Chapter II - Lights of Twilight
Yang
The precipice looked out over a dark forest.
Yang shifted anxiously on the raised stone dais, feeling the motifs of the crossed swords and shield bump under her boots. The shrieking howls of Grimm carried over the air, and Headmaster Ozpin was standing, motionless, his back to them as he envisaged the forest below. The excited chatter of the other initiates ruined the otherwise windy, void silence; Yang didn’t join in with their prattle. She rubbed her arms, cold. God, I’m nervous, she thought as the bronze-gilded plates of Ember Celica clanked together, the golden gauntlets gone icy with the atmosphere.
“You ready?” She said to Ruby, who was looking around with the sort of awe that Yang associated with being bombarded by too many expectations at once. It was a daunting feeling.
“Nervous, actually,” Ruby replied. “I’m sure I’m not the only one, I guess, and I’m better off than some…” Her eyes flashed to the boy next to her— vomit-boy, no, Jaune— “Still. Teams, partners and all. It’s a big day.”
“You got that right!” she chirped, before returning her gaze to the rippling, fluctuating sea of the Emerald Forest. Ozpin had turned around and was surveying the array of students with sharp interest and a mysterious scrutiny in his coppery gaze. Professor Goodwitch was watching them, albeit with a larger degree of doubt and scorn.
“For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest.” Ozpin’s voice was rumbling, not menacing, but Yang still felt herself tauten, the wind rushing louder in her ears. For years, she had been striving to get here, and now here she was. It was surreal.
“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.”
Yang’s heart thudded harder, searing a tattoo against her ribs, and Ruby made a scared whimper. She glanced down the line, and saw the expressions of the other initiates: varying from nonchalant, to fear-stiffened, to thrilled, to a obstinate determination. She drew herself up, setting her jaw. This was tantamount to a test, that was all. Just a test.
“These teammates,” Ozpin continued, “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.”
At that, even Yang was alarmed, before she flashed her gaze back at the line— who, now, all sported simultaneous looks of horror.
“See?” A wild-eyed girl with a shock of ginger haired and a manic grin was whispering excitedly to a bored-looking boy next to her. “I told you—“
“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. You will be monitored and graded through the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene.” Ozpin’s eyes glinted silver in the rosy-gold light, his face solemn, lined. “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. You will guard that item, as well as your standing, and we will grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?”
Jaune looked more than a little green, and Yang averted her eyes. “Yeah, um, sir?
“Good!” A snort from Ruby. “Now, take your positions.”
Yang lowered herself in a crouch, brandishing her fists and tensing. Down the line, Weiss had already been vaulted into the air, ice shards streaming out behind her as circles like ice-clockwork spiraled away in front of her. And more followed: there went Blake, arcing gracefully into the air like a bird, and then the dark-haired boy, flipping end over end, and then his ginger-haired companion, shouting in breathlessly wild laughter—
The tile clicked beneath her. Yang winked at Ruby to conceal her own tension, slipped on a pair of aviators, and then she was up and away and flying.
It felt like her stomach had dropped out, and a loud shout of joy and shock tore its way from her throat as the wind buoyed her up and she sailed through the air, soaring to new heights; a blast of fire from her gauntlets lent her speed and she spun midair, laughing aloud. Far, far away, she thought, wanting to burst past everyone, to be the best. The song of the wind twinkled in her airs, running icy fingers through her hair as she began to fall, plummeting.
With a few shots from her gauntlets, she hit the ground of the forest in a roll, tumbling over before springing to her feet and taking off in a dash.
Yang stooped under the bobbing claw of a tree branch; pleasant vistas rolled out around her through the narrow trees. A silvery, babbling creek flanked by banks of violets glinted quicksilver through the reeds; windy dells of emerald grass sloped away, and sunlight puddled in gold patches all around her. It was hard to reconcile the image of this picturesque forest with the Grimm she knew savaged it, but her attention quickly sharpened as she heard a low howl in the distance that broke off abruptly, replaced by the sound of gunshots.
Partner. Right, gotta find a partner— gotta find Ruby. She cocked the gauntlets on her wrist and quickened her pace, ducking through low shrubs and thorns.
The bushes up ahead rustled.
“Ruby, is that you?” she called cautiously, tentatively, fists barring in front of her. She pushed the crossbeams of branches aside, and two seething scarlet eyes blazed back at her. So, not Ruby, then—
“Nope!” she said decisively as the Ursa bellowed, before she leaped and rolled to the side, her fighting blood up. There were two of them— for Vale’s sake, this is just great, she thought, mentally rolling her eyes and spurring Ember Celica into action.
