Cinna simply grinned looking back once at Xinyue, the prize is the satisfaction of knowing you beat everyone else there. The next thing she knew Xinyue was up in the trees along with her tiger pals, trying to keep up with her pace. Truthfully, she was looking for a pack of grimm purposefully at the moment. They had almost taken her life once before, and she wanted to show them she was no longer a person to be messed with. If she was lucky, Xinyue would be able to see her in action though she imagined her method of fighting was more...elegant than her style.

Her wish for combat came true as some beowulves came out from the dense brush and in her direct path "Heh. You dare stand in my way?" Golden eyes adopted a sinister look as she stared them down, the lead Grimm howling in response as it moved to intercept her. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH, YOU BASTARDS!" She yelled out as her right hand took hold of Sovereign Right's handle, flicking the weapon to its full extension to her side. With a quick adjustment, she shifted the lance forward and, without slowing down, pieced the chest of her opponent. The beast fell with that one strike and it wasn't enough. She needed more.

A beowulf came to her side and she swung her lance like a club, slamming its side into the creature propelling it into a nearby tree. The thrusters activated on the lance, pushing it back into her control and just in time to catch a beowulf that leaped towards her. Yes. YES! This was adventure! This was revenge! This. Was. Living! Another beowulf tried to charge from her blind-spot, but she was well aware of its presence. One well-timed flip and she landed on its back, lance's tip however above its spine just before she pushed it forward with the help of the thrusters. Three down. Cinna was too wrapped up in getting to the ruins first and fighting these Grimm that she did notice the nevermore like Xinyue.

Her eyes looked up to the tree-line "Come on, Xinyue! Won't you join me in this dance?" A bright smile was on her lips as she called to her partner. Adrenaline served only to fuel the excitement within her, and the competitiveness. This was really it. They were out in this forest to actually fight real Grimm. A fourth beowulf decided to try its hand at taking Cinna down. With the last of the energy that was stored in her, she released it all concentrated in her fist as she punched the monster. It flew into a tree, the trunk cracking from the impact. Sadly though, now that spent all that she didn't have anything left to increase her running speed.

---

Kobalt strayed not from his path - he didn't know if it headed to wherever he needed to be, but all he could do was hope that he was heading the right way. It wasn't exactly the most thrilling nature walk - the Emerald Forest wasn't the most diverse forest he'd seen. Sure, if you liked trees, you were in for a treat, but so far? He'd seen nothing but trees. It was much like some sort of forest maze. It wouldn't be too hard to get yourself lost in such a vast, similar looking place.

'Still... can't believe Ozpin just flat out dropped us into a place like this. Didn't think he'd be the type to do stuff like that - but that ain't a bad thing by any means. If you can't handle this place, you aren't fit to be a hunter.' Kobalt reminisced, a hand onto his peaked cap - as the previous fight had thrown it slightly ajar. When he felt that his hat was back in the perfect place, he boarded his train of thought once more. 'Speaking of which, can't help but wonder how the other guys are doing. Most of them looked pretty capable, so I doubt any of them got splattered onto the grass or bested by some second-rate Grimm. Hell, I haven't run into anybody, now that I think about it.'

'Anyways, that partner system Ozpin mentioned... first person you have eye contact with, you're teamed with. Wonder how they enforce that. I'm sure some dumb sod's tried to lie about who they saw.' Kobalt continued his walk, still not noticing anything of interest - but emerald green trees, as far as the eye could see. 'I'll need a partner here, anyways. Apparently that's a prerequisite to whatever we're doing here, if I ain't remembering wrong or something like that. Sounds like I'm gonna have to be on the prowl for a partner, then. May as well get this whole business over with.'

After a few more minutes of walking, something finally caught Kobalt's eye, far off in the distance. He was equally curious as to what it was, as he was excited to finally have seen anything of note within the forest. What he spotted as a mass of black - likely a Grimm - being assaulted by some form of thin blue projectile. Kobalt assumed they were arrows... though it didn't matter what they were.

