"I take it that's your Semblance?" Weiss asked as she staggered about, back on solid ground. While she didn't like admitting it, the abrupt flight had disoriented her a bit, and she was now finding it a little hard to keep her balance.
Still, the fact her partner apparently had flight, of all things, as her Semblance was opening up a lot of possibilities in Weiss's mind.
"Well, I obviously am not using Dust or wearing a flight suit of some kind." Came a very sarcastic response, though Ruby's face became blank again once the heiress looked at her, annoyed. "In all seriousness, please do not tell anyone. I wish to keep the full extent of my capabilities something of a secret."
I can understand that. I don't show off my glyphs, after all. Well, not their full capabilities, anyway.
"That explains why you barely skimmed the treetops." Weiss noted, then, finally having regained her balance, turned to regard the clearing Ruby had landed in.
It was actually quite a large clearing, at least six hundred feet in length, and nearly two hundred in width. Set dead center in the closer end were the broken remains of a stone rotunda, in front of which stretched the remains of a stone path, leading across the clearing towards the Beacon Cliff.
"Indeed." Ruby stated in response to Weiss's comment, and she began to walk in the direction of the rotunda. "I believe this is our objective."
"Probably." Weiss agreed, following. Within the rotunda was a series of small pillars or pedestals, constructed of stone like the rest of the structure, atop which sat—chess pieces?-
"Chess pieces?" Ruby vocalized the confusion Weiss felt. "The relics are chess pieces? Why would—" She stopped suddenly, and adopted a thoughtful expression. "Ah. This is how teams are decided." She declared a few seconds later.
"What do you mean?" The heiress asked, confused.
"There are two of each kind of chess piece, and two of each color. I presume that the pairs who take the same color and type are, in turn, paired together to make the teams." Ruby explained.
"Makes sense." Weiss nodded her agreement. It was, after all, perfectly logical. "So, any preferences?" She asked as the two stepped into the ruined rotunda.
"No. Is this one acceptable?" Ruby asked, picking up a gold-colored knight. Weiss nodded in response.
"I guess this is it." A voice came from behind the two, and Weiss turned to see two girls exit the forest into the clearing. One she vaguely recognized, dressed in black and white, with a sword of some kind on her back and a bow on top of her head, the same black as her long hair. The other, a blonde, she didn't know at all, and she was in a tan jacket with a lopsided 'skirt' of sorts atop hotpants. On the girl's arms were a pair of bright yellow gauntlets, which the heiress presumed were her weapons.
"Hey, Ruby!" The blond threw an arm up and jogged forwards as she spotted Weiss's partner.
"Yang." Ruby said from Weiss's side, startling her slightly. I didn't hear you move.
"So, these are the relics?" The now-identified Yang said, glancing behind the two at the chess pieces on the pedestals.
"Presumably. Frau Belladonna." The winged girl added, nodding at the girl with the bow, who nodded back.
"Just call me Blake." The girl said, her voice quiet.
"Very well." Ruby nodded, and turned to Yang. "We have already chosen, if you were wondering." She raised her hand to show the girl the golden knight piece.
"Of course you chose a knight." Yang said, smirking at the chess piece in Ruby's hand.
"Ich bin schließlich eins." Ruby responded as she lowered her hand again, switching to the unknown language she'd used earlier. Again with that language.
Yang just shrugged.
"What language are you speaking?" The heiress asked her partner, annoyed.
"Do not worry about it." Ruby dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. "I shall stick to Valian." She told Yang.
"Alright. I don't really know what you were saying anyway." Yang muttered. "So, which one do you want?" She asked her bow-wearing partner, who was looking at the two with confusion.
"Huh?" Blake seemed very confused. I can sympathize.
"The 'relics'. Which one should I grab? Or should I just pick a random one?" The blonde queried as she walked into the rotunda.
"Any is fine…" The last of the four girls looked slightly bewildered, but she was now watching Ruby with suspicion, gaze mostly focused on her wings.
"So this one's cool?" Yang asked from behind the two, and Weiss glanced back to see her holding the other gold-colored knight piece.
"It's fine." Blake had kept her attention on Ruby's wings, not even bothering to glance at the piece Yang had chosen.
"Okay, I have to ask, how do you know each other?" Weiss finally gave into temptation and asked the question on her mind.
"If you are asking about Yang and I, I am—was living with Yang and her father for the time being." That answers one question and raises another. "As for Blake and I, we met a few weeks ago." Ruby shrugged. "There is not much more to say, there. And why are you staring, if I may ask?" She tilted her head at Blake, in curiosity. On one hand, I was confused, too, on the other, I didn't stare. Much, anyway.
"Sorry." Blake apologized, rather than respond. Ruby just shrugged again.
"It is no issue. I am used to stares." She offhandedly noted, then began to walk in the direction of the stone path back towards Beacon Cliff. Weiss walked after her. "Given we have acquired the 'relics' we were to find, there is no reason to stand about. Let us return to Beacon Cliff." She said over her shoulder.
"Sounds like a plan." Yang stated, apparently following. "And we're gonna have to work on your Valian. No one says 'let us', it's always 'let's' instead." She noted. "It makes you sound like a knight from a fairy tale."
