Chapter One: Initiation and Teams
Morning at Beacon arrived the way mornings always do right before something monumental—too fast, carrying a crisp, golden quality of light that made everything feel infinitely heavier than it had the night before.
Ruby Rose was already wide awake.
Sitting cross-legged on the edge of her sleeping bag in her pajamas, she had Crescent Rose completely disassembled across her lap. Her thumb traced the folded edge of her scythe's blade with the practiced, absentminded rhythm of a mechanic lost in thought. Around her, the massive ballroom hummed with the nervous energy of hundreds of teenagers preparing for the crucible that would shape the next four years of their lives.
Ruby wasn't thinking about the next four years.
She was hyper-focused on how the morning light caught the silver of Crescent Rose's receiver housing. She was wondering if she needed to recalibrate the dust feed before the trials, and whether the adjustment she'd made to the folding mechanism last month had introduced a microscopic wobble into the joint.
"You seem awfully chipper," Yang observed, pulling a comb through the solar flare of her hair with effortless mastery.
"Hmm?" Ruby looked up. "Oh. Yeah."
"What's up?"
Ruby weighed the pros and cons of explaining dust-feed calibration versus her sister's knowing expression. "No more talking to new people today," she declared, an immense wave of relief washing over her tone. "No more trying to figure out what to say or whether I'm being weird." She ran her thumb along the blade again, a small, satisfied smile touching her lips. "Today, Crescent Rose does all the talking for me."
Yang paused, her comb hovering in midair with the calculating silence of an older sister plotting an intervention.
"Ruby," she said gently, "we're not the only two people taking the initiation test."
"I know that."
"Which means you're going to have to talk to people eventually."
Ruby's smile faltered. "You sound like Dad."
"I sound like someone who's actually been to school before." Yang set her comb down and tilted her head. "What does it even have to do with fighting? You're looking at it all wrong, Rubes. What happens if you get paired with someone you've never spoken to?"
Ruby let out a laugh—a polished, slightly too-bright sound designed to deflect. "I could always just be on your team."
Yang studied her sister with deliberate care. "Maybe... you should try a different team."
The laughter died instantly. Ruby whipped her head around. "...Are you saying you don't want to be on a team with me?"
"What? No!" Yang threw up her hands defensively. "I just think it would be good for you. Help you break out of your shell. Grow up a bit."
"I don't need other people to help me grow up," Ruby argued with absolute conviction. "I drink milk."
Yang opened her mouth, closed it, and wisely decided that argument was unwinnable. "...What about Odyn, then?"
Ruby went completely rigid. Her thumb stopped dead on Crescent Rose's edge.
"...What about him?"
"He seemed nice." Yang's tone was aggressively casual—so casual it was suspicious. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind being on your team. In fact, I bet he'd be great at helping you... adjust." A terribly measured pause. "If you catch my drift."
The heat that rushed to Ruby's cheeks had nothing to do with the morning chill.
"Yang," she said with great, trembling dignity, "I told you before. It isn't like that."
"Sure, Rubes." Yang picked up her comb again. "Keep telling yourself that."
Ruby turned away, violently determined to reassemble her scythe. Unfortunately, her hands refused to cooperate with her brain. Every time Yang's words echoed in her head, her fingers slipped, and a small mechanical component clattered onto the floor. By the third time it happened, she gave up, held the weapon in its folded state, and stared blankly at the wall across the room.
Her gaze drifted, entirely against her will, toward the far side of the ballroom.
Odyn was there, tightening the bracers on his forearms with the sharp, methodical efficiency of a soldier running a pre-flight check. He was speaking quietly with Roy, whose answering smirk suggested he was thoroughly enjoying an older brother's torment. Nearby, Khanna was meticulously polishing the shield mounted to her gauntlet with unhurried grace, while Baron wrestled with a pistol cylinder, squinting at it with the single-minded focus of someone performing maintenance at the absolute worst possible time.
Ruby realized, with a jolt of panic, that she had been staring at them for far too long.
She forced herself to look away, fixing her eyes firmly on a patch of drywall.
I wonder who he'll end up with on his team, she thought before she could stop herself.
Then she groaned internally: Stop it.
Then she thought about it anyway.
The Locker Room
Across the ballroom, Weiss Schnee stood before a bank of lockers, preparing with the meticulous precision of someone who had been training for this exact moment since she was seven years old.
Myrtenaster was already in pristine condition—Weiss permitted nothing less. Even so, she inspected the glyph revolver's alignment, checked the dust cylinder's load distribution, and ran her finger along the grip tape's tension, repeating the cycle twice just to be thorough.
At the adjacent locker, Pyrrha Nikos went through her preparations with the quiet, unbothered competence of a seasoned warrior who knew that true readiness came from execution, not overthinking.