With a rasping roar of gaping, sharp teeth, the first Grimm sprang at her, its clawed paws swiping out. She thrust herself off the ground with a puff of crackling leaves and landed on the boned head, driving her fists into the mass of flesh and fur and bone with cracking force as the quick, thrumming energy of the fight sang in her blood. As the Grimm reared back to toss her off, she spun off and away into the air, swift as a bird, and landed lightly on the ground.
“You wouldn’t have happened to have seen a girl in a red hood, would you?” she muttered dryly, swiping forward and slamming her fist into the unprotected belly of the Grimm.
A low laugh of adrenaline tore its way from her throat as the Ursa swung its head around in confusion. “Geez,” she said, laughter in her voice, “you two couldn’t take—“ she broke off as a clump of her hair lazily floated to the ground, and her smile dropped. Oh, hell no. No one messes with the hair.
“You monsters!” she spat in a snarl, fire licking up her hair in tongues of flame before she blasted towards the Ursa, decimating it until it lay in a stinking heap of cooling black fur. The other Ursa gazed at her with menacing red eyes.
For some reason, the picture of Summer Rose’s twinkling eyes burned in her mind. “What,” she snarled out at the Grimm. “You want some too?”
But before it could lurch at her, it let out a howling groan before it teetered and toppled to the ground. Yang’s brow furrowed in confusion, a multitude of bizarre thoughts flitting through her mind— Had it fainted? Fallen asleep? Committed Grimm suicide?— before she saw the lithe figure that grinned like a cat from the arched back of the Grimm’s corpse, her jarring gold eyes locked on Yang with a startling intensity. She pulled an onyx whip back, coiling through the air and landing in her palm with a schnick. A crooked smile, one that arched higher at one side of her mouth than the other, was on her face as she flipped off the Ursa and landed on the ground.
Blake.
Surprisingly, Yang found herself biting back a grin as well; even if she wasn’t Ruby, she was better than some of the other unsavoury characters at this academy, certainly? She seemed all right. Not exactly friendly, but not as bad as some stranger.
“I could have taken him.”
Blake sheathed her weapon and strode around the already-evaporating corpse, which was clouding up in a putrid, fetid black cloud. “We’d better get a move on. Where there’s one Ursa, there’s more, and we must get a relic.” She stopped beside Yang and her eyes gleamed in the sunlight, though they weren’t belligerent. “Partner.”
“Hilarious,” Yang grumbled, following as Blake laughed— like the wind rustling fluidly through the trees— and walked on.
They fell into step together, in a contemplative, envisaging sort of silence. Yang mentally ran over the sparse group of initiates in her mind: there was her sister, Weiss, Pyrrha, Jaune, the ginger haired girl and her violet-eyed companion, and the other group of thugs: Cardin, Russell, Dove, and Sky. So Blake really was one of the only good options.
“So this initiation,” Yang said, cautiously attempting at a conversation. “Pretty crazy, huh?”
Blake’s shoulders rolled dismissively in nonchalance. “This forest is overrun with Grimm, yes, but it’s child’s play to what we’ll be facing later on, I’m sure. I think it’s wise the way people are paired. No trickery in it, really.” The ghost of a smile tugged her lips as she glanced at Yang. “Disappointed I’m not your sister?”
“A little bit,” she said honestly, “but I could have gotten worse.”
“What an honor, that is.” Blake paused as the trees begin to thin out and the ground started to curve upward. The way she leaned forward slightly reminded Yang of a cat pricking up its ears at a distant noise. “There’s a cliff up ahead.”
The trees gradually dwindled entirely, giving way to open sky and rushing wind. A valley swept away in front of them, a low jagged slope falling away under their feet. In the center of the valley, an abandoned temple— the floor of it was crafted of cobblestones, veined in darker silver, cracked and weed-choked— reared towards the sky. Crumbling balustrades circled the construction, and a wreath of shrines wrapped around the perimeter. On each altar, a glimmering gold or black object rested. Gold and black, Yang thought with a bemused smile, glancing from her own golden-themed attire to Blake’s darker hues.
“Think this is it?”
Blake shot her a look, silent, before stepping forward and picking her way down the slope. Stones clattered down with showers of dirt as Yang followed.
