Rowan turned his attention to the headmaster, who had instructed them all to take their place upon the metallic squares lining the edge of the cliff. Rowan only now noticed the metal plates. Had they been there the whole time? Rowan shrugged it off. He probably noticed them when her first arrived, then promptly dismissed the though of them. He followed Vlad, having to speed walk to keep up with his longer strides.
“You’ve got a point. Does it really matter, though? My opponents wouldn’t last more than a minute, anyways,” He said half-jokingly. Rowan claimed one of the pedestals as his own, with the newest arrival taking the spot in between him and Vlad. The boy, Rood, if Rowan heard Ozpin correctly, was taller than him. It seemed to be a running theme at the cliffs. Rowan cursed his genes for making him the size of a dwarf.
Rowan rubbed his hands together in anticipation. He loved the thrill of a fight, and he hoped that there were going to be plenty in the forest below. After all, they were at a Huntsman academy, which trains people to be fighters. It would be a shame for their initiation to lack one of the fundamental aspects of being a Huntsman.
"Hmph. We'll see about tha-" he started, before being interrupted by the shark Faunus' friendly punch to his upper arm. Turning to face her, he ended up quite surprised at her request for a race, of all things. It was at this moment that the platforms to his left began to flip upward, flinging their occupants toward the forest. Turning back to the shark girl with a grin on his face, he only had time to say "Looks like I get a head-start. Toodles."
The next moment, he was spinning through the air at high velocity, the forest sailing by below him like an ocean of green, yet ever so steadily it began accelerating toward him as his upward momentum failed and gravity began to take its toll. The young man yawned at the approach of the trees, then aimed his pistol roughly downward and, every couple of seconds, fired it once or twice to reduce how fast he fell. This was not as effective as he'd hoped, but still enough that he dropped into the forest canopy at an angle, rather than falling straight down like a rock; once in the canopy itself, and doing his utmost to ignore the slowly-increasing annoyance of being whipped by a great many twig-sized branches per second, he did he best to keep an eye open for a suitably wide branch to use as a hook. In short order, he spied one in the near distance, coming up fast as he fell; aiming Breath, he activated the mechanism to open up its grapple mechanism, then fired once, sending the beartrap-like hooks flying toward the branch, succeeding in scoring a direct hit that clamped the end of the gun around the branch's width. Almost immediately, Vlad's momentum changed, sending him soaring in an arc around the branch that threatened to slam him into the ground full-force if he wasn't careful; waiting until just the right moment, he retracted the grapple toward himself, increasing his speed as the circle he was travelling round shrunk, but placing himself at just the right distance to...
All at once, the grapple unhooked itself and retracted back to the main body of the oversized pistol, sending the man running along at ground level, his feet barely keeping up with the speed at which he found himself moving, and he realised that he was almost certainly going to trip and fall if he didn't resolve that problem immediately. A large and probably quite old tree found itself a victim of his momentum-reducing strategy, ending up with a sword wedged into its wood and carving a circle through its many layers as Vlad's body span round and round, gradually slowing down until, finally, he ceased to move altogether, rather dizzy but no worse for wear. Taking a few moments to breath deeply, both to minimise the adrenaline pulsing through his system and to recover his sense of balance, he absent-mindedly pulled Maw through what little of the tree's wood remained connected to its stump, yanking the weapon free, then finishing the plant's execution by pushing the upper half of its trunk with one foot, slowly overbalancing it until it fell with a great crashing of smashed branches and impacted dirt, resulting in a small clearing of sunlight in the forest's otherwise-shady interior.
Left with his own thoughts for a short moment, he smiled to himself at how successful his landing strategy had been, then steeled himself for the journey ahead. Chances were, he'd need all his wits to acquire whatever "key piece" it was that Ozpin had mentioned, and a fair portion of his combat skill to boot. Beyond that, he couldn't say, but he was quite sure he'd be fine regardless. Orienting himself in the direction he believed he was flying a few moments ago, he began to pace forward, sheathing his sword momentarily to reload his gun, and keeping both in hand, in case anything happened to fly out at him from nowhere.
Her pad launched her a fraction of a second later, sending her careening into the forest. Then, at the height of her arc, she depressed the trigger on her backpack cannon, and an explosion, more like a gout of flame than anything, launched her further in the air, the recoil sustaining her flight. She pressed it again, and in a hippity-hoppity sort of way she sailed over the forest canopy, screaming "ON YER LEFT!" as she flew over the tall, pasty kid's head. Bonny lifted her head back and howled, cackling.
"I love me some breachin' on a cool afternoon!"
A series of explosions rocked the forest as Bonny's cannon continued to fire. Finally, once she was sure she was ahead of everyone else (or at least everyone she didn't like), she decided to land, delaying that last push of a button until mere moments before she hit the ground. The cannon sounded, and the ground beneath her dissipated into a fine, soft dirt that settled beneath her and cushioned her landing.
Bonny dusted herself off, surveying the trail of destruction she'd left in her wake. She wondered how many Grimm she'd killed?