What mattered, is that a person was nearby. It was in Kobalt's best interest to get a teammate, so he needed to catch up to whoever had shot that arrow... not that he'd seen them, but it was still worth a shot.

"Running ain't gonna get me very far... so, looks like it's high time for me to bust out a trick." Kobalt muttered to nobody in particular, as he pointed one of his gauntlets at the ground, then fired off a rope as far as he could. Said rope dug into the ground firmly... and then, Kobalt motioned with his fingers inside the gauntlet. With an audible click, Kobalt was pulled towards the rope with high velocity. Another motion of his fingers withdrew the rope from the ground, which almost instantaneously retracted back into his gauntlets. Eventually, Kobalt came to a stop utilizing his gauntlets to root himself to the ground. He'd reached the area where the Grimm was... if it hadn't been killed. The source of the arrows had killed the Grimm. 'I think I'm close, at least... keep this up, and I'll find whoever this archer is, hopefully. Would suck if they're already in a team, though.'

There was no sign of whoever this archer was, but they couldn't have gotten far - unless they had a Semblance or a weapon that allowed them to traverse the landscape quickly and easily. So instead... Kobalt thought it'd be best to yell out and hope that the person heard it.

"Good shootin', whoever you are! You got a partner!?" Kobalt yelled out. "We're screwed if we don't have a partner, don't think we'll be allowed to finish this whole course thing without one. I ain't a fan of that, and if you ain't a fan of that too, it'll probably be best if you join up with me or somethin'!" Kobalt ceased his yelling. It wasn't particularly his style to yell so loudly, but hey - he needed a partner... but, he could only pray that the archer was nearby and didn't have a partner, for it'd be incredibly awkward if that were the case. Hell, it was already pretty awkward to be yelling about requiring a partner...

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Interactions: @Darshadow

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Interacting: @AGenericUser

Romand was sitting in the tree, keeping his eyes open for any other Grimm that might be lerking in the shadows of the trees. Even though he knew there were others in the forest he didn't really know their skill levels so for all knew the others could have just been running and not fighting. Letting out a sign he took off again through the trees, only stopping when he heard a loud noise behind him. What the... What is that sound? It can't be a Grimm can it? It sounds like some kind of cable, like a pully or something.. He thought to himself looking around the tree tops for the sound, not thinking it could be from the ground below him.

Taking out his Water Bow and Water Arrows he took aim head to fire at any threat that showed itself. Once the person started yelling Romand let out a loud, slightly annoyed sigh. Great! It's another person.. Mr. Ozpin said we need to work with the first person we run into.. Sounds like this guy hasn't run into anyone yet either. Oh well I have to follow orders given by Mr. Ozpin so I've got no choice... He's my new partner. He thought as he put his Bow on his back again. Closing his eyes briefly Romand meditated for a moment before jumping from the tree branch high above, landing with a silent kneel on the ground behind the guy who had been yelling.

"So, you are the first to see me up in the trees? Nice sight you have. Guess this means we have to pair up.. Please tell me you can fight these Grimms and wont need me to save your butt when it gets heated in battle.." He said in a flat tone, as if he wasn't happy about being spotted or called out. Crossing his arms he then sighed a bit before adding his name. I'm Romand Lei Vester, a Water Archer. Who are you and what's that thing you used to follow me? It's pretty interesting." He asked holding a hand out to the guy in front of him. His father had always told him to mind his manners, also that he had a cold tone but how could he fix that.. At last he could attempt to sound polite.

Popping her head out from the top of the tree that she'd chosen to climb, Xinyue scouted the skyline around her for the presence of Grimm that she sensed earlier. Lo and behold, there was the exact thing that she predicted; a Nevermore soaring confidently above the canopy as though it had ruled the forest. It wasn't alone, however. Xinyue managed to find another Nevermore not to far away, approximately a hundred meters or so to the East. Either one of them would be in range of her Arcus Splinters, but the main problem was that fighting one of them could easily attract the attention of the other. She needed to plan this attack carefully.