Blake’s impassive expression gave way to a flicker of confusion as they split to walk to the shrines. The air hung with an eerie silence. “Are these… chess pieces?”
“Looks like it,” Yang shrugged, gently touching the cold black metal of a rook before moving onto the golden glimmer of another piece. Blake frowned. Yang silently kept tally. Frown: 3, Smile: 0.
“Well, we should pick one.”
Yang grabbed the one that resembled a horse and brandished it with a flourish. “How ‘bout a cute a little pony?”
Blake’s voice was amused. So she’s not cold through, then. “Sure.”
They both strode to the heart of the temple, where sunlight struck down fiercely. Yang eyed the chess piece in her hand with bemusement. “That wasn’t too hard.” Ozpin made it sound formidable. Like we were going to be savaged every step of the way.
Blake shrugged again, a self deprecating look on her face. “It’s not like this place is very difficult to find, though.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but she’d hardly gotten the words out when a scream shivered through the air, a shrill yowl of unadulterated terror.
“Someone’s in trouble!” Yang’s head snapped away as she stared between the spars of branches in the forest, which suddenly seemed menacing, the shadows alive with things, the silence a cold guise that lurked with maliciousness. “Blake— did you hear that?”
Her partner didn’t respond; she was staring around the fallen temple with a look of thinly-disguised unease, a disconcerted expression of her face, before she turned her face to the sky. Yang swung back around, craning to hear; she distantly could make out more faint shrieks and— a sound like enormous jaws snapping together.
“Blake,” Yang repeated, urgent, “what should we—?”
Suddenly Blake’s eyes widened, and she sprang forward and seized her by the shoulders, hauling her back. “Watch out!”
Yang jerked and spun away from her crushing grasp. “What?”
A shaking crash sounded overhead, followed by a whistling screech; Yang snapped her gaze upwards and saw an enormous Nevermore wheeling like a black cloud against the azure sky. A thing was falling from it, a long limbed thing with a scarlet banner streaming out behind it—
“Is that your sister?” The disbelief was plain in Blake’s tone.
“What the hell…” Yang stepped forward and narrowed her eyes at the Nevermore. A white speck was dangling from its talons, a distant screech coming from it.
And yet—
Ruby was tumbling end over end towards them, her scythe screaming through the air. As Yang drew breath to shout, however, a blond streak cannoned out from the trees and careened into Ruby, flinging them both into the boughs of the forest.
“Did your sister just fall from the sky?” Blake was muttering profane epithets as she drew her own weapon.
Yang shot her a look of pure disbelief. “I’m fairly certain that I’m not hallucinating. But, you know, I’ve seen crazier, so— did that just happen?”
As Blake’s eyebrows arched in light disdain, a gravelly roar split the wavering silence, and a bloody Ursa stumbled into the clearing before collapsing, dead; Yang’s fingers curled around her gauntlets, but two initiates were on the spiny, ridged back of the Grimm’s corpse. Her breath hissed out between her teeth as she saw the violet-eyed boy, panting profusely, and the ginger-haired girl giggling and skipping along the beast’s slack head.
“Nora,” he groaned, slumping over the prone corpse and clicking his weapons away. “Please, don’t ever do that again.”
“Did they— just ride in on an Ursa?” Blake asked, eyebrows raised.
Yang tore her gaze away— boiling with disbelief that was cloying into frustration— as a loud, shrill howl echoed through the trees. The dark form of a Death Stalker exploded into the clearing, clicking loudly in anger; a red streak was tearing away from it, glinting gold in the sunlight, red hair streaming out behind her—
“Did she just run here with a Death Stalker on her heels?”
Yang gave her a dry look. “Do feel free to exercise a sense of brevity anytime soon, and please, cut it out,” she said, just as the foliage above them crackled and a dark shape sprang down.
“Yang!”
“Ruby?” Yang moved forward. “I couldn’t find you—“
“Nora!” Yang reeled back as the ginger initiate burst up between them, a golden rook clutched in her palms, and her jaw ground in frustration. Blake was eyeing Yang closely, watching her amusedly like a sleek cat, lounging back upon a shrine; somehow the sight of her collected reserve cooled the flame of anger sparking feebly in Yang’s chest. Yang rolled her eyes at her partner before turning back to the advancing Death Stalker, and the pandemonium unfolding before them.