Rowan laughed at the rivalry between the shark girl and Vlad. Her eccentric behavior seemed to get a rise out of quite a few of the others. Rowan watched as the two were launched into the sky, with the Faunus flying over the head of Vlad.
“Well, guess it’s my turn.” Rowan crouched down just before the launchpad activated, sending him soaring into the air.
He never really enjoyed being this high, but if the task required it, then he would persevere. The crisp air stung his face, causing him to close his eyes slightly. The other students preferred to stay in the air as long as possible, using their guns and… a cannon… to maintain their flight. Rowan, on the other hand, aimed directly for the ground. He could feel his Aura preemptively travelling to his feet in order to absorb the shock of the landing. His trajectory allowed for him to land in a small clearing, void of any trees that would hinder his descent.
He landed with a loud thud, stirring up a large cloud of dust at his feet. The impact drained a portion of his Aura, but not a significant amount. Rowan surveyed the area around him. He could not spot any immediate threats, so he took off at a jog, heading the opposite direction of the cliffs. He had no idea what they needed to look for, other than the fact that it resembled a key piece. Whether that was literal or not, Rowan had no clue.
Rood watched as all the others took off, each with their own unique style of maneuvering. He smirked as he watched them, amused if at least for a moment. He crouched down, ready to be thrown off into the open air. But a moment later, he still stood with Ozpin. Puzzled, he looked over to the blonde professor, relaxing his pose just slightly.
"Rood. I trust what we talked about won't become an issue later... will it?" The Professor asked, his eyes just visible over the rims of his round spectacles. Rood stared back, meeting his gaze eye for an eye. The air grew tense, heavy with the atmosphere between the two. At last, Rood parted his lips slowly, looking to the left.
"I can't make any promises." He ended with his lips pressed together into a hard line. They remained quiet a moment longer. Ozpin took a very long, awkward sip of his coffee, placing his other hand behind his back in the meanwhile.
"Pity."
Then Rood was launched into the air. He'd been less prepared for it... but still he went on, flipping through the air several times while he tried to regain his balance, he eventually was able to right himself. He looked down below him, and then raised both his arms up in front of his face, concentrating. The air before the blonde egyptian pulsated and sparked until a barrier formed around it. From above, it looked like a shooting star was being sent down into the Earth. It soared brightly, burning like liquid gold across the forest until it landed far ahead of the trees into a clearing between them. There, he landed like a meteor, cratering the ground for a good dozen yards until he came to a stop, the dirt piled up around him. He lay there on his back, unfurling like a dead spider in reverse, his arms at his sides and legs splayed out. He'd gotten dirty, but that was obvious. His blonde hair a sloppy mess all around his face. Slowly, he cracked open his red eyes and gave a piercing look to the sky above.
Then his eyes opened wide as he realized his body was smoking.
"H... HWAAUGH!!!" Rood sat up, panting loudly and looking around like a madman, his body feeling ready to burst into flames. He spotted a creek nearby and ran to it wildly, arms up. He leapt into it, dissappearing beneath the surface. Above him, the water gave off much steam. A moment later the blonde teenager raised his head up, catching a floating lilly pad on his crown so it appeared to be some sort of unstylish hat. A relaxed, goofy smile played on his features as he rested his eyes. For now, he simply basked in not burning alive, letting out a soft "hmmm~" as he rested in the cool running creek.
Nearby a certain blonde haired shark faunus, however, a set of red eyes stared at her through the bushes. It's friend, you see, had been killed by her reckless canoning. It didn't remain stealthy for long. With a loud roar, the Grimm and it's Ursa cohorts charged straight for the faunus. Five of the beasts hassled at her from all sides with the one right before her taking a viscious swing.
Bonny swung her cannon around, using it to absorb the brunt of the blow.
"Well shiver me timbers, that didn't take long," she remarked casually before bludgeoning the bear Grimm with it. Leaving the creature momentarily stunned, Bonny spun around and opened fire on the other four, blasting them to bits with well-placed cannon-fire. A charged electric shot fried the Ursa on her far left while the Ursa next to it froze solid, the Ursa on the far right getting a taste of what it felt like to be a meteor as the flaming cannonball to its gut carried it away like a ballistic bear missile before exploding in a tree-clearing blast. She had no Dust to spare the last Ursa of the four, so she decided to make some of her own fun and shot a plain ol' cannonball right between its knees, lining up a shot right to the skull mask on its noggin as it doubled over.
Taking a moment to bask in the satisfaction of that last kill, Bonny nearly missed the sound of the first Ursa getting its land legs back, and her dodging was less than nimble as she tumbled out of the way of its claws at the last second.
"Shit!" she cussed, clicking the firing button on her cannon only to be met with the sound of an empty cylinder. "Double shit!"
She'd designed the Revenge with multiple chambers to avoid too much inconvenient reloading in battle. But with the cannonballs she'd already used just landing, her cylinder was empty, and she'd need at least thirty seconds to reload it completely. Precious seconds she didn't have.