"Have you given any thought to whose team you'd like to be on?" Weiss asked, keeping her eyes on Myrtenaster's hilt.
Pyrrha considered it with genuine thoughtfulness, treating the question as though it deserved careful reflection. "I think I'll let the circumstances decide. See where things fall."
"I was thinking we could partner together," Weiss said.
Pyrrha smiled warmly, completely devoid of the performative awe most people showed around her. "That sounds wonderful."
"Excellent."
In Weiss's mind, the tactical layout of her academic future clicked into place with absolute perfection. Pyrrha Nikos—four-time Mistral Regional Champion, Sanctum's top graduate, and the face of countless cereal boxes—combined with Weiss Schnee, top of her class and fiercely dedicated to excellence. They would be undefeated in tournaments, maintain a flawless grade average, and feature in the Beacon quarterly. Practically celebrities by the end of the semester. Nothing stood between them and—
"Hey! Jaune Arc. Nice to meet you."
Weiss blinked.
Jaune Arc stood directly between her and Pyrrha, wearing the same outfit as yesterday, radiating the precarious confidence of a man who never thought an idea past its first sentence.
"...You again," Weiss deadpanned.
"Don't worry about it." Jaune struck a casual pose. "So. Teams. I was thinking you and me would make a natural—"
"There are four members per team," Pyrrha offered helpfully.
Jaune pivoted toward her with immediate enthusiasm. "You don't say." He flashed a lopsided grin. "Well, hot stuff. Play your cards right, and maybe you could round us out."
Weiss immediately stepped between them, playing the role of defensive barrier with practiced irritation. "Jaune, do you have any idea who you're talking to?"
"Not in the slightest, snow angel."
"This is Pyrrha Nikos," Weiss said, waiting for the penny to drop. "Top of her class at Sanctum. Four-time Mistral Regional Champion." She waited for recognition. None came. "She is literally on the front of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box."
Jaune's eyes widened as reality hit him. "That's you?"
Pyrrha offered a slightly pained smile. "It was a very kind gesture, yes..."
"So, after hearing all of that," Weiss pressed, "do you genuinely believe you're in a position to ask her to join your team?"
A brief moment of rare, genuine self-reflection crossed Jaune's face. His shoulders slumped. "...Probably not. Sorry."
Beaming at him, Pyrrha offered some encouragement. "For what it's worth, Jaune, I think you'd make a wonderful leader."
Jaune instantly puffed his chest out. "Oh, stop."
"Please stop," Weiss groaned.
"Sounds like Pyrrha's on board for Team Jaune," he forged ahead unchecked. "Now, if you ask nicely, I might be able to find a spot for—"
What happened next was, technically speaking, Pyrrha's fault.
The flat of her polearm, Miló, clipped Jaune in the side with just enough force to send him flying backward into the lockers with a loud clatter. He slid down, his hoodie snagging on a coat hook so that his feet dangled a few inches off the floor.
"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha called out over her shoulder as she hurried after Weiss.
Jaune looked down at the empty air beneath his boots. "...Likewise," he muttered to himself.
To the Cliffs
Goodwitch's crisp voice crackled over the intercom—all first-year students to Beacon Cliff, immediately. The ballroom collectively exhaled, three hundred students bracing themselves for the trials ahead.
Odyn was the first of the four Elves to finish his gear check, waiting near the door with the patient stillness born of a lifetime of combat training. Roy sheathed his sword, testing the locking mechanism before tying off his headband. Khanna stowed her polishing cloth, flexing her gauntlet fingers to test the shield release. Baron gave his pistol one final, microscopic adjustment, nodding in satisfaction.
"Ready?" Odyn asked.
Roy smirked. "Born ready."
"You're not allowed to say that," Khanna scolded. "We've been training for this for years. Of course we're ready."
"Doesn't mean I can't say it."
"It literally means that."
"I'm ready," Baron announced, holstering his sidearm. "Whenever you are, Odyn."
Nodding, Odyn turned toward the exit. But catching sight of Ruby standing nervously by her locker, wrapped up in deep mental calculations, he changed course and walked over.
Lifting a hand, he offered a closed fist. "Do your best out there. I'll see you at the ruins."
Ruby stared at the fist for a fraction of a second before bumping it with her own. "Right back at you."
He smiled warmly. Then, the four Elves vanished through the doors, leaving Ruby to watch them go with a flutter in her chest she tried very hard to ignore.
Across the room, Yang caught her eye and raised both eyebrows pointedly.
Beacon Cliff
Beacon Cliff had no talent whatsoever for understatement.