For the moment, Xinyue retreated back into the leaves and began to strategize. She could probably start by luring the Nevermores into crashing into each other, and then have her tiger spirits lunge at them while they were in recoil. Around that point would be the time she swapped back to her metal bolts and start aiming for the wings. How good the shots she'd be able make would depend entirely on how good of a fight the tiger spirits could put up, but assuming everything went according to plan, the Nevermores would be crippled of their flight and be forced down to the ground, making them infinitely easier to combat.

Now that she knew what she'd be doing, Xinyue popped her head above the leaves again and fired Water Dust bolts straight at the two Nevermores. The vast majority of the bolts she fired had soared straight past the Nevermores, and even those that connected would splash against them futilely. But that didn't matter; all Xinyue was concerned about was that she now had their attention.

...

Xinyue managed to swap into at least one magazine of metal bolts before she was forced to react to the two-pronged attack that the Nevermores were going for; that part of the plan went well. However, the Nevermores proved to be more coordinated in their assault than Xinyue had realized, sliding over and under each other and barely giving enough room in between for her to dodge the both of them. Being squashed between the two bodies had made her own roll vigorously, making any attempt to aim all the less possible, so Xinyue resorted to firing blindly, hoping for a lucky shot. Thankfully, she managed to strike the one that was beneath her, and the one that was above had been attacked by both tiger spirits at once. That at least left Xinyue with only one Nevermore to deal with for the moment.

Even better, it looked as though this specific Nevermore's left wing had been struck by the metal bolt, sending it spiraling through the tree tops and almost all the way to the ground, with it being able to recover just in time. It turned out that slight hiccup in Xinyue's plan was meaningless in the end, as the stricken Nevermore was now at forest floor level like she wanted it. Despite its injury, the Nevermore was still quite capable of putting up a fight, and Xinyue had a hard job trying to get a good shot in due to having to dodge the feathers that it would fire from its good wing on top of that. Biding her time wasn't working either. She could tell that her Aura levels were replenishing, which could only mean one thing: one of the two tiger spirits she sent to attack the other Nevermore had been defeated, and because of that, she had to assume that it was able to fight the other one off as well.

"I've had enough of this farce..." she decided, transforming her Arcus Splinters into their melee mode, "Come at me!"

As though in compliance to that, the Nevermore soared straight at her, aiming its beak to land square on her heart. Xinyue made no preparation to dodge, gazing fearlessly at the incoming Nevermore. She could sense that the surviving tiger spirit was on its way... and her faith was rewarded when it came in and ambushed the Nevermore from its flank, biting into its good wing and successfully pinning it down. Taking her one and only chance to finish it off, Xinyue pointed one Arcus Splinter at its throat and one at its skull.

"Now die," she whispered mercilessly as she pulled the triggers. The Nevermore squawked in pain and anguish as it was being drilled into oblivion, before its cries ceased, and it faded into nothingness. No doubt that other Nevermore would be able to hear that and try to find its assailant, but Xinyue couldn't care less. She and it had unfinished business anyway.

Xinyue transformed her Arcus Splinters back to normal, and with her surviving tiger spirit in tow, she was on the prowl for that missing Nevermore. She did not want to rue the day that she left it alive, that was for sure...

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Well, things were turning out well for Kobalt. The archer he'd attempted to tail had heard his words, and had appeared behind Kobalt - having leapt down from the trees. The archer had been traveling the forest from the treetops, it seemed - which was a clever and rather interesting plan, even if it weren't something Kobalt would consider using. The archer boy introduced himself as 'Romand Lei Vester'.

'Alright, good. We've made eye contact, so we're set.' Kobalt thought as he glanced at the archer, who had begun to speak - including a mention of how Kobalt apparently saw the boy in the trees. 'Didn't really see him up there, but hey, it'll do. Sounds better than me just yelling at some trees and hoping someone's there, that's for sure. Wouldn't be a great first impression.'