So what she did instead was reach for her flask and the wood-and-metal rammer covered in white cloth that was hanging at her waist. Taking a swig of rum, she struck the wooden stick against the Grimm's coarse fur, setting the Dust-imbued cloth ablaze, and spewed the alcohol back at the Ursa. While this confused the bear at first, it quickly got the message when the fire erupted into a flamethrower-like gout, and it ran away with its fur on fire, whimpering and trying to pat itself out.
"And that be that, then," she said, picking up her cannon. "Alright, now let's reload you, ye salty dog..."
Looks like we've abandoned coloured text, huh? Alright, then.
Vladimir Plasimov-Drakka
Vlad had found himself walking for a few minutes, with not much to see or hear aside from trees, plants, and birds. At least, not until the sounds of quite a vicious and explosive fight came to his ear. He wondered who that could be making such noise, as he began to run toward the fight - somebody with a gun, obviously, and it sounded quite strong too. Maybe the blond-haired prettyboy? Or perhaps that one Faunus with the stag horns? Or maybe shorty had hidden a gun on him somewhere, and didn't want to mention it? Vlad pondered at the possibilities, eager to find out.
He found himself in a clearing, on the opposite side to the one person he rather desperately didn't want to be teamed with for the next four years. She did, as it happened, have a cannon on her person... and what was that he'd imagined about her pre-emptively burning down forests earlier? Because the Ursa she'd just fought was running away, fur on fire, with her seeing it off as it ran, then mentioning something about reloading. It didn't appear that she'd heard him enter, and as it happened, she was facing away from him. Now, what had Ozpin's exact words been? Oh yes, "the first person you make eye contact with will be your partner". No eye contact yet, so no obligation to team up, right? With that decided, Vlad silently turned to leave, and was promptly knocked on his back (and his weapons away from him) by a Beowolf lunging from nowhere, teeth trying to tear his face off, only held back by fast reflexes and two hands between its jaws, which he now exerted a fair amount of effort to pull apart until a pair of loud cracking noises occurred, and the Grimm's body fell limp atop him. The dead weight was rolled aside, Vlad grabbed his gun and his sword, and it was at this point that he realised that he was now surrounded by the rest of the Beowolf's pack. Some ten or so creatures, all snarling viciously at him (and, he noticed, ignoring Sharky for the time being), and led by a slightly bigger, slightly more ornate Beowolf that he assumed was the alpha.
He looked around himself to assess these odds, nodded once or twice, then managed to mutter "Well, goody," to himself before every wolf charged him at once. His escape was made with a great upward leap over the group, landing just outside the melee and bringing his sword down one-handed on the neck of the nearest, unprepared Grimm, half-decapitating it and ending its life in one blow, with another two or three gunned down and the sword freed before the rest regrouped and attacked again. This time, the Blood Dragon was better prepared to fight back: Breath unfurled into its trap form, only to clamp back down on one of the lunging Beowolves, keeping it held as Maw swung round and slashed into its body, once, twice, before the hapless Grimm was brought round into another lunging creature with enough force to break its neck.
The gun unfurled from its victim, and was promptly fired, sending the grapple straight into another of the creatures and knocking it back some even as Vlad's attention turned to a twinned assault from two other pack members, Maw's blade slicing through one's skull, and Breath's hilt cracking into the other's, stunning it for the moment, and giving him time to draw back the grapple on his gun, dragging the trapped foe toward him at significant speed. He readied himself, then just as it drew near, released Breath's beartrap-like grip, at the same time throwing a punch that combined with the Beowolf's own momentum to shatter its skullpiece outright. As the corpse dropped down and began to disintegrate, Vlad took the opportunity to unload the remaining bullets in Maw into the previously-dazed Grimm, slaying the final opponent.
Final, save for the alpha, which almost seemed to take note of Vlad's empty weapon, and sprung toward him full force, ready to slash out his throat given the opportunity. But, alas, in vain: Vladimir's gun moved up, and the clip was ejected directly into the alpha's face, distracting it and letting Vlad reload properly, only to double the beast over with a jab to the solar plexus. Vlad took a moment to decide whether ending the creature now was worth it, then resheathed his weapons, made his hands into fists and swung directly into the wolf's snout, knocking it down on the spot; a kick or two to the head to daze it swiftly followed, and then the alpha was lifted over Vlad's head momentarily, before being brought down full-force on to his knee, shattering its back and forcing a howl of pain from its broken body.
Leader thoroughly broken, the still-living alpha Beowolf was chucked to the ground, writhing in agony. Drawing his sword again, Vlad casually walked over to the creature, straddled it across its chest to hold its arms in place, then deliberately brought Maw's hilt down into the thickest part of its skull, over and over and over, pausing just once to see if it was still alive, then doubling up the blows until, after some thirty to thirty five strikes, the thing finally expired. He allowed it to aerosolise beneath him before taking a deep breath, resheathing Maw, and returning to his feet.