The launch platform jutted from the academy's eastern promontory like a bold declaration—a broad sweep of pale stone hanging over the cathedral-dark depths of the Emerald Forest. Below, the ancient canopy stretched out in an unbroken wave of green that swallowed sound and distance alike. The high-altitude morning air carried a sharp, biting edge that made everything feel hyper-real.
Students clustered across the platform in the jittery, self-conscious groupings of teenagers thrust into the unknown. Some already held weapons at the ready; others scanned the crowd with calculating eyes. Nora Valkyrie was vibrating with an anticipatory energy that bordered on a public safety hazard, while Lie Ren stood beside her with the quiet serenity of a man who had long ago made peace with chaos.
At the edge of the stone, Professor Ozpin held his coffee mug with unhurried grace, gazing over the assembly the way a still lake regards a stone tossed into its depths—completely unbothered, indifferent to whether the objects in question were ready for the drop.
Glynda Goodwitch stood to his left, tablet in hand, wearing the expression of someone fully capable of calculating each student's exact survival rate down to the decimal point.
"For years," Ozpin began without preamble, "you have trained to become warriors. Today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest."
The dense woodland below offered no commentary on the matter.
"Each of you will be given teammates—today." A restless murmur rippled through the ranks, and Glynda's stylus scratched across her tablet, logging the predictable reaction. "These teammates will be with you for the remainder of your time here at Beacon. The first person with whom you make eye contact after landing will be your partner for the next four years."
The murmurs spiked into a full wave of panic and confusion.
Ruby Rose's eyes went wide.
She looked around—at Jaune, who was desperately trying to raise his hand to ask an unanswerable question; at Yang, wearing the grin of someone thoroughly amused by the chaos; and then, completely by accident, straight into Odyn's amber eyes.
He looked back, steady and unruffled. He held her gaze for a heartbeat before nodding—slowly, deliberately. It was a gesture that seemed to acknowledge her hidden fears and silently promise to handle them.
The tight knot of anxiety in Ruby's chest loosened. She let out a breath.
Ozpin's voice cut through the noise, completely devoid of urgency. "You will encounter opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path." He paused. "Or you will die."
Jaune's hand remained frozen in the air.
"You will find an abandoned temple at the northern end of the forest," Ozpin concluded. "Each pair must retrieve a relic and return. We will evaluate your choices accordingly. Any questions?"
Jaune opened his mouth.
"Good," Ozpin said smoothly. "Take your positions."
The Drop
Down the line, the launch pads hissed to life. Silver tiles slammed upward with mechanical precision, firing students into the sky in a brilliant succession of arcs and varied screams of panic.
Nora launched herself into the air with both fists raised, letting out a wild battle cry that sounded less like a tactical maneuver and more like a threat to the ecosystem. Weiss Schnee ascended with her rapier already drawn, the picture of frozen, flawless competence. Yang went last from her section, soaring off the cliff with a triumphant "WOO-HOO!" that echoed long before she hit the tree canopy.
In the final second before her own tile triggered, Ruby looked across the platform toward Odyn one last time.
He flashed her a reassuring thumbs-up. She couldn't hear his words over the howling wind and the hiss of the machinery, but she didn't need to.
Good luck. I'll be waiting.
The tile fired.
The Emerald Forest rushed up to meet her in a dizzying wall of emerald leaves and deep shadows.
And as the wind tore at her cloak, Ruby found herself grinning wide.
The Emerald Forest
Odyn landed the way he approached most things—with absolute economy of motion.
Catching a stout tree branch on the way down, he redirected his momentum and dropped into a low crouch at the base of the trunk. His blade—Crescent Rose, configured in its dual-phase longsword-halberd design—cleared the back sheath smoothly. He rose, listened intently to the forest, and then re-sheathed the weapon.
Nothing.
The forest possessed a watchful, heavy quiet. It wasn't peace; it was the tense absence of sound. Odyn recognized the cadence instantly, having grown up navigating the treacherous, pre-dawn ridges of the Mantle mountains.
He began to walk.
He didn't have to go far. The air near Grimm carried a distinct, sour tang beneath the rich scent of damp earth and rotting leaves—an instinctive warning sign. Odyn scanned the perimeter: a slightly displaced branch to his left, the unnatural stillness of the undergrowth.
He exhaled through his nose. "Alright," he called out to the trees. "If you're going to do this, at least do it together. I'd rather not be here all morning."
The first Beowolf exploded from the brush and instantly regretted it. Odyn caught the beast mid-leap by the jaw, driving it downward with enough force that its bone mask shattered against a thick root. It dissolved into dark vapor before the echo of its landing faded.
The rest of the pack took it as a cue—though not the one they had hoped for.
