Timbre felt free for the first time in forever. She had ditched her hoodie that morning for her usual green top, shorts, and combat boots. Her red detached sleeves fluttered loudly as she flew through the air. She'd heard of the unusual methods used for team assignments at Beacon, but this was much more fun than terrifying. She turned to face the sky. Her arms stretched out as she closed her eyes, letting the air rush past her. When she reached the crest of the arc, she turned back to face forward and smiled. "Let's go, Klavier."

She aimed her fists forward as she came close to the trees. Thin wires launched from her gloves and imbedded themselves into the bark of a tree. She felt her whole body change direction as she began wrapping around the tree. She clenched her fist and the wire wound back into her glove. Wire after wire, Timbre began to swing around the tree. She circled around and around until she finally slowed down enough to ready herself to land. To finish her landing, she launched a wire downwards as she fell. The wire wrapped around a tree branch, allowing her body swung upwards. She looped around the branch again and again, the wire winding tighter and tighter. Upon losing force, she twitched her thumb, causing a mechanism in her glove to cut the wire. She launched upwards before landing on her feet, crouching to reduce the force of the fall. "Good job guys," she clapped her hands together, giving herself a high-five. "Now… where to go?..."

Before she could decide on which direction to go, she heard a series of rapid bangs, like gunshots. She turned to the sky, hoping to identify the source of the noises. Her breath was knocked out of her as she was sliding backwards through the dirt. The force of the object hitting her drove her into the ground, making a shallow trench where she was dragged through the earth.

Dazed and aching, she leaned forwards. Through the settling dirt cloud, she found a familiar girl dressed in brown lying across her legs. "Sepia?!" She groaned raspily as she coughed up some dust.

'That's my name, don't wear it out!' Sepia signed. She looked up at whomever it was that she smashed into. Her mouth fell open as she saw the person who was going to be her partner for at least the next four years. She shot up to her feet and began to bounce around giddily. 'Oh my gods! Oh my gods! It's bacon sandwich! It's bacon sandwich!' Her hands flew wildly as she rapidly signed to her new partner.

Timbre couldn't help but smile as she saw the other girl fumbling with her signing. 'You mean happening', she signed back with the correct hand motions, which were vastly different than the ones Sepia had used. Out of all the people she'd met the day before, Sepia was the only one that was a fan, but didn't go out of her way to try and impress her like the snobbish girl from Yamuna's tour group. Sepia was just a fan. Maybe this won't be too bad after all.

Finally, Sepia calmed down and took a deep breath. 'So you really don't have a partner? I'm the first to find you?!' She looked around for any other signs of life nearby. 'We get to do everything together for the next four years or more?!'

Timbre was taken aback by Sepia's energy, but she gave her new partner the benefit of the doubt and attributed her behavior to pure excitement. 'Yeah! It doesn't matter who the other two people on our team are, we're stuck together whether we like it or not!' She signed back, chuckling.

'Then let's get started!' Sepia snatched her camera guns off of the ground. She twirled the angular pistols around, allowing the twin reels atop each to spin freely. She hooked them to the bustle on her lower back. 'Avant and Garde are primed and ready to go! Let's kill some Grimm and get to the temple!'

"I like your enthusiasm… I'll just follow your lead then."

Sepia nodded and bolted off ahead with a smile plastered across her face.

As they ran, Timbre could see nothing but trees for as far as she could see. A few mountains jutted out of the landscape here and there, but there was nothing that suggested they were heading towards the temple. "Sepia, are you sure you know where you're taking us?"

Sepia turned around and stopped dead in her tracks. Shrugging her shoulders, she shook her head as if to say "I don't know."

Timbre stopped, wiping her forehead. Great, she thought to herself. Maybe our enthusiasm blinded us a bit. "So, any ideas as to which way we should really go?"

Sepia just shrugged.

Timbre nodded. "Okay, maybe we should just take a bit of a breather." Timbre sat down, her legs crossed together. She patted the grass to tell Sepia to sit down.