And then he realised he was looking directly at the shark Faunus. He quickly turned away, covering his eyes with one hand and muttering "No, hell, hell no, God damn it," and wondering if he had yet looked into her eyes, whether it had happened accidentally during his fight, or perhaps whether he'd done it just then. He thought he hadn't? No, he was quite sure that he hadn't, and even if he had, there was no way he'd ever, ever... he gritted his teeth, then finally released something halfway between a sigh of resignation and a groan of disgust. Clearly, Ozpin's intent had been that one formed a pair with the first student they saw at all, and that following the letter of what had been said rather than the spirit would somehow be figured out, and probably reprimanded in some way or another. Relenting to the inevitability of fate, Vlad turned back to the Faunus and walked over, putting on a fake, too-wide smile to display his unhappiness with the situation. "Well, Sharky," he said in a tone of manufactured, sarcastic glee that matched his facial expression as he approached, "I guess we're partners now. For four years. Give or take a few months. How does that make you feel?"
The forest’s general quietness put Rowan on edge. He’d been jogging at a light pace for several minutes now, and had heard nothing but the distant sound of gunfire. That changed, though, when he heard an explosion ahead. It was obviously caused by a human. The Grimm, to his knowledge, simply couldn't cause explosions. He curiously stepped closer, his fists at the ready.
What he saw caused him to lose all composure. The explosion wasn’t an explosion, but actually the last student crashing into the ground. Rowan saw the crater left in the ground from where the boy landed. Rowan caught sight of the boy responsible for the crater, whose flesh was now smoking. He burst out laughing as the boy panicked and ran for a nearby body of water. It was fortunate that there was one so close, otherwise the boy would have been miserable for several minutes while his Aura repaired the damage.
The boy stayed under the surface for longer than what was probably necessary. The steam produced from the heat began to fill the air. When the boy finally rose, he caught a lily pad on the top of his head. Rowan doubled over, not even trying to contain his laughter any longer. If there was any doubt that the boy could hear his laughter before, there wasn’t anymore.
Rowan regained his composure, and walked into clear view of the boy. “You know, I’ve never seen a more elegant landing strategy. You’ll have to teach me your ways. I'm Rowan, by the way."
Bonny reached into her pack for some more cannonballs to load, but was interrupted by the sound of about twenty Grimm being viciously mauled in a hurricane of over the top carnage and violence, with a little salty language mixed in. So, another student then.
The shark Faunus turned around to help the person she assumed would be her partner from now on, only to catch a look from the pasty-lookin' bloke, who was currently beating back a batallion of Beowolves. Bonny sighed.
"Well damn. Might as well see how he does, I s'pose."
Bonny leaned back against a tree, and resumed loading her cannon while continuing to watch the fight. She'd had her suspicions that the pasty giant had more talk than he had walk, but she saw now he'd earned the "tall, dark and edgy" look as he mauled an alpha Beowolf with his bare hands, breaking its back over his knee like a steroid-fueled lucha libre.
"Not bad," she said to herself, running through all the different ways she might've handled it in her head.
Then he mounted it and started beating it to death with the blunt side of his weapon, which was just excessive. Certainly he could've stopped after the twentieth time?
That's when he finally turned around and looked at her, before turning around again and cursing quietly to himself. Bonny frowned. She took offense to that. Then he walked over to her with the fakest looking shark smile (she should know) and said a bunch of vaguely mean things while calling her "Sharky".
"How does that make you feel?"
Bonny shrugged.
"Meh. Glad me back isn't being trusted to some green Jack Tar who doesn't know their way around a dozen odd Grimm or so I s'pose. Now, come on then! Stop hanging the jib and let's make haste! We're both measured fer our chains now, so let's get the blasted key!"
"Hm...?" The golden haired would-be pharaoh opened his eyes and stood a little straighter in the water when he noticed laughter nearby. At him, no less. One of the guys from earlier with the stylish red trench coat walked into view and introduced himself as Rowan. Rood climbed out of the creek and sat on the bank while unlatching a part of his golden armor that were the boots and turning them over to dump them out, a small Grimm fish angirly flopping out of it and back into the running water. As he did this with both boots, he talked over his shoulder.
"Rood. Rood von Rah." He finished with his task and stood up to slip the heavy armored boots back on and latch them back into place. Raising his hands which glowed a soft, off red, he shook his wet hair with both hands, sending water droplets scattering everywhere and with the combined heat, drying his hair rather quickly. He walked forward toward Rowan. "Looks like we'll be teammates then. Good." He paused to fold his arms over his chest and inspect the ... wow... okay yeah this guy was short. He looked taller when Rood was on the ground, but standing so close in front of him, this guy was... hm. He leaned down, squinting at Rowan with his red eyes.
"You're kind of a small fry, aren't you? It seems to me the Grimm would hardly get a mouthful out of you." His eyes narrowed at the smaller man. "I mean, that's a good thing and all. Makes you less of a target. Then again that coat really makes you more like... a moving small target. A challenge." Rood mulled this over, raising his eyebrows when considering Rowan's stature from the perspective of a Grimm. He straightened up, scratching his clean shaven chin a little and turned west, a direction most likely opposite of where they needed to go, and began to walk forward in his perplexed state. His armor clinked loudly with each step, dripping a little water here and there wherever it went.