"Ich bin ein Ritter." Ruby responded. And again with the unknown language.
To this, Yang didn't respond.
***
"Russel Thrush, Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark. The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces." Ritter Ozpin said to the four young men standing at the front of the stage, their pictures appearing on the large screen behind and above them.
The teams had all returned, the initiation test mostly uneventful after Ruby and her new partner Weiss Schnee—Her name is Belkan, and yet she didn't recognize the Belkan language? Curious.—had met up with Yang and her partner, Blake. The only thing that could qualify for any label approaching exciting was the fight between two pairs of students against a large scorpion grimm, a Death Stalker, if she remembered correctly. And that had only been seen from a distance, as it had occurred after Ruby and the other three had already returned to the top of Beacon Cliff. A rather large bird-like Grimm had moved to interfere, but had gotten too close to Professor Goodwitch in the process, and had been flattened against the cliff face. The few hours afterward had been even more uneventful, mostly consisting of the new students standing around chatting while the Beacon Faculty evaluated their performance. And I still need to speak with Ritter Ozpin…
"From this day forward, you will work together as Team Cardinal, led by… Cardin Winchester!" The Knight in question continued from his previous statement, as a final wave of polite applause swept through the audience. The newly-made Team Cardinal left the stage, a different quartet taking their place in front of the senior Knight. Ruby idly noted that the blonde she'd had down as not belonging was one of the four, though, then again, during the battle against the Death Stalker he'd seemed to be in command, and had done an admirable job. The pair of pairs had eliminated the massive Death Stalker Grimm in quite a short period of time under his directives.
"Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Juniper." Ozpin told them, as the orange-haired girl, Nora, going by the pictures of the students on the screen, latched onto the tall, dark-haired boy in green, his name apparently being Lie Ren. "Led by… Jaune Arc! Congratulations, young man." He added, as the blond's picture moved to the front of the line-up on the screen.
The blonde froze completely, surprise written across his features. The redhead next to him, Pyrrha, going by the screen, nudged his shoulder in what Ruby presumed was a gesture of support or congratulations, but all it succeeded in doing was unbalancing him. As a result, Jaune ended up flat on his rear, much to the audience's amusement.
After a few moments, Ozpin cleared his throat slightly, and the new team left the stage, as Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang walked on, stopping in the same place as all the previous teams.
"And finally: Blake Belladonna, Ruby Nakajima, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Ruby. Led by… Ruby Nakajima!" Wait, what?
Ruby froze slightly as she processed this. Beside her, Weiss stiffened slightly, as well. Blake started clapping politely, and Yang gave her a friendly clasp on the shoulder, accompanied by a "Nice!".
Ritter Ozpin, you know I am leaving, hopefully before the first school year is out. Why did you choose me?
***
"So, this seems to be our room." Yang said aloud, trying to make conversation as the newly made team entered their assigned dorm room.
The room was both decent-sized and rather small at the same time. If it was to be for two people, it was more than large enough. If it was for four, it was slightly cramped, and judging by the four beds, along with the fact that the team had only been assigned one room, it was for all four of them.
"Seems so." Weiss's response had been rather terse, and she seemed to be a bit annoyed at something, and although they'd only met a few hours ago, Yang had something of an idea why. After all, she'd started behaving like this immediately after Ozpin had announced that Ruby would be Team Leader for the team.
Yang glanced back at the white-haired girl with annoyance of her own, and noticed Weiss just shook her head at something, before walking over to one of the beds, slinging her suitcase onto it.
Blake followed her lead, taking one of the end beds, setting her bags down on top of the pillow.
Ruby took the bed at the other end of the room, leaving Yang with one of the middle ones.
She shrugged, and set her own bags next to the bed before opening one and pulling out a set of nightclothes.
"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired. I vote we set up the room tomorrow morning before classes, not tonight." The blonde brawler said with a yawn, stretching as she did so.
"I second that." Blake agreed. Weiss just nodded, and Ruby did the same, as she slipped into the small in-suite bathroom, a bundle of clothes under her arm.
***
Be honest. Just who or what are you? Blake Belladonna wanted to ask the small girl who'd just emerged from the dorm room's small bathroom, dressed in nightclothes that concealed everything, even her hands and feet.
Oh, Ruby seemed human, on the outside, at least, and most of the time. But the wings that she'd seen in the forest belied that, making her seem to be a faunus from appearance…
Except for the fact that every faunus had the traits of a specific animal, and there was no animal with four feathered wings. Four wings, yes, as insectoid faunus existed, albeit they were rather rare. Feathered winged faunus also existed, quite obviously, but nothing had both traits at the same time.
Add the fact her wings seemed to appear and disappear seemingly at random, and that made Blake doubt she was a faunus, but even that wasn't what sealed her suspicions.
No, what really made her doubt the girl was a faunus was the simple fact she didn't smell like one. But what gave the catgirl pause was that she didn't smell human, either. Her scent was closer to human than faunus, but was still too different. Not to mention, she smelled heavily like metal. Overwhelmingly, in fact, far more than if she simply had a cybernetic limb, which was about the limit of melding flesh and machine.