A cry echoed above them, where the Nevermore still wheeled darkly; Yang cocked Ember Celica and glared at the Grimm. “Is that an initiate on there?” she asked, frowning. Ruby looked sheepish, before calling loudly upward.
“I said jump!”
Blake made a dry noise in the back of her throat. “She’s going to fall.”
Ruby sounded anxious. “She’ll be fine.”
The violet-eyed boy’s face was tilted upward, concern warring with somberness on his face. “She’s falling.”
Yang turned back, and started as she saw Blake had silently drifted over to the group while she’d been distracted. “What should we do?”
Blake’s amber eyes were rapidly flicking across the sky, a small frown creasing her brow. “Nothing. See?”
Sure enough, Weiss had landed— was that a prone figure under her?— and was getting up, striding with imperious anger in her step towards them. “I told you that was a terrible idea; you can’t even fight the Grimm,” she snarled, tone harsh with asperity, and Yang raised an eyebrow— fate, then, that she and Ruby were partners?
Ruby braced her scythe against her shoulder, eyes hard and glittering, accentuated with a petulant look; her determination was palpable. “I can fight it,” she said, voice even, devoid of anger, her eyes flickering something very like flame— before she shot towards the shrieking Grimm.
“Ruby, no!” Yang cried, springing after her as she glanced off the side of the Death Stalker’s alabaster carapace, stunned. Ruby blanched, backing away.
“I’m fine!” she called, quavering, towards the ragtag group, Crescent Rose folding up on itself. “Totally fine—“
Just then, the Nevermore cawed loudly, and black feathers rained down, bristling, impaling themselves all around Ruby; they made a sharp black forest, jutting like knives, and Yang dived forward as Ruby started running.
“Ruby!” she howled. “Get out of there!”
“I’m trying!” Ruby ground out through clenched teeth, caught under the spear of one of the feathers. Yang’s hands tightened on the razor-edged barbs as the Death Stalker’s bristling golden barb whistled towards her—
And a white streak barreled past Yang, careening through the feathers; Yang caught a glimpse of Weiss, a shining glyph flowering from her outstretched palm, before the barb was frozen mid-air by a wall of sheer, shining ice.
Yang slumped back against the feather in relief, a low breath escaping her in a hissed exhale as she saw Ruby— balking, but she was unharmed— the golden stinger poised above her head.
Inexplicably, Yang remember the small, frail form of her adoptive mother, and her stomach clenched. She went the same way, Yang thought, unafraid.
As she and Weiss traipsed back, Yang engulfed her in a crushing hug and tousled her hair roughly. “You idiot, I thought you were gonna get hurt, why would you attack it like that—“
“I’m fine, geez,” Ruby placated her, words trite, but a shrieking scream sliced the air, and Yang looked up to see the Nevermore still flying above. “We need to go. That Grimm isn’t gonna stay trapped forever.”
As they reached the temple, Ruby broke away to retrieve a chess piece. The group of eight— diverse, Yang supposed— all looked at each other before the dark haired boy spoke.
“It’s time we left.”
“Our objective is right in front of us,” Weiss said quietly, sheathing her rapier, which shone like a fork of silvery flame. “There’s no point fighting the Grimm.”
“She’s right.” Ruby returned to the group, smiling, though her eyes were worried. “Let’s go.”
Yang jogged a few paces forward across the burnt ground, pausing as Ruby pulled to the front of the eight, astride a boulder that protruded like a bulwark from the side of the hill. Her hair swirled out behind her, eyes clear and jaw set, head held high as the others streamed past her. She looked like the faded scraps of memory of Summer Rose, of— Yang frowned a moment— the barest whisper of a ghost of a pale, round face like the moon— before it was gone. She shook her head.
Blake jogged up, pulled around and blinked at her. “What is it?”
Yang looked at her partner, really looked at her— she’d be with her for the next four years, after all, didn’t that credit something?— and instantly sought out three things: the way she moved was gracefully lithe and controlled, a smooth, supple saunter; it spoke of treading lightly, the way her eyes sought out around her coolly. She looked like the type of person who never really had a guileless disposition— her eyes danced like a cat’s, with a slitted glow— and the type that one shouldn’t mess with, though Yang didn’t say so. Her voice had a strange, rasping lilt to it, but a smile tugged her mouth as Yang smiled, said “Nothing,” and dashed past her, up the scree-filled slope.
Blake paused to smiled bemusedly before she tore away after her like a fine drift of ash blown away, like a leaf whipped past on the breeze.