Rowan watched the boy empty the waterlogged boots onto the forest floor. The fish that somehow managed to fit into the boot did not seem too fond of its change in environment, so it wobbled its way back into the creek. The blonde boy, Rood, re equipped his boots before standing up and drying off his hair. One unlucky water droplet found its way onto his glove, where it quickly sizzled away after coming into contact with the Dust-infused cloth.
Rood inspected him, no doubt taking into account his smaller size. It was commonly where most of his conversations started, which got old very quickly. As if on cue, the half-naked giant commented on his size. Pipsqueak, half-pint, munchkin, and in this case, small fry. He had heard them all countless times before. A smile crept onto Rowan’s face.
“You know, you don’t have to be so Rood, man.” His smile turned into spurts of giggles. In his mind, he was the funniest thing since Grimm puppet shows.
Rowan mindlessly followed Rood, paying no attention to the direction they were going. He had to nearly jog in order to keep up with his much longer strides. Rowan looked over his newly acquired partner as they walked through the forest. His choice of attire was certainly unique, but beyond that, he knew nothing of the man that was going to be his partner for the next four years.
“So, Rood, mind sharing what kind of figh-”
A deep, vibrating growl emanating from behind him interrupted his question. Rowan turned around, only to be greeted by the face of an Ursa. The beast was nearly three times Rowan’s height. Its body was covered in patches of thick, white bone that served as armor. The creature’s red eyes struck fear into even Rowan’s eyes, no matter how many times he had encountered them. The Grimm were truly terrifying.
But, Rowan was trained to overcome this fear. Rowan wasted no time with his opening strike. He quickly closed the distance between him and the beast. Rowan struck first, landing a blow that exploded on impact. The beast’s step never faltered. He swung with his massive paw, easily swiping Rowan to the side. Rowan’s Aura took the brunt of the hit, but he was still stunned from the impact with a rather large tree. The Grimm’s reach had often proved to be a problem with his aggressive and up close fighting style. He struggled to get in close enough to effectively neutralize his targets.
Nevertheless, Rowan rose back to his feet, dusting off his coat. This time, it was the Ursa’s turn to close the gap. The beast rushed head first at him. Rowan cocked his arm back, ready to break the creature’s skull open.
...he'd expected a more angry response from the Faunus who was now his partner. Apparently, she wasn't that upset about the whole situation, so long as he could fight. And oh, could Vlad fight. He grinned to himself at the thought, then nodded and began to walk in roughly the same direction as he had been before, trusting that whats-her-name would follow on. Speaking of which...
"I don't believe I ever got your name," he mentioned to Bonny as he began to move off. "Those tend to be important for the sake of reference, so I figure we should at least learn them from each other if we're stuck together for the next several years. If you want mine, it's Vladimir Plasimov-Drakka; Vlad for short."
"Pffft," Bonny snerked. "You mean like the bloke from the story-books who made a pact with the Grimm and turned into a monster? Who names their kid that?"
Bonny hefted her cannon around to point it at Vlad.
"Me name be Bonny Mako, bosun Vlad. Pirate queen of the seven seas, and owner of this lil' beaut right here. Name's the Revenge. She be a 4.62'' caliber revolver jetpack cannon firin' smoothbore Dust twelve-pounders and grape shot. I be thinkin' about trying out some chainshot, but getting the Dust ta cooperate with that is provin'... difficult."
Bonny coughed, embarrassed. "I may have uh... blown meself up a few times tryin' it."
"I'll have you know, my name has nothing to do with that character," Vlad tried to say, only to cut himself off halfway through as Bonny's weapon turned to face him. He promptly remained silent as she gave her name and explained her weapon's functionality, frowning when referred to as "bosun", then smirking at her chainshot-based mishaps. "Sounds like a lot of work to maintain," he offered, moving around her to get out of her line of fire should her weapon go off accidentally. "But, first of all, I'll have you know that I'm at least captain material, if not greater than that. Admiral material, maybe, whatever naval rank is highest. And secondly, trigger discipline. You don't point your weapons at anything you don't want dead. I mean, I didn't expect much from your sort, but a brain regarding this sort of thing would at least be appreciated!" The annoyance in his voice was evident, and he almost seemed to have not noticed the subtly offensive use of "your sort" in his language, like it was an afterthought to the greater issue in his mind.
"Still, a weapon like Revenge has a lot of bulk to it," he continued irregardless. "It's heavy, so it's probably rather difficult to aim effectively, given momentum and all, and the only obvious melee option is to swing it at whatever gets near you; same problem, shorter range. Personally, I much prefer Maw and Breath." At this, he drew his weapons, making sure to keep his finger off of the pistol's trigger and facing away from himself and Bonny as if to make a point. "One's a claymore, one's a pistol. They're both big enough to pack a punch, but neither's so large that it obstructs movement the way that thing you wield does. And, they do this," he stated bluntly, demonstrating their shared capacity to fold out simultaneously, revealing the multi-dimensional beartrap present on each, then closing both after a second or two of display and returning them to their sheaths. "To trap foes and keep them close. Breath's can also be fired like a grapple to pull opponents in; I'm sure you saw that in action, though.