Well, sometimes she smells like strangeness and metal. Blake amended her thoughts. When Ruby wore that strange armor of hers, she couldn't smell any of the metal or odd scent. Then again, she couldn't smell Ruby at all when she wore the armor, which set more than a few mental alarm bells ringing. How the armor blocked Ruby's scent completely was a mystery to Blake, and that wasn't something she was at all comfortable with. After all, mysteries could come back to bite her later, which was something she always tried to avoid.
Then again, the girl was almost completely a mystery to her. She knew a bare handful about her; she knew the girl knew an alcoholic huntsman, that she seemed to always conceal everything below her neck, that she apparently had lived with Yang, that she spoke a language Blake didn't even find familiar, and that she apparently had a family somewhere that Yang didn't know much about, though Blake had barely caught any of the conversation. Oh, and that she apparently had some sort of claws, provided the Huntsman's comment in the bar when she'd first met Ruby hadn't been metaphorical.
Of course, this all left Blake completely confused as to who and what the girl actually was. Yang, at least, appeared to be a normal human, but that didn't say much, and the fact that she'd partnered with a Schnee with apparently minimal complaints by said Schnee just added to the mix of confusion.
And that brought her mind to the other unexpected complication to her hoped-to-be-uneventful life at Beacon. That she'd been placed on a team with Weiss Schnee.
If Blake were to be honest with herself, that was probably the bigger complication of the two, but it was, at least, a known complication, and thus one that could be planned for. All she had to do was avoid allowing the Schnee heiress to know that she was a faunus, and leave the team after graduation. Assuming the Schnee doesn't get fed up and drop out when she learns that not everything and everyone must bow to her. She thought with something approaching contempt. If the father's behavior is any indication of his children's, then she'll be gone in a few months at most.
Blake shook her head slightly to clear it. Her grudge against the Schnees wasn't relevant right now, she was stuck with one at least for a while, and besides, she'd left the White Fang. Her grudge never had been personal, it was simply that they were the most dominant face of the oppression of the faunus by humanity. Her personal cynicism and contempt for them had much more to do with the arrogance and dismissiveness the patriarch of the family displayed.
She glanced at the last member of her new team. Yang Xiao Long seemed to be a rather simple, uncomplicated girl. Easy-going and laid back, Blake honestly doubted she really had many secrets of her own, and she was very good at telling things like that. Even those who tried to act as if they had nothing to hide had tells, fairly obvious ones to those who knew what to look for. Yang showed none, which meant one of two things: One, that she was the best liar and actor Blake had ever met, or Two: That she genuinely had no secrets of her own to hide, which Blake suspected was the truth.
Of course, she probably knew a fair number of Ruby's secrets if the two really had lived together for a while, though on the other hand, she had no idea under what circumstances Ruby had lived with Yang under, and, again, Yang didn't seem to know much about Ruby's family, going by the previous night.
She shook her head again. It was getting late, and with little sleep last night from staying up reading, she was a bit too tired to continue down these lines of thought. With a yawn, she stood, grabbing her own set of nightclothes and entering the small bathroom to change.
***
"Get up." Ruby told Weiss, shaking her shoulder roughly. She didn't really do delicate wake-ups, especially not when the rest of the unit—team—had already been awake for approximately an hour.
"Hmm?" Weiss made a sleepy-sounding noise, and tried to roll over, but was stopped from doing so by Ruby's hand, still on her shoulder.
With her free hand, the Knight grabbed the blanket, and pulled it from the sleeping girl, dumping it on the floor beside her bed.
"Wake up." She repeated, as the heiress sputtered something as she awoke. "We have things to do."
"Wha… Hey!" Weiss's sleepiness disappeared as she noticed her sudden lack of a blanket, and sounded offended, somehow, as she sat up. Not my fault you slept through your alarm.
"We have things to do." Ruby repeated herself again, as she turned and walked away from the girl.
"It is time to unpack the things brought with, and organize the room." She said over her shoulder, returning to her bed. "Or, rather, time for you to do so. The rest of us have already finished, or nearly so." She gestured around to the rest of the room.
Blake had claimed the bookshelf on her side of the room, and was finishing put organizing the books she'd unpacked, while Yang read on her scroll, her posters already up across the walls, and the rest of her things stowed onto a few of the shelves Blake hadn't claimed. Ruby, meanwhile, hadn't brought much at all, and thus had taken only a few minutes to unpack. A few changes of clothes, and quite literally nothing else. She had no physical books to bring, everything was digital. She had nothing she cared to display, unlike Yang's stuffed animal collection, and didn't care about posters or anything else along those lines. As a result, she'd been able to pack very light.
"Hmph" Weiss finally stood up as Ruby sat down, the heiress seeming quite annoyed.
"Class starts in forty-five minutes, by the way." The Knight called over, as she pulled up one of the books she'd been reading, idly tugging at the sleeve of her uniform shirt.
"At least I can still wear my gloves with the uniform."
"Indeed. So, when are you going to tell her she's actually got an hour and forty-five minutes?"
"I'll let her figure it out on her own."