her side, the redhead Amazonian was surrounded by the bodies of Grimm. As she ended the life of yet another Boarbatusk, she could see the crowd finally thinning out. Smiling, she snuck a glance at the girl who had captured her thoughts for the past few weeks... only to see her sitting on the ground, bored, with at least as many Grimm corpses as Pyrrha had been struggling with decomposing around her body.

"Tori," Pyrrha yelled, preparing to shield-bash an Ursa running at her, "want to come help me out?" Tori smiled and stretched her arms as if she had been leisurely napping instead of destroying soulless monsters. She shifted her rifle to scythe form, knelt down, and popped out the blade and slapped the shaft onto her back, now holding a wickedly sharp, three foot long blade.

In an instant, Tori was halfway across the clearing... when she tripped. Grunting, she coughed up a bit of blood. In surprise, Pyrrha dropped her guard to look over at her teammate - and was promptly slammed into by an Ursa. She flew in the air for about twenty feet, but managed to land on her feet. When she looked up again, Tori was now standing up, but definitely not prepared for the same Ursa that had run into Pyrrha, which was now running at her.

Reacting on pure emotion, Pyrrha threw her spear, scoring a perfect strike through both eyes of the beast. She quickly summoned her spear back to her to impale two Rapier Wasps who were flying up behind her, making a sickening squelching noise. Meanwhile, Tori grimaced as she sat up, smiled a half-smile at Pyrrha, and got back to her feet just in time to stab a Creep who had come bounding up beside her through the chest.

Back with Nora and Ren, they managed to subdue a particularly large Ursa who had seemed to be the leader of the pack. All around them, Grimm bodies were deteriorating. Pyrrha sprinted over to Tori and helped steady her.

"What was that?" Pyrrha asked, although it was more like yelled.

"Used too much *cough* aura." Tori replied. "I'll be fine *cough* in a few hours."

'A few hours?' Thought Pyrrha. 'I don't know if they are any of these Grimm left, but if there are, we don't have a few hours!'

As if Ren was reading Pyrrha's thoughts, he spoke up.

"I called Professor Goodwitch. The Bullhead is on it's way to us. We're fine. I think we're going to be having a long talk once we get onto the ship though." Halfway through the sentence, Tori passed out, and Pyrrha scooped her up in a fireman's carry. As they were waiting for the Bullhead, Pyrrha snuck a few quick looks at the girl sleeping in her arms whilst Nora recounted her favorite kill of the recent fight.

Tori looked very innocent while she was sleeping, without the dull pits of her eyes gazing into everyone's souls, or her crazy remarks coming every few seconds. Tori, Pyrrha thought, blushing and looking away from the girl's face, looked slightly cute when she was asleep.