"So, any questions?" At some point, he realised with a blink, his tone had lapsed into smug superiority, as though his weapons were his pride and joy. To be fair, they held some value to him, but if worst came to worst, he could always buy new ones to similar or better specifications. Even so, he was curious to see how his new partner would react to his multi-topic spiel.
Though he wasn't paying attention, Rood did faintly hear the sound of his new teammate going on about something in the background. He was so in his head, in fact, that he didn't notice when the smaller man had stopped and looked around. The blonde kept marching forward, scratching his chin at his previous thoughts. Ah... How did that jingle for that Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes commercial go again? Really did so much money need to be going into something so... cheap? Hell he'd seen that cereal go on sale for a lien a box. That's unheard of. When he was younger he remembered seeing that box go for 6 liens easily. Then again he was always dragged to those high class grocery stores. Oh, wait, Rowan had said something.
"Did you say something . . . ?"
As he turned around to face where he last saw Rowan, his eyes widened. As he had been in his own head thinking about cereal, Rowan had been actively trying to fight off an Ursa that had essentially ignored Rood as he went about his way. His eyes landed on Rowan who had just been tossed into a tree and gotten himself back up as an Ursa went to attack him. Rood's eyes flashed and he thrust an open palm out toward his new teammate.
"Rowan!"
Using his semblance, Rood's aura extended itself invisibly to cover Rowans clenched fist. A thick, crackling layer of friction over it to improve the velocity of Rowan's punch ten fold.
Rowan's fist came into contact with the hardened bone protecting one of the Grimm's only vulnerable spots. Not that it mattered, when combined with Rood's Semblance. The Ursa, now unrecognizable, collapsed to the ground. Rowan flinched as his face was splattered with the unidentified liquids from inside the Ursa. Rowan turned to face his partner, who was standing at a distance far enough to be unaffected by the Ursa's brain juices.
"Eugh, disgusting," Rowan paused to clean his face. "Normally my attacks aren't that powerful, even when combined with stronger dust. Did you do something?" He asked, completely unaware of the aura that had surrounded his fist. Rood was about to respond when another Ursa, no doubt the partner to the first, barreled at Rood from the side. Rood turned his head just in time to see it before getting a face full of claws. Thankfully, his aura protected him well enough and he took the blow in stride, backflipping onto his feet and crouching defensively as the Ursa swung again. This time Rood was ready, He spun into the attack, his hand removing his weapon from his side and in his turn, completely unfolded the lance into it's complete size. By the time his little pirouette had finished, he'd stabbed the Ursa through the head with a large golden lance hard enough to lift himself off the ground. The noise, however, caught the attention of some Beowolves, who howled in response to the cries of the Ursa the two men had taken on. The sound of their paws hoofing through the dirt to get to them through the trees was nigh deafening.
Letting out a heavy breath through his nostrils, Rood righted himself on the Ursa, looked around and knelt down. Holding the handle of the lance in both hands, the air that had surrounded Rowans fist was now reflected above his hair. As he jumped off the Ursa's fading body, he sky rocketed into the air, skyscrapers above the chaos below, seeming to have left Rowan behind.
"Hmmph. Coward," he said as he watched Rood fly up into the sky.
Rowan was quickly surrounded by several Beowolves. He didn't bother to count, instead he closed the gap between him and the first one, where he struck it with an explosive blow to the chin, sending it onto its back. While the Ursa may have proved difficult due to its long reach, the Beowolves fought in a similar fashion to his own. Rowan turned just in time to parry a slash from a younger wolf. He managed to land several hits uninterrupted. Not even he could handle the sheer numbers, though.
The Beowolves advanced as one, overwhelming the brawler. In the moment, he so desperately wished for a Semblance that was actually useful against the Grimm. Acting defensively, he blocked one of the wolves' attacks, but was struck in the back by another. His Aura held strong. Fortunately, the blows drained a minimal portion of his Aura. Being a melee fighter, his Aura pool was much higher than someone who might prefer to stay at range.
At that moment, overhead of the fighting Rowan and the beowolves, a meteor looked to be coming down. It was bright, blinding, and distracted some of the wolves to look away from the red-trenchcoat clad student. In that 'meteor,' was Rood. His feet firmly planted on the hilt of his lance and holding the hilt in both hands almost like a pogo stick but cooler.
The Beowolves appeared to be distracted, which Rowan used to his advantage. He grabbed the closest one, and threw it into another. They had completely stopped fighting back. He turned to the sky, trying to follow the wolves' curiosity. He had to shield his eyes from the blinding light that was speeding towards his position. Having nearly no time to react, Rowan broke into a sprint to get away from the speeding object. His feet failed to gain traction, and he ended up face-down in the dirt, nearly ten feet away from his original position.