What followed was a masterclass in efficiency. Odyn moved through the pack like water finding a fracture in stone. A heel shattered a mask; two fingers punched through a joint. A controlled burst of dust-infused heat from the flat of his palm reduced three Beowolves to cinders in half a second. He only drew the full blade for the Ursa Majors, slicing through reinforced bone with effortless fiery sweeps.
It wasn't a performance. It was a job, executed in precise order. When the dust settled, the clearing was dead silent once more, save for the faint trace of dispersed Grimm residue on his boots.
Twisting the hilt, he extended the mechanism into halberd mode—a configuration usually reserved for targets larger than Ursa Majors. Spinning it once out of pure habit, he resumed his march north. Nice warmup, he thought, holding himself to the punishing standards of the northern highlands.
The Encounter
Ahead, the sounds of intense combat drifted over the ridge.
It was clean, disciplined fighting—measured and economical, the work of a seasoned combatant systematically dismantling a threat. Odyn slowed his pace, approaching the edge of the clearing to assess the situation before stepping in.
At the center stood a lone girl. She moved with lethal grace, wielding an elven blade charged with crackling, controlled arcs of lightning. The Grimm around her were learning, far too late, that attacking her had been a fatal error.
She had long auburn hair, silver-gray armor over light leather, and unmistakable pointed ears.
Odyn's gaze lingered on her ears, then tracked the faint amber hue of her eyes. A sudden flash of Baron crossed his mind.
Scanning the broader tactical picture, he noticed a critical blind spot: two Ursa Majors were closing in through the treeline at her three o'clock, flanked by a pair of King Taijitu positioning themselves for an aerial strike.
He moved.
The Ursa Majors went down before they cleared the brush. A calculated blast of fire forced the serpents to rethink their trajectories. The entire intervention took less than twelve seconds. When Odyn stepped back, the girl had just finished off her last opponent and spun around to find her ambush conveniently dismantled.
She glared at him. Unimpressed.
"I could have handled that," she snapped.
"I know," Odyn replied evenly. "The small ones, sure. But the Ursa Majors and the serpents would have complicated your next thirty seconds significantly." He tilted his head. "I just thought I'd save you the trouble."
She held his gaze, her expression hardening before a reluctant smirk touched the corner of her mouth.
"...I suppose you have a point." She sheathed her blade, snapping into a rigid, formal posture born of strict military conditioning. "I apologize for my tone. My name is Hailfire Caldern."
As she turned toward him, her eyes caught his face—and something in her expression abruptly fractured. She frowned. "...What?"
"Your eyes," Odyn said.
"I know, they're not—"
"You're one of us."
Hailfire froze entirely.
"You're Arkynorean," Odyn stated.
The silence stretched. Then, her gaze dropped to his left eye—to the eyepatch, and the faint, glowing amber fringe of scar tissue catching the light.
"That eye," she breathed, her voice dropping an octave. "The color—" She stopped, staring up at him with a volatile mix of recognition, suspicion, and desperate hope. "Who are you?"
"Odyn Albanar."
The name hit the clearing like a physical weight. She tracked the features, the cadence, the undeniable heritage written across his face.
Without warning, Hailfire dropped to one knee.
"Your Highness," she said, her voice shaking slightly despite her best efforts. "Forgive me—I didn't know. I had no idea that you—" She cut herself off, swallowing hard. "Is Baron... is he alright?"
Odyn looked down at her in the filtered sunlight, remembering Baron's quiet worry at the drop point—the sister forced into a political chess match, desperately searching for an exit. The protective instinct flared, rooted in something far deeper than royal blood.
"He's well," Odyn said softly. "He misses you." He reached down, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Stand up, Hailfire. We're going to find a way to get you out of this. That's a promise."
She rose, nodding once with the precise control of a soldier locking away her emotions.
"Shall we go?" she asked.
"We shall," Odyn agreed, and side by side, they turned north toward the ruins.
The Forest Encounter
Roy Albanar had been on the ground for precisely four minutes when he found her.
In those four minutes, he had cleared a path through roughly thirty Grimm—a decent enough warmup. Walking briskly in the direction his internal compass insisted was north, he caught the distinct cacophony of howling Grimm, underscored by the tense, heavy silence of someone trying desperately not to make a sound because they couldn't move.
He found her trapped beneath a deadfall. A massive collapse of branches and a heavy limb had pinned her foot to the earth, the result of whatever skirmish had triggered the local Grimm population. A ring of Beowolves was closing in from three sides, moving with the patient, unhurried confidence of predators who knew their meal wasn't going anywhere.
Roy drew his sword. The moment it cleared the sheath, the blade erupted in a cold, crystalline blue luminescence—not fire, but a concentrated energy almost too bright to look at beneath the shadowed canopy.
