"For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." Ritter Ozpin told the assembled students, as they all stood on the launch platforms on the cliff overlooking the Emerald Forest.
I completed my training already. Haruka mentally noted with amusement, as Glynda Goodwitch began to speak.
"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams. Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates… Today." The Deputy headmaster informed the crowd. Haruka caught a few murmurs from the other students.
"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well. That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years." Ritter Ozpin announced, taking over from Glynda again.
Wait, what? Why? Ritter Ozpin, are you just messing with us?
"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path… Or you will die." The elder Knight continued. "You will be monitored and graded through the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. We will regard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?"
Several, but none I care to ask aloud right now.
One of the other students, however, raised his hand, and as Haruka glanced over, she noticed that it was the same student who'd gotten confused about his locker number earlier.
"Good! Now, take your positions." Ritter Ozpin said, instead of actually allowing the student to ask his question. Haruka just shook her head as she set herself into a combat stance.
How, precisely, the students were sent into the forest for initiation was one of the things Taiyang and Qrow had told her and Yang, so she wasn't surprised or even startled when the platforms each student stood upon began launching the students into the air.
"Uh, sir? I've got, um… A question. So, this landing… Strategy thing? Uh, what is it? You're, like, dropping us off or something?" He asked, apparently missing the other students down the line being launched.
"No. You will be falling." The elder Knight told him, before the younger one spoke up. After all, a Knight is supposed to help people. If that means helping this idiot figure out what's going on…
"Blonde." She addressed the clueless student.
"Huh?" The student looked over at her, and she gestured behind herself.
"Learn to pay better attention to your surroundings." Haruka told him with a grin, as, judging by the "Woo-hoo!" behind her, Yang was launched into the air.
She had just enough time to note his expression of surprise mixed with shock before the platform underneath her own feet activated and propelled her into the air.
She twisted around as she flew, glancing back at the final student in line as he was launched, too. His arms were up in the air as he flailed around in confusion and apparent fear.
Haruka sighed. Why do I get the feeling he really doesn't belong here? She wondered irrelevantly, before turning her attention back to herself. She already had a landing strategy in mind, which meant she simply waited, enjoying the rush of air as she flew.
It took a surprising amount of time before she was lower than the treetops, and, glancing around, she saw no one, though she did hear the noise of something heavy impacting a tree, followed by a shouted "thank you!"
Deeming that irrelevant, as she was rather certain the person yelling couldn't hear her, she activated her own landing strategy, a remarkably simple one, in fact.
The four black wings of Sleipnir came into being, and she simply lightly touched down, Formula Cannon at the ready.
To the side, she caught the sound of several bushes moving, and a girl she recognized stumbled out of the shrubbery, stopping dead as she made eye contact with Haruka.
Ice blue met metallic silver.
***
Stupid bushes. Weiss Schnee thought with annoyance as she stumbled through the underbrush of the Emerald Forest. Making me stumble like this.
The heiress had landed a decent depth into the forest, her landing strategy having been to leap from glyph to glyph on the way down, allowing her significantly more progress than most students would have made, though she had eventually decided to save her Aura by coming down to the forest floor and make her way through on foot.
She banished these thoughts as she stumbled into a clearing. There was, after all, someone else in the clearing. Hopefully, they'd be worth being a Schnee's partner.
Weiss glanced up, and stopped dead.
The girl she'd met just as she'd arrived stood there, the veteran, as she'd mentally catalogued her. She had dressed in some kind of black and red armored dress, carrying a massive weapon she didn't recognize which was larger than either of them, but neither of those facts are what caught her attention.
No, what made her stop was the simple fact that four small black wings extended from her back.
Faunus? Her mind sped up and her body tensed, before she realized one simple fact.
There was no conceivable kind of faunus that would have four wings, as no animal on Remnant had more than two, and every faunus had the traits of a defined type of animal.
Then why does she have wings? Something related to her Semblance, perhaps? No matter. I shall inquire later. She focused back onto the present, now regarding the girl with curiosity instead of hostility.
"I suppose we are partners for now." The girl spoke, her odd accent once again making Weiss wonder where she was from. She'd never heard any accent remotely like it, and given the wide variety of people she'd met as a result of all her father's business dealings, she'd heard nearly every conceivable one.
Focus. This is no time for idle wanderings of the mind. She chided herself, before nodding in response to the girl's earlier statement.
"It would seem so." She put her hand out, in greeting, as the rules of etiquette demanded. "Weiss Schnee."
The girl seemed to hesitate for a moment before taking the offered handshake.
"Haruka Nakajima." Sounds Mistralian, Weiss noted. Perhaps she's from an outlying village? She dismissed the thought. She had more important things to do than speculate pointlessly.
Without any preamble, Weiss turned, glancing through the forest, taking charge as a Schnee should.
"I believe our quarry is located in this direction." She stated, pointing towards where she presumed the forest temple was located. When she got no verbal response, she glanced back to the veteran—Her name's Haruka, not using someone's name is impolite, you were raised better—and noticed the girl had her scroll out, the back-blackout deactivated so Weiss could see what she was doing. Haruka had pulled up a map of some sort, and as Weiss moved closer, she realized it was a map of the Emerald Forest, with various points tagged with markers.
"According to this map, it is actually that way." Haruka pointed with her massive weapon, before collapsing her scroll and clipping it to her belt.
Well, at least she's contradicting me with logic and facts instead of simple oppositional defiance. The heiress mentally admitted, still vaguely annoyed that she'd been ignored originally, but somewhat gratified that her partner had demonstrated that she could make use of more than just weaponry and could actually think to use whatever tools were on hand, even if it was just looking up a map of the area. Wait a moment…
"What makes you sure of that? A normal map wouldn't have our objective on it." Weiss noted.
"It is an archaeological map." Haruka replied, setting off in the direction she'd indicated. "There are very few potential sites in this forest, and only one both far enough from the cliff to be a proper test, yet close enough as to not take an overly long period of time to reach and return."
Makes sense. Weiss admitted, following. She'd held rather low expectations for most of the Beacon students, believing that most of them would simply charge through the forest blindly, without a second thought, but here her newfound partner had shown none of that, instead calmly using a tool at her disposal to locate the objective, and making so clear without much in terms of disrespect.
Add to that her bearing, that of a trained warrior with confidence in her skills, and her short, to-the-point yet not disrespectful manner of speech…
At this point, Weiss was starting to get unnerved.
This girl, Haruka, is so much like Winter on-duty it's beginning to scare me.