Kobalt began to go through the motions - the motions of introducing himself to another person. He felt that he was getting quite good at it, as the boy in front of him held out his hand - which Kobalt reached out and shook. "The name's Kobalt Zaffre." He introduced himself with a calm tone. "I'll promise you - I know my way around a fight. It's what my family's built on... so, yeah, guess you could say I can fight." He finished his explanation, then looked at the archer, known as Romand. "Gettin' a hunch that you're an alright fighter. Saw a few of your shots earlier... they were pretty good."

Romand had also asked a question regarding Kobalt's weapons - more specifically, how he used them to catch up to him. Raising his left hand upwards to show off his gauntlets, he began to speak. "Wonderin' about these, huh? Can't blame you. These're Whip Gauntlets - I call 'em the Twin Thunderbolts. They're pretty crappy at large ranges - they're great for close to mid-range, though." He continued. "Caught up to you by launching myself with these, I guess. Not that easy to explain, so just keep an eye out next time I use them."

After this, Kobalt glanced over at Romand's weapon. It was a bow, unsurprisingly enough, though it had a rather elegant - even beautiful azure blue design. It was certainly very stylish, though Kobalt found himself wondering more about the utilities of his new teammate's weapon. Could it transform? Did it shoot special arrows? What was his Semblance? Kobalt considered asking, but those questions would likely be answered in due time, within the heat of combat.

"Probably best not to dally too much." Kobalt took a singular step forwards, which was followed by a look at his new partner. "Now that we're all registered in this whole partners business, we should be able to get this over and done with pretty easily. From here, we've only got to get to the relic. Should be no sweat for the two of us, I reckon."

While this Romand fellow was new to Kobalt, he seemed like he'd make a good partner. He seemed like he was a capable fighter from range, and he approached situations carefully - as evidenced by him taking the higher route, the treetops. It seemed like Kobalt had gotten lucky, regarding who he was partnered up with... so far.

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Interactions: @Darshadow

Daedalus was quiet as he listened to plan proposed by his newly minted partner, nodding once in approval. He mentally amended his statement about his shield though, as the shield that Aeschel saw wasn't his semblance but instead merely a feature of his Icarus System. Not seeing the point of arguing semantics, he instead lowered his body slightly and bent his arms as he got ready to act.

"Try to match my timing."

With that, he sprinted forward, aiming to circle the King Taijitu while also veering closer. He had the closest arm extended, firing a hail of hard-light bolts at the closest head, splitting the creature's full attention between him and his new partner. When he was close enough the black-scaled head lunged at him, intent on swallowing him whole. The cyborg, having expected this, forced his legs in front of him as he slid underneath it, peppering the underside of it's head with gunfire from both arms. Feeling himself slowing, he flipped himself over so he ended in a low, predatory crouch. The Instant he was stationary, he stood up from his crouch and charged a High Impact shot. Whole ordeal that taken less than 6 seconds, and he paused briefly before moving again. That was Aeschel's first window, and the Atlesian hoped he noticed it.

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Asechel found it hard to keep focus, but focus he did, even if he really wanted to start inspecting his partner and comparing ideas in his head. He watched the beast's movements, letting his ice arrow fly to the beasts underbelly, setting the white head that would try to join the attack off balance and allowing Daedalus a much frictionless surface to slide on when he went to go under the black-scaled attacker. There was a slight distraction as some student's bout with a Nevermore could be heard close by, mentally Aschel reminded himself that they needed to finish this quickly, then hopefully they'd move in to help the other students if they were still fighting it.

He notched another arrow jumping to higher ground to get a better angle for the shot, lining it up so when his arrow fired and embedded itself in the lowered black head's eye, it would reach far enough. Fortunately, when the ice blast went over, the explosion reached towards the ground, thankfully allowing the ice to puncture inside it, as if someone had set off an explosion of spikes within its mouth.

Unfortunately, it was at this moment that the beat decided to swing the rest of its body around, trying to wiggle out of the ice trap as well as chase the much more threatening target of Daedalus, while the white head struggled over Aeschel's enviormental hazards, it's body came up towards Aeschel's position and completely smashed through the rocks Aeschel stood upon. This forced the squirrel Faunus to jump up onto the snake's body, running down along the uneven surface of a coiling snake's scales much easier than he thought he would. He didn't want this opportunity to go wasted, so in the name of drawing attention and revealing more weak spots, Aeschel used his position to tuck his blade under the scales and ripping them out on his way, opening up more vulnerable spots.