He moved through the tightening circle before the Beowolves could pivot. Tapping the deadfall's primary stress point with his sword's pommel, he released the structural tension he'd calculated upon approach. The heavy wood shifted cleanly, freeing the trapped foot.
The girl started to push herself up, letting out a sharp gasp that mixed relief with pain.
"Careful," Roy cautioned.
Crouching beside her, he inspected her ankle. It wasn't severed, but it was a severe sprain—bad enough to make a four-mile trek through a Grimm-infested forest practically suicidal. He looked from the injury to the girl, quickly making a calculated decision that would undoubtedly require some explaining later.
"I can fix this," he said quietly, "but I need you to keep it between us unless I say otherwise. Can you do that?"
Blinking in surprise, she looked up. She had rich chestnut hair, matching fox ears, a tail twitching nervously along her spine, and deep blue eyes currently caught between agony and the defensive wariness of someone saved by a stranger. She wore a pair of steel-gray gauntlets currently folded into compact wrist-guards, telling Roy quite a lot about her combat style at a glance.
"...Okay," she whispered. "I won't tell anyone."
Roy hovered his open palm just above her ankle, closing his eyes as he channeled his energy. The golden light that bloomed from his hand was vastly different from his blade's cold blue—warmer, slower, carrying the deep, regenerative glow of mending tissue. He could feel the fracture through his palm, guiding his energy to accelerate a healing process that would normally take weeks into a frantic ninety-second window.
The golden light faded.
The girl sat up, testing her ankle cautiously. She stood, taking a few tentative steps, and stared at Roy with an expression that had completely abandoned tactical caution for sheer astonishment.
"How did you do that?"
"Energy transfer," Roy explained smoothly. "I channel some of my own vitality through you, forcing your body's natural healing timeline to accelerate. Nothing mystical. Just aggressive biology." He offered a hand to help her fully steady herself. "Nothing to worry about."
She stared for another beat before stumbling over her words. "Th—thank you. I'm—um." She flushed, pausing to reset. "Flare. Flare Osperey Kitsune. Most people just call me Kitsune or Osperey."
"Roy Albanar." He watched her expression process the name. "Would it be alright if I called you Flare?"
A sudden, intense blush rushed across her cheeks, catching her entirely off guard—suggesting nicknames weren't something she was used to.
"Y-yeah," she stammered. "That's—yeah. Fine. That's fine."
Roy lingered for a moment, tracking the twitch of her chestnut ears and the subtle design of her folded gauntlets. Realizing he had been staring a fraction of a second longer than a casual rescue required, he cleared his throat and looked away.
"We should get moving," he said. "The others will be heading toward the ruins by now."
"Right!" Flare fell into step beside him, carefully pretending her face wasn't still radiating heat. "Right. The ruins. Lead the way."
The Clearing
Khanna dropped through the high forest canopy like someone who viewed gravity more as a polite suggestion than an absolute law.
Clipping a thick branch on the way down, she used the momentum to pivot sideways, snatched another branch with one hand, swung her weight through a wide arc, and landed squarely in a clearing. Both feet hit the earth simultaneously with a heavy crack that sent a shockwave shivering across the forest floor.
She was already in motion before the dirt settled.
It wasn't because of Grimm—she had scanned the area during her descent and found nothing worth her time. Instead, a strange, lingering anomaly in the air had caught her attention. About thirty meters to the north-northeast, an unfamiliar energy signature pulsed. It wasn't hostile. It wasn't Grimm. And it wasn't the traditional Aura she had spent her life studying.
It was something else entirely. It moved differently, burned with an unfamiliar texture, and possessed a dense, concentrated core. Compact, controlled, and overwhelmingly powerful for the container holding it.
Ki, a rogue thought whispered from the back of her mind, leaving her to wonder how she even knew that word.
Reaching the edge of the clearing, she stepped into the shadows of the treeline and stopped to watch.
The boy at the center of the chaos looked to be her age. He had messy black hair that stood up in defiant tufts, striking red eyes with the sharp clarity of a born fighter, and a brown tail that flicked with unconscious, expressive rhythm behind him. Dressed in a bright red gi over a dark undershirt with a white sash, he was fighting entirely empty-handed against a ring of Grimm that should have easily overwhelmed a single combatant.
Instead, he was dismantling them.
He flowed through the pack like a natural current, bypassing obstacles with absolute precision. Every strike carried the compressed certainty of someone who no longer needed to think about combat. The foreign energy—Ki—was doing the heavy lifting, concentrating briefly at points of impact, releasing short, controlled bursts from open palms, and shimmering as a faint aura whenever a heavier foe took a swing at him.
Khanna watched patiently, genuinely curious to see how he would handle the two Ursa Majors closing in from the far side of the clearing.