Rood, at the time where his golden lance had developed a barrier around it, leapt off of his weapon and leaving his focused semblance to do the rest of the work. On his way down, he spotted Rowan as he ran and tripped when trying to get away from the meteor-esque blade coming down. Seeing that the smaller student would be hit by the blast of the meteor, Rood threw his chain-clad arm outward toward the trees, the chain extending and wrapping around a thick branch as he swung down, scooped up the fallen Rowan, and flung himself into the trees. The two of them swang through the trees unobstructed until they came out the other end, the chain disconnecting itself from the branch. The two of them soared through the air, Rood carrying Rowan wrapped up in one arm, giving them both an excellent view of the landing lance. The emitting shockwave as it hit the ground knocked back all the beowolves present, and was heard throughout all of the Emerald Forest.
Rood's blonde hair was blown back as they remained airbourne by the intense wind. Rowan thought he had seen a twinkle in the eyes of his savior, but surely it had just been a reflection from the sun. It had killed several of the beowolves, but a few had only been injured and angered by being tossed. Just as the two of them began to fall, Rood grunted loudly and planted his feet firmly on... nothing. He panted softly as the soles of his feet his armor clad feet burned in a crackling ember light. He stayed there, levitating as his chain swung back around his arm again. He looked down at Rowan, speaking in between breaths as the man in his arms' legs dangled freely.
"Haah.... Are... you okay?"
Rowan stared upwards, looking into the red eyes staring back at him. He wasn't sure if Rood's style involved constantly putting his partner in danger, but if it did, Rowan would never be able to get used to it.
"I'm better than I would be if you didn't swoop in like some crazed jungle man. Then again, you are the one that nearly impaled me with your firey lance contraption. I'm pretty sure I had it under control," he said, but in reality, he hadn't. The Grimm would have had him for dinner if Rood didn't intervene.
"Aye. T'was quite the display you put on. Doesn't all the Grimm gunk and stuff make 'em a bitch to swab clean though?"
While they talked, two red eyes watched them from the shadows, waiting.
Bonny continued. "And ye needn't worry about me, bosun Vlad. This cannon here might seem a bit clunky to you, but we Faunus be a lot stronger than you think. Besides-"
Bonny spun the cannon around her arm so the mouth of the barrel faced behind her. Without any warning, a King Taijitu erupted from the undergrowth, lunging at Bonny, then at Vlad. Firing blindly, Bonny landed two direct hits on the Grimm's heads, blasting them into bloody stumps. Then she took a step to the side as one fell where she had just been standing, a bloody rope missing its head.
"I be havin' eyes in the back of me head. If I can't shoot them or fly away by the time they get close enough to hit me with something, I be havin' a bad day."
Bonny stepped over the corpses as they started to disintegrate, whistling to herself.
"By the way," she yelled back. "I called ye 'bosun Vlad' so you'd have enough room to earn some promotions. Impress me enough and one day I might be callin' ye 'first mate' Vlad."
Vlad was having trouble believing that the clunky thing Bonny called a weapon was powerful enough to outright murder a King Taijitu in two shots. Furthermore, he'd barely noticed the thing's eyes glowing in the darkness behind her before it had lunged, and yet if she was to be believed, she'd known it was there the whole time! Though admittedly, this was the far more believable of the two facts, under the assumption that that was her Semblance, which made sense given her shark-like nature. Sharks could detect things like that, couldn't they? He needed to look that up at some point. And, if he thought about it, his pistol was more than strong enough to kill Beowolves with a single regular bullet; it only made sense that scaling that up would result in progressively stronger projectiles.
But he was digressing. He'd been standing there, slightly shocked at the turn of events, right up until the moment Bonny mentioned the phrase "'first mate' Vlad"; at this, he realised the assumptions that had been made and how stupid he probably looked, and began running after the Faunus, leaping over the disintegrating body of the Taijitu as he called after her: "Who told you you were my superior?! Also, in case you didn't notice, the gunk is self-cleaning!" A deliberate gesture was made back at the nearly-vanished snake-like Grimm, though if she was arrogant enough to consider herself his superior, he somehow doubted she would deign to answer back to either of his statements. It didn't matter, of course, since his goal was to be the best student Beacon had ever seen anyway; he'd just have to prove without a shadow of a doubt that he was the head of that particular relationship, such that the Faunus never questioned his superiority again. Perhaps less violently than he had with Jonathan, but if needs must...
“Anyways, that doesn’t matter. Hopefully I didn’t cause too much of a drain on your Aura. Better be more careful of that in the future.” Rowan didn’t give the blonde any time to respond before dropping down to the ground, collapsing onto one of the Beowolves, instantly rendering it useless.
Inside of the crater, the odds were now much more even. With his Dust supplies nearly depleted, Rowan opted to use his Aura to strengthen his attacks. Under normal circumstances, he saved his Aura for the sole purpose of defense, however, he would occasionally make exceptions. Rowan turned to the nearest Beowolf, where his fist met the patchy exoskeleton surrounding the wolf’s head. He turned just in time to catch the claws of another wolf, which he parried, sending the wolf flying into a nearby bush. The corpse soared over its friend, who had rushed in to take his place. The wolf lunged with its razor-sharp claws. Rowan grabbed its forearm, and swung him overhead. The beowolf landed with a loud thud. Rowan infused another hit with his Aura, quickly ending the wolf, as well as the encounter.