Sepia plopped down onto her back and crossed one leg over the other. 'That sounds good.' She couldn't quit smiling from the luck that she had. 'So what brought you to Beacon?'

"Um… well… I thought that a change in career would be good for me. I was getting kind of tired of going all over just so people could see me sing. I thought it'd be better to see the world in a more… let's say, helpful way. So, I came home to Beacon to do it." She waited to see if Sepia would keep prying, but she just nodded. "So, what about you?"

Sepia whipped out her scroll and began typing. It would save them a little time to not have to work through the physical typos that her hands occasionally made when signing. She finally passed it to Timbre. 'I've lived in Vacuo my entire life, and I went to combat school there. I left to pursue film, but I ended up having a really bad accident on the set of a shot that I was doing. A wire got caught around my neck, and… well, this is the result. I've gone back to my dream of being a Huntress now that I can't really act or direct anymore. Well, not with how I am now, anyway. When I'm a Huntress, I'm going to get back into directing, but it's going to take a bit to figure out how exactly I plan to do that.' She kept her smile as Timbre read her message. The grass was soft against her back, her eyes shut, and she yawned. 'I can't wait for everything that will happen in the next four years.' She signed and put her hands back over her stomach.

Timbre sat there in shock. How can she be so… positive and happy after something like that? She passed the scroll back slowly. "Sepia… I'm… I'm so sorry that all that happened to you." Timbre felt hot tears welling in her eyes and wiped her face with her hands.

'It's cool. My auntie-mom always said that I should be a Huntress instead. It's a much more reliable profession, and my friend Opal agreed as well.'

Timbre was a bit confused. Sepia had made mistakes with her signing before. Timbre had no idea if Sepia meant what she had signed, 'grandmother' perhaps? "I'm sorry, but did you mean to say auntie-mom, Sepia?"

'Yeah, my parents died when I was young. They were Huntsmen, and good ones at that. I was adopted by my aunt after they passed.' Sepia smiled as she thought back to the stories of her parents fighting the forces of evil. 'I don't remember them all that much, but my auntie-mom talks about how amazing they were quite a lot.'

"Wow…" Timbre thought that it must have been really hard for Sepia to say these things. She decided that if Sepia was comfortable enough to confide in her, she could do the same with Sepia. "Well, to tell you the truth… my mom was a Huntress to-" A scream echoed through the woods. The two girls shot to their feet, weapons at the ready. "Somebody's in trouble!" She turned to Sepia. "Did you happen to catch where that came from?!"

Sepia took a slow breath and closed her eyes. In a few silent moments, she opened her eyes. 'On it.' She pointed in the direction that they came from and bolted off. She held her smile, not phased one bit by what she had just shared. The past was just the past as far as she was concerned.

Timbre ran alongside Sepia as they headed towards the scream. Sepia suddenly turned to the left, away from where they had come from. The new path winded down a hill towards a rocky outcrop over a river. Down in a clear patch of dirt surrounded by giant boulders was a large Ursa, the bear-like Grimm, attacking another student, who was swinging their weapon at the monster. From up on the hill, neither girl could tell who it was.

"Oh great…" Timbre jumped down off of the edge and Sepia followed. "Hey!" she called to the Ursa, "Back off!" A length of thick woven cable drew out of each glove. She looked over and saw that the endangered student was the boy in green from Yamuna's tour group. Wasn't his name Turf or something? She thought as the Ursa turned towards her.

I've got this. Sepia's smile grew as she sprinted towards the Ursa with fully automatic pistols blazing. She hurtled over it and rolled to land on the other side. While putting one of her guns away, she latched onto Turf's arm and dragged him a few feet out of harm's way before positioning herself between him and the Grimm. Her guns were pointed at the beast with surgeon-like steadiness.

"Sepia! What do you think you're doing?!" Timbre yelled to her new partner. "I was trying to lure it away so we could deal with it!" She saw the Ursa begin to lunge forward and she reacted on pure instinct. She whipped her wires towards the beast and latched onto its hind legs, effectively tying them together.