Deciding she'd seen enough, she made her move.
Bursting out of the treeline with explosive speed, Khanna drove her heel directly into the lead Ursa Major's midsection with enough force to fold the beast in half before it even registered her arrival. The impact cratered the forest floor. Bouncing off the recoil, she caught the second Major by its bone mask and slammed its momentum downward, shattering the mask against a thick exposed root.
Before the boy had fully processed the rescue, she was standing in the center of the debris, casually flicking Grimm ash off her knuckles.
He stared at her.
She stared back.
The remaining Grimm took one look at the sudden escalation, collectively abandoned their threat assessment, and bolted into the brush.
Khanna let her hands relax. "You alright?"
The boy blinked, slowly recalibrating the entire situation. "I was going to ask you that."
"I'm fine."
"I noticed." A brief pause. "I could've handled the Majors."
"Probably," she agreed mildly. "I just figured extra hands never hurt. The Majors are always tedious." She dusted off her gauntlet, double-checking her shield mechanism to ensure it was clean. "Khanna Albanar."
He went quiet for a moment, weighing her presence with careful, self-contained caution. "Daikon Koizumi."
She extended a hand. He eyed it for a second before shaking it—a provisional gesture of good faith, subject to change.
"We should head north," Khanna said, gesturing forward. "The ruins are that way, and the others are likely converging on them now."
Without a word, Daikon turned north and began walking.
Khanna fell into step slightly behind him. As she watched the controlled, rhythmic economy of his movement, a profound curiosity bloomed in her chest. She wanted to know about the Ki, about the tail, about the piercing red eyes that somehow felt familiar in a way she couldn't quite place.
Later, she told herself, recognizing that some mysteries were better approached with patience.
The Sun-Dappled Clearing
Baron landed softly.
Spinning his twin blades mid-fall to generate a controlled cushion of wind, he scrubbed off his downward momentum and touched down in the center of a sunlit clearing without a sound. Sheathing both swords, he glanced around the empty space.
He shrugged. North, then.
He set off at an easy stride, reading the forest the way a tracker reads a map. Grimm presence was thick in the atmosphere, hanging in the air like a sour vapor, but they were keeping their distance. Watching. Calculating.
What he didn't expect was the kick.
It came hurtling down from the high canopy, delivered by someone who had clearly decided that the hooded figure passing underneath was worth an unprovoked test. Baron caught the blow across his crossed forearm blades, absorbed the force on bent knees, and neatly redirected the kinetic energy sideways before sliding back into a solid stance.
A second strike followed instantly—a lightning-fast straight punch from a second assailant working in tandem. Baron caught it with an open palm, twisting sharply at the wrist to harmlessly deflect the momentum past his ear.
He looked up at his attackers.
Two teenagers. Matching builds and identical features. Dark hair, expressive brown monkey tails, and the razor-sharp, disciplined form of lifelong combatants. They stared back at him, caught between aggression and utter confusion—the classic expression of people who had just tried to ambush Baron Caldern and found themselves blocked.
Deciding the sudden arrival of an anomaly ruined their hunting odds, the surrounding Grimm chose that exact moment to attack indiscriminately.
Without exchanging a word, the three of them snapped into a back-to-back defensive formation. The girl fought with explosive, high-impact speed, throwing short, crushing strikes. The boy utilized longer, deceptively precise reach. Baron worked the fluid gaps between them, his twin blades tracing clean, lethal arcs through any Grimm attempting to close the distance.
When the last of the beasts dissolved into ash, the girl stared at Baron as though trying to solve a complex puzzle.
"You're not a Grimm."
"No, I'm not," Baron agreed, pulling back his hood.
Pointed ears. Amber flame-colored eyes. The unmistakable dark skin of the Albanar Tribe.
The boy blinked. "Caldern?"
The girl's thoughts raced, recognition flickering behind her eyes like an ancient memory. A supposedly extinct bloodline. A lost people. Supposedly gone, her expression said. Apparently not.
"Dark Elf," Baron offered calmly. "It's what most people call us when we want to skip the history lesson." He extended a hand. "Baron Caldern."
"Beat Ravenwing," the boy said, taking his hand.
"Note Nightcrow," the girl added a second later, shaking herself out of her reverie with a slight flush. "And... sorry about the ambush kick."
"An honest mistake," Baron replied easily. "I should have kept my hood down. That one's on me." He glanced north through the dense timber. "We should get moving. The others will be reaching the ruins soon."
Note and Beat exchanged a silent, comprehensive glance—the kind of instantaneous communication born of a lifetime together.
Without another word, they turned north and fell into step beside him.
The Emerald Forest
The experience of being Ruby Rose during the initiation could be summarized quite easily: very fast, intensely earnest, and slightly on fire.