The fight was over in a matter of seconds. Rowan looked for his next target, only to find that the last one had run off into the forest. “That’ll show you! Be sure to spread the tale of Rowan, Grimm Destroyer!” He shouted towards the Beowolf. Of course, it served no purpose, other than for Rowan to have a bit of fun.
Watching Rowan drop down, the blonde egyptian got into a crouch. In truth, it really didn't take up a lot of Aura to use his semblance. It was more like having to put a certain amount of effort, like pushing yourself up, and from then on it was a matter of how long you held it. Using his semblance like that had made it necessary to leap so high in the first place so he could build it for as long as he had. Rood watched as Rowan went to town, smiling and resting a cheek on a golden gauntlet as he stayed in the air, the crackling energy on the bottom of his feet holding him up in midair. He noticed that Rowan had started taking off after the last beowolf. Well, that wouldn't do. Standing up and brushing his thighs off, he resigned himself to catching the twerp.
Chapter 2 Primary
Ozpin
From up on the cliff, Ozpin watched the video monitors through a scroll-pad beside Glynda as she sat on the cliffs edge. The breeze blew through both their very different shades of pale hair as they watched. Glynda gave a sidelong glance at her professor, blushed, and decided to keep her head back where it were. No one really knew how old Ozpin was, but honestly she always did care for the man she served so diligently.
"Glynda,"
The sound of Ozpin's voice made the blonde witch jump and look at him, waiting for him to continue. When she looked at him, he had put the large scroll down to look over the trees.
"You ... had remembered to call Ironwood and take care of the issue this time around, yes?"
---
Rood von Rah
Rood ran through the air above Rowan as he chased after the beowolf, scowling a little. He looked down at Rowan, getting rather tired of this chase.
"Hey, Shrimp, stop wasting time. We're here to get those relic or whatever he called them. Let's go!"
At that moment, he looked to the east. There, he could see a clearing with a meadow containing miscellaneous objects on pedastels. What they were though, he couldn't say. He stopped, hovering in the air as he looked over.
"Small Fry, I think I see the relics! ... HEY!"
Rood's eyebrows furrowed as he barked after the running Rowan and sighed, folding his arms as he went to look back at the relic station. However, as he turned his head, a dark figure caught his eye, causing him to stop and stare at it.
There, in the distance, a small, humanoid dark figure with red flecks like embers coming off of it. It was far away though, making its appearance shaky and almost shadowy. Rood paused to rub his eyes and look back at where he saw the figure, but it was gone.
...
The hairs on the back of Rood's neck raised and he dropped down to the ground.
"Uh... Rowan! Come on... Let's... go this way."
The uneasy tone in Rood's voice was painfully obvious as he strode toward the direction of where he'd seen the relics through the trees. What had that thing he'd seen been? Just remembering it made the hairs on his arm stand on end.
The ground trembled as Bonny launched herself up through the forest canopy again, surveying the landscape for anything that looked key-ish. It was almost like playing with a pogo-stick, except everything beneath the pogo-stick tended to die.
Something brushed over her head as she neared the apex of her arc, and she lunged like a breach, catching a small black bird in her teeth. She spat it out.
"Bleh. Birdie," she said in disgust. "Could be good fer cookin' tho."
So she threw the chewed-on bird carcass in her pack with the cannonballs. That's when she spotted something off in the distance. A clearing, full of strange, vaguely key-related-in-a-metaphorical-sense objects (or so she hoped).
"Oi, Bosun Vlad!" she yelled as she slowly began to fall. "Methinks I found our-"
An oppressive sense of fear shot through her veins, freezing her blood solid like ice. She immediately knew why. It was down there. Watching her. This humanoid shadow that burned like a person-shaped lump of charcoal. That was the best description she had for it. It was ridiculous but she felt sure of it. It knew they were there. It was watching them.
She squinted, trying to get a better look at it.
It turned its head.
She stopped breathing entirely as she felt that ice in her blood as cold as the figure was hot clench its frozen tendrils around her heart. Panic rose in her throat and she started to sweat, her lip trembling as the figure slowly became taller as the ground drew closer. Finally she couldn't take it anymore. She closed her eyes.
And then it was gone. Vanished into thin air, like ashes blowing away in the wind.
"Wha..."
A little too late, Bonny realized she was still approaching her LZ far too fast, and quickly clicked the trigger on the Revenge, blasting dirt and grass directly up into her face and mouth. She coughed, sitting in a crater as wide as she was tall.
She got up and dusted herself off, looking into the distance with this vague sense of dread.
What... was that?
She shook her head. Stop thinking about it. You'll be fine. You can just tell someone about it later, okay?
"Ye be alright there, Vlad?" she asked the tall boy trailing behind her. "I came in a little hot."
She hesitated for a moment. "... I think I found our keys."