Turf leaned up to get a better look at the tiny woman with his shotgun in his arms. "Um… I was going to… shoot it…"

Sepia turned her head ever so slightly and held the barrel of her gun up to her lips as if to say "Shhhhh…" before she continued to fire upon the immobilized Grimm. She was dead set on impressing her idol.

Timbre knew her wires couldn't hold much longer. She struggled to hold them tightly around the monster's legs. "Guys! Out of the way!" She clipped the wires from her gloves, letting the Ursa fall forward towards Turf and Sepia. It clawed at them, but missed. With its prey out of reach, it worked on the wires at its feet. The Ursa's claws latched around the woven silver cords. With a gunshot-like snap, it was free to attack the students again.

Sepia crouched to get ready to fight a gargantuan monster all by herself. She jumped over the paw of the creature as it swiped at her. While in the air, she slammed the blunt ends of her pistols into the forehead of the Ursa with enough force to crack its face plate and send it back a few feet. When it shook off the blow and charged at her again, she leaped onto its back and began bashing it in the spine over and over with the butts of her pistols.

Timbre wanted to do something, but Sepia's erratic and unpredictable movements made it difficult for her to process what she could do to help. "Sepia! You're going to get yourself killed!"

Turf stood and looked on in terror at the scene unfolding. "Um… I'm just gonna…" He took a few steps towards the writhing Ursa as it struggled to get the smaller girl off its back. Upon reaching it, he watched as Sepia flew off into a nearby boulder. "Okay, just gonna kill it now." He aimed his weapon at the cracked forehead of the Ursa and shot. A heavy Earth Dust buckshot whizzed through the Ursa's head and sent it down to the ground. He lowered his weapon as the Grimm began to fizzle out of existence. "Got it."

"Sepia!" Timbre ran to the girl crumpled on the ground next to the boulder. She helped her sit up. "Are you okay?" She heard Turf's heavy boots run up behind her.

"She got walloped pretty hard, huh?" He motioned to help Sepia up.

If Sepia was capable of groaning, she certainly would have. Sure, she wasn't hurt too bad because of her aura, but she was certainly sore from nearly breaking her spine. 'I'm good!' she signed to Timbre before hopping up. It hurt to move, but she wasn't going to show her teammate that.

Timbre could have sworn that this girl was insane. She'd seen people get injured by Grimm before, but Sepia was up and ready to go not even two minutes after the Ursa slammed her into a boulder. "You're just full of surprises aren't you?" Timbre turned to the boy in green. "You okay?"

Turf nodded slowly. "I'm fine. No biggie." He held the shaft of what seemed to be a shovel with twin shotgun barrels on the bottom side of it. "So… I guess that neither of you are my partner, huh?"

"Um..." Timbre began before Sepia suddenly wrapped her arms around her and latched on tight. "I guess you can take that as a no… Sorry." She shrugged.

"Well, dang it." Turf readjusted his green beanie. He collapsed his weapon and hooked it to his belt. "Guess I'll be on my way, then." He turned to leave. "See ya later."

Turf didn't seem disappointed, but Timbre still felt bad for him, especially since he was still wandering alone through the woods. "Hey, Turf!" She called out to him.

He turned back around, seeming a bit surprised.

"We may already have partners, but that doesn't mean you can't come with us until you find one." She turned to Sepia. "Might be easier to find somebody if there's three of us rather than one."

'I guess.' Sepia attempted to stand up straight. She still hurt all over, but she tried to suppress the reaction to pain. It was still nothing compared to the back pain that spending all day in a harness on set gave her. She could manage.

"I mean, if you two are sure." Turf looked around for a bit. "I guess it'll be easier to find the temple with more people anyways." He dusted off his shirt to no avail in an attempt to make himself at least semi-presentable. "So, which way we going? I was heading that way up the river when that Ursa attacked." He pointed upstream. "I figured that the temple would probably be a bit higher up, so going against the flow of the river should get us a little ways closer if that's the case."

Timbre looked to Sepia, who just shrugged. "Better idea than any." She said before they headed off up the riverbank.