Not literally—though that part was rapidly approaching.
She landed in the northeastern quadrant with a controlled spin of Crescent Rose, using the scythe's blade to catch the air and bleed off momentum. She hit the ground running, a single mantra hammering through her mind:
Gotta find Yang. Gotta find Yang. Gotta find—
What if I can't find Yang?
What if someone finds her first?
What if I end up with Jaune?— (Jaune was nice, she reminded herself, but probably terrible at the "not dying" part)—or Blake—(that seemed like it would require way too much quiet conversation)—or—
Oh no.
Time slowed down to that excruciating crawl reserved for moments of profound social horror.
Weiss Schnee was turning around near the edge of a small clearing. Ruby was skidding to a frantic halt at the entrance. Their eyes locked.
The pause lasted for precisely one breath.
Weiss turned on her heel and immediately walked in the opposite direction.
"Wait!" Ruby called out, scrambling after her. "Where are you going? We're supposed to be—"
"I am well aware of what we're supposed to be," Weiss snapped, not breaking stride. Her voice carried the sharp, defensive frequency of someone dealing with a cosmic injustice. "I am simply not yet prepared to—" She pushed a heavy branch aside, marched into the dense brush, and promptly muttered an undignified "Ow" as it snapped back against her.
Ruby trailed at a respectful distance, unsure of the plan, but operating on the firm belief that no plan was safer than Weiss's current one. Overhead, the forest canopy loomed with the indifferent silence of a wilderness that couldn't care less about teenage drama.
Then, a Beowolf stepped into the clearing.
Then several more joined it, blocking their path.
"Ruby," Weiss said, her tone shifting from frustrated to razor-sharp.
Ruby was already moving. Crescent Rose unfolded in a fluid, practiced snap—the sniper frame cycling automatically as her thumb caught the release. She closed the distance to the nearest Beowolf with a burst of rose petals and a scythe swing that was, objectively, about twenty percent larger than necessary.
The Beowolf protested its sudden disassembly by dissolving into black smoke.
Weiss, right in the middle of executing an elegant opening stance, had not anticipated the explosion of petals, the whirlwind scythe, or Ruby materializing out of thin air. Her instincts flared; her glyph revolver spun to compensate—and the resulting discharge slammed into the base of a nearby tree, igniting it with immediate, enthusiastic vigor.
Ruby stared at the burning tree.
Weiss stared at the burning tree.
"That should have been easy!" Ruby defended herself.
"Perhaps if you had announced your position before launching yourself like a crimson missile at a target I had completely under control—"
"Well, sorry for trying to help!"
"You nearly got us both killed with your absolute lack of tactical coordination!"
"We're fine!"
"The forest is on fire, Ruby!"
"The Grimm are on fire," Ruby corrected weakly, though she had to admit the flames were rapidly spreading beyond the initial targets.
Weiss glared at her with the weary resignation of someone whose worst expectations had been violently validated. Grabbing Ruby by the arm, she yanked her forward.
"Move."
They bolted. The fire chased them with mild enthusiasm, proving more than happy to consume the surrounding underbrush. Behind them, the remaining Grimm decided that burning alive was a worse fate than dealing with two unhinged teenagers and scattered into the deep woods.
They finally skidded to a halt at a safe distance, both breathing heavily. They stared at each other amidst the smoldering aftermath of a first partnership that had failed in nearly every conceivable metric while technically keeping them alive.
"Well," Ruby offered tentatively, after a long silence.
"Don't," Weiss warned.
High above them, a single dark feather drifted silently down from the canopy, floating unhurriedly until it settled softly upon a charred stump.
Neither of them noticed it.
The Journey North
The journey through the Emerald Forest could be described, if one was feeling remarkably charitable, as character-building.
Pyrrha Nikos and Jaune Arc were currently navigating a stretch of underbrush that seemed to possess strong, personal grievances against foot traffic. As they walked, Pyrrha was managing two distinct tasks: cutting a clean path through the foliage with practiced ease and attempting to explain the fundamental mechanics of Aura to Jaune in terms she hoped would click before something large enough to eat them crossed their path.
"Have you ever felt like you were being watched," she asked, pausing to hold a heavy fern back, "without actually seeing anyone?"
"...Yeah," Jaune muttered. He was currently distracted by the whiplash of a branch Pyrrha had accidentally let go too soon, leaving a thin red welt across his cheek. To his credit, he just brushed it off with a self-deprecating chuckle.
"That's Aura working at its most basic level," she continued, stepping carefully. "Your soul projecting outward. With enough training, it forms a protective shield, reinforces your weapons, and even allows you to sense opponents before they make a move."
Jaune considered this, his eyes lighting up. "Like a personal force field."