Around them, the snake's body seemed only bigger as it circled the area, breaking everything in it's path from trees to pieces of the mountains, truly and royally pissed off. That didn't stop Aeschel from expending a few explosive crystals here and there to screw up where it walked now and then. But the furious it got with it's inability to deal with this threat, the more dangerous it seemed to become. A King Taijitu was not supposed to be THAT mighty a Grimm, but an older and angry one? They could pack a punch. Plus, Aeschel couldn't discount the possibility of more Grimm showing up, weaker ones alone, but in numbers, they could prove troublesome. It made him think of a bad stomach cramp, never let it fester. Though, it did give Aeschel an idea... "Hey, Partner; any chance you could get on of those heads to keep their mouths open for longer than a second? I think we can kill two heads with a few stones by giving it a stomach ache"

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Aurelia was usually expressionless as it was, but she had absolutely no reaction to Aquarius' pun, even as the girl laughed at her own joke. She understood it. It was just really bad. Luckily for the pair, her new partner would then shift the topic to more urgent matters: moving on with the test. As Aquarius would jog, Aurelia followed suit. Admittedly, she was faster than she looked; Aurelia found the thick of the woods impeding her heels, the uneven ground giving little leeway and surprise slopes. Still, she managed to keep up as she got used to it, knowing that if she was going to have issues running through the forest, she may as well go home.

Aquarius then inquired about her staff, and Aurelia's eyes lit up. Did she want a full explanation? "By optimizing the metals used to construct its build, Rampion employs Dust to its fullest potential down to the last speck," She stated rather proudly. "You would think utilizing a substance would come naturally, but after some meticulous research I found that control starts with the weapon. Of course, that isn't to say the weapon is more important than the user, but considering that preparation before a mission contributes to success, it's one less thing to worry about when you're out and about and not have to consider restocking right away. Saving time, saving money, saving a hassle. Now, the expulsion of Dust was also something I put time into, though I found that the more power you want, the more careful you have to be with the foundation of the weapon. Sure, you could ignore all logic and have as much Dust as you wish, but that would require more maintenance on the weapon than usual, so it was all about finding that balance. Personally I feel Rampion has another .0631 percent that I could optimize, but it is a work in progress, so we shall see."

She seemed embossed in her ramblings, though she would finally come to a close. "In lesser terms, it expels Dust at whatever quantity I wish. Either by smaller spells or greater blasts," She nodded to herself.

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Interacting: @AGenericUser

Romand nodded in reply to them only needing to find the Relics now. He had no idea where they were but he had to admit with Kobalt's help it would be much easier to find them. "Alright, let's head off then. Since I'm better with range I can cover you from the trees if any Grimm come along. In the mean time I'll move along the ground with you, I'm pretty fast when running so feel free to use those blasts again if you need. Just don't get hit by an arrow, you wont be able to move." He said in a slightly flat tone, as if it had been rehearsed over in his head a few times before being said.

I really hope this guy isn't dumb enough to get hit by an arrow. Water Arrows take 15 minutes to wear off completely. But this guy does seem like he can sense his surroundings and can work with others so I guess I'll see. He though to himself before saying a ready to go and running off in the same direction the both of them had seemed to be heading before meeting up. He did make sure not to lose sight of Koblat, making sure to stay within a few feet of him as often as possible. His eyes darted around more often looking for Grimms since he was now on the ground and not in the trees.

"Hey, just so you know, if we do run into anything I'll be jumping on a branch off the ground so I can aim better! My accuracy is the best in my Village and we specialize in Archery, so just do your own thing and I'll give you support fro above. Sound like a plan?" He said loud enough to be heard, as much as he disliked the idea of working with someone else.. Romand knew he'd be better as the one in the background since Kobalt seemed to have weapons suited best for close combat rather then ranged.