A half hour of awkward silence was spent walking along the riverbank, though Sepia didn't mind. She had time to recoup and think about her situation. She was paired with her idol, but already she was getting hurt in her effort to show off. Oddly, it was her who decided to break the silence by pulling out her scroll and typing out a message. 'When we have our teams, would you two join me in something for all of us? We could head down to Vale for dinner after everything's said and done! It'd be fun!'

Turf read the message and couldn't help but smile. "I mean, it isn't like I have any plans yet. We can get all the new first year teams together to celebrate!" He told her. Finally, he was getting to have a normal conversation at Beacon. Just a normal, nonsense conversation.

Timbre laughed nervously. "Yeah, that'd be fun. There is a little cafe that's a good place to relax, and the food is the best I've had in Vale. I would love to share it with everyone."

'Hey, we'll have you with us. Maybe we'll get a discount or something!' Sepia showed Timbre on her scroll.

Timbre smiled. "Yeah, maybe. It might be best if we just stuck to the student discount that we get already. I think it's like ten-percent off if it's just you, and twenty-five-percent off if you're with your entire team."

'Who do you think we'll be on a team with?' Sepia signed after putting away her scroll in her bustle.

Timbre shook her head. "I honestly have no idea. I'm not exactly sure how Professor Alabaster is doing things around here… There really doesn't seem to be that much of a system."

"I think that he does." Turf chimed in. "It kind of feels like he's just not giving the details to us so that we learn on our own how to cope with the chaos of being a Huntsman or a Huntress." He felt like that was something that a guy like Alabaster would do, but wasn't entirely certain. The thought did comfort him, though.

"Yeah… I guess." Timbre said as she processed the idea. "I mean, I've heard of Professor Alabaster all my life. And Beacon has produced tons of world-class huntsmen, so I guess he has to have some clue as to what he's doing."

Sepia began to type something, but stopped and deleted it. In a few moments, she had a new message typed out and showed it to Timbre and Turf. 'Did you guys hear something?' She asked. When she stopped to look around, she just nodded and pointed across the river. 'Over there.' She signed.

"No…" Timbre sounded concerned.

"Yeah, about fifty yards from where you're pointing." Turf nodded in agreement with Sepia. "Sounded like explosions." He held his hand to the river. Ripples began dotting surface of the water. Through a massive crash of water, a short series of stepping stones appeared to serve as a bridge across the rushing water. "Come on, someone might need help. I can't hold this for too long, so let's try and get a move on, alright?"

Sepia gave a thumb's up and a grin as she bolted across, hopping from stepping stone to stepping stone.

"Wow… neat Semblance." Timbre commended Turf as she drew out lengths of wire from her gloves.

"Thanks." Turf began hopping from stone to stone behind Sepia. "Now please, let's move." He told Timbre once more.

When the three made it across the river, the stones sank.

"Right." She nodded as they ran off through the trees. She yelled out into the trees. "Hey! Is somebody in trouble?!"

"Hey! There are Grimm around. Don't attract them." Turf looked back at Timbre disapprovingly. "Keep the noise down. The explosions stopped."

Timbre nodded. She kept her head forward and hoped that he was right.

The shade from the trees quickly opened into bright sunlight as they made it to the edge of another cliff. There, one of the girls Timbre had seen the day before on the tour was backed up against the edge of the cliff by a large snake. It was half black and half white with a head on each side.

"A King Taijitu… I've only read about these…" Timbre whispered in a mix of awe and fear.

The redhead girl in the formal dress was moving quickly, dodging the attacks of both of the Grimm's heads. The white head lunged forwards, aiming right at the girl. Right before the fangs would have pierced her body, she jumped up. The fluttering of her dress made it seem as if she was floating above the snake's head. With a quick twist, she launched something downward at the base of the head.

The three watched as the white head separated from the rest of the body. The glowing red inside of the monster was now exposed.

"One down." She kicked the head and watched as it slowly rolled off of the cliff. She turned back to the snake, who's black head was eyeing her angrily. "One ta go."