"...Essentially," Pyrrha allowed. It was a massive oversimplification, but it wasn't technically wrong.
Stopping in her tracks, she turned to face him. She reached out, placing two fingers lightly against the side of his head, studying his expression—the flickering blend of bravado, underlying uncertainty, and complete transparency that had defined him since he first tried to chat up Weiss in the locker room.
"Close your eyes," she instructed softly. "And concentrate."
He complied, shutting his eyes tight. Pyrrha closed hers as well, reaching inward to tap into the warm, steady current of her own soul. She projected it outward, brushing against the boundary of Jaune's Aura. It was massive—dormant, sprawling, and waiting for someone to unlock the door.
She murmured the old, ritualistic words passed down by her own mentors—incantations that served less as a spell and more as an open invitation to the soul:
For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death.
Placing her palm flat against his chest, she felt the energetic current shift between them.
I release your soul—and by my shoulder, protect thee.
A soft, luminous glow flared where her hand touched him. Her Aura poured inward, filling the vast empty spaces of his spirit the way water settles into a vessel built precisely for it. She felt the familiar, heavy drain of energy fatigue wash over her, steadying herself for a brief moment before pulling back.
Jaune's eyes fluttered open.
He was softly radiating light—not blindingly, like a weapon discharging, but glowing from within like a pilot light finally ignited. He looked down at his hands in disbelief, and Pyrrha watched the scratch across his cheek effortlessly vanish, the skin pulling back together smooth and unblemished as his body instinctively corrected itself.
The utter, unmasked wonder on his face told her everything she needed to know about him.
"You have a great deal of it," she noted quietly. "More than almost anyone whose soul I've unlocked."
He looked from his hands back to her. A genuine, unguarded smile broke across his face—free of performance, free of bravado, entirely sincere.
Elsewhere in the Canopy
Deeper in the thicket, where sunlight struggled to pierce the dense thatch of leaves, Lie Ren stood toe-to-toe with a massive King Taijitu, gripping its fangs with his bare hands as a wide, triumphant grin crossed his face.
Directly above him, dangling upside down by her knees from a high branch, Nora Valkyrie watched the display with uncontainable glee. She made a sharp, cheerful sound—a two-syllable declaration of pure affection expressed entirely as onomatopoeia:
"Boop."
Ren's stoic facade cracked, a fleeting, genuine smile touching his lips.
All around them, the vast, green, indifferent expanse of the Emerald Forest stretched on without pity or preference. It was a place where teenagers confronted the limits of who they were—and frequently discovered they were made of something far greater than they had ever imagined.
End of Chapter One, Part One
To be continued in Chapter Two: Initiation and Teams, Part II
The forest does not care who you were when you entered it. It only knows what you do while you are there. This is, perhaps, its one honest mercy.


Author's Note
Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! As you probably noticed, this is going to be a two-part release, which means the next part might be a bit shorter. Up next, we'll be diving right into Volume 1, Episode 7 of the story!
In case you're wondering who ends up with who—aside from Ruby, of course, since her situation is already locked in—here are the updated options and potential pairing lists for everyone. Let's start with Yang's prospective matches:
Character Pairing Polls
Yang's Pairing Options:
Roy A. (OC)
Daikon K. (Saiyan OC)
Baron C. (OC)
Other (Male character write-in suggestion)
Baron:
Flare K. (OC)
Yang Xiao Long
Weiss Schnee
Velvet Scarlatina
Emerald Sustrai (Reformed/Good)
Cinder Fall (Reformed/Good)
Pyrrha Nikos (?)
Roy:
Yang Xiao Long
Velvet Scarlatina
Weiss Schnee
Blake Belladonna
Flare K. (OC)
Cinder Fall (Reformed/Good)
Hailfire Caldern (OC)
Daikon:
Yang Xiao Long
Weiss Schnee
Kanna Albanar (OC)
Velvet Scarlatina
Flare K. (OC)
Cinder Fall (Reformed/Good)
Hailfire Caldern (OC)
Weiss:
Neptune Vasilias
Roy A. (OC)
Daikon K. (Saiyan OC)
Baron C. (OC)
Kanna:
Daikon K. (Saiyan OC)
Mercury Black (Reformed/Good)
Jaune Arc (?)
Hailfire:
Roy A. (OC)
Daikon K. (Saiyan OC)
Mercury Black (Reformed/Good)
Neptune Vasilias (?)
Oscar Pine (Volume 5 onwards)
Feel free to cast your votes for each character and their respective pairing options! I'm genuinely excited to see what you guys pick, and I'll be going with the most popular choices for each character as the story progresses.
Anywho, that's all for now. Peace out, you guys, and stay blessed!