Timbre ran forward. "Hey! Uh… Alex, right?"

The girl looked offended, "Timbre Forté! I woulda thought you would at least remembered my name!" Her posh demeanor had turned brash.

She backflipped away from the black snake head lunging at her. She threw something else at it. In an instant, the snake's remaining head was encased in a large ice crystal. "My name is Alice." She held up one of the objects she had been using to fight with. A card with a red heart-shaped symbol on its back glimmered in the late morning sun. Upon flipping it to the reverse side, it showed a single black spade.

The snake was beginning to thaw. The layer of ice cracked along the side of its face. It opened its jaws wide and began to inch closer to Alice, who was facing away from it.

"An' don't forget it." She spun around on the heels of her boots, throwing the card behind her.

The card seemed to hit with the force of a speeding bus as the creature's remaining head caved in and blew apart. The ice shattered, sending sparkling shards into the air. The twice-decapitated snake fell and quickly disintegrated.

Alice nodded with a haughty "hmph," and put the cards back into concealed pockets in her corset. She looked over to the party of onlookers. "You three do know it's one partna per person, right?" She said as she looked them over.

"Um…" Timbre said, raising a finger as if she was going to explain something.

A look of realization came across the redhead's face, which then grew into a big smile. "No way! You don't 'ave a partna!" She ran up to Timbre, grabbing her hands and holding them in front of her. "Oh I'd be so glad ta join you Ms. Forté!" She said giddily. "Ta think, tha two of us could be unstoppable, or at least, tha most popula."

Timbre felt a little uncomfortable. "Um… Alice?" She felt like she was letting down a fan. "I already… have a partner…" She looked over to Sepia, who was glaring at Alice with a murderous look in her eyes.

Alice's smile vanished in an instant. "You… you don't mean." She turned and locked eyes with the dirt-covered boy with the shovel in his hand.

"Yo." He said, waving with a quick flick of his wrist.

Alice let go of Timbre's hands and began stomping her foot. "It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair!" She glared at Turf. "Why must I be paired with you!? I mean, I'm prim and propa. And you…" She looked him over, inspecting the dirt that seemed to coat his body and clothing, "you're just… dirty." She scoffed. "No offense, o' course."

"Wow, thanks. Offense taken." Turf crossed his arms. "Nice to meet you too, partna." he said, mocking Alice's accent.

Alice sighed. "Ah well. You may not be my partna Timbre, but we could still end up on a team togetha!" She clapped her hands together before going over and grabbing Turf's arm. "Okay, c'mon. Let's get this ova with." She dragged him off towards the woods at the opposite end of the cliff's clearing.

"Hey! Chill with it!" Turf protested as he pushed off of Alice and began walking beside her. As they walked away, Timbre and Sepia could already hear them getting into a fight.

Sepia slowly held a gun up towards Alice's back with a shaking hand and hate in her eyes.

Timbre saw this and slapped Sepia's gun towards the ground. "Sepia! What in the world do you think you're doing?!" She whispered harshly to her teammate.

'Huntresses kill monsters, right?' Sepia signed after putting away her gun and glared at the snotty brat of a student. 'How could anyone be that rude to someone for no reason? Turf is nice enough. So what if he has a little dirt on him? He'll make a good partner.' She signed to Timbre. The pain in her back was completely gone. She was ready to fight. 'On top of that, it's like she isn't thankful for the gift that she obviously has when it comes to combat. I hate the feeling that she gives me.'

Timbre watched as the girl in red and the boy in green marched off into the woods. "I mean, you're not wrong. But that's no excuse to let your emotions get out of control like that. It wouldn't exactly look good to the teachers on the cliff to see you shoot another student during initiation."

'One, it wouldn't kill her, and, two, our emotions are the basis of our aura, are they not? They are so deeply a part of us, so it's more of a matter of allowing which emotion to control us at which time, you know? Grimm take advantage of that, too.' Sepia took a deep breath. Her eyes lit up once again as she looked up at Timbre. 'I think I'll let joy do the controlling for me for a while.'

"So… almost shooting someone equals joy for you?..." Timbre said concerned. She had half a mind to run after Alice and Turf.

'Oh! No!' She silently laughed. 'I meant that I wasn't going to be sour about this. Turf can handle himself.' She explained and awkwardly smiled. 'Sorry. I promise that I'm not completely crazy. Only a little, like fifty-percent or so.'

"Right… got it." Timbre began walking the way Turf and Alice had gone. She stopped and turned back to Sepia. "C'mon. We've still got a temple to find."

Sepia took off and began heading towards the darker part of the forest. It was her assumption that the temple would be hidden in a location that the students would be hesitant to go to. 'You said that your mother was a Huntress. Is she not anymore?' She signed to her partner.

"Oh…" Timbre felt the well of sadness she had been suppressing beginning to well up a bit. She shut her eyes tight to keep the tears in. "My mom… died when I was still a kid. She was a great Huntress from the day she graduated to the day she left us." She opened her eyes and watched the tree canopies pass by overhead. "That's… kind of the real reason that I dropped everything and came to Beacon in the first place. I realized my life as a celebrity wasn't what she'd want from me. And I know that she would have seen that it wasn't what I'd want for myself." She leveled her gaze to the path ahead. "I'd much rather be unknown and help people than be an idol and help noone." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get into it like that. But," She turned to Sepia, "we're teammates now, so… I guess we kinda need to know why the other's here, right?" Her mouth curved into a slight smile.

'I'm glad that you told me.' Sepia signed. Her strides were goofy and stiff-legged. She tried to lighten Timbre's mood at least a little with her odd demeanor. 'It get's easier to deal with, you know? If you can find what makes your life fulfilled, you can know that you made anyone who may be gone happy with you. That's how I live my life, actually. I'm always happy because my parents would have wanted me to be.' Sepia explained.

Timbre walked on in silent understanding. Sepia didn't feel much pain regarding her accident or her parent's deaths because she believed that they wouldn't want her to feel that way. It wasn't denial like she had once thought, but total acceptance of the reality that she lived. What a way to live...

She grabbed Sepia's hand. "C'mon, let's go. Maybe we can be the first ones there if we're lucky!" She began dragging Sepia to go faster.

Sepia smiled as she followed along. She shut her eyes, secretly activating her own Semblance.

Timbre felt Sepia grab the back of her shirt. "Huh? What is it, Sepia?"

Sepia opened her eyes. 'That way.' She point to their right through the trees. 'The temple is that way.'

"But Alice and Turf went..." She shook her head. "Fine. You lead the way. You actually seem to know where you're going this time."

Timbre ran along with her new friend. She smiled as she released lengths of wire from her gloves. She shot one into a limb overhead and began swinging through the trees as she had before running into Sepia. "Race ya!" She yelled as she zoomed past. Timbre felt her scroll vibrate. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her scroll as she swung. After making sure she had a clear straightaway, she read the words on the screen.

'Watch out!'

Timbre came to a screeching halt as she shot her other wire to the side, wrapping around the tree and coming to a stop, hanging by her wrist. "Ow…" Timbre rubbed her head. "What is it Sepia!?" She called out. She could just watch as her teammate ran by below, pointing to herself and sticking her tongue out. "Oh… great…" Timbre shook her head and laughed.

After clipping herself free, Timbre reflected on the events of her day so far as she swung through the trees with Sepia running below her. She was glad she had a new friend that sincerely seemed interested in her, not as a celebrity, but as a friend and a teammate. Their meeting the day before may not have been fully by chance, but landing in the forest next to each other? That had to be fate. Timbre thought it couldn't have gone better. She remembered Alice's behavior back at the second cliff after she killed the King Taijitu. What would things have been like if she had run into her first? Or Turf? Timbre shook her head. She was finally coming to terms with the fact that maybe her past didn't have as much influence on her as she thought. She needed to live the present, and eagerly look forward to the future, no matter who was by her side.