Team RGLA

Ozpin's speech had finished, and all of the new students had begun to make their way into the building, towards the hall where they would be spending the night. The feet of the ridiculous amount of people created a cacophony of noise, drowning out any attempts at conversation one might make. Rusty had seen a good number of Faunus here, which was good. Nice to see that even with the way some humans might treat them, they still want to protect Vale.

The lengthy blade on Rusty's arm had practically forced others to give him some room on the walk, and for that he was thankful. A rather mundane, but practical use for his typically deadly weapon. He, and many others no doubt, marvelled at the size of the school, even if they had clearly seen it from outside. The halls seemed to stretch on forever, and it had already felt like they had walked a mile. Some of the less durable ones had already begun to run out of breath, which didn't bode well for whatever they would do to test the abilities of the students.

Finally, they reached the hall, where they would spend the night before being divided up into their dorms, or teams for that matter. A rumour had passed around quickly that people would be divided up into teams of 4. I wonder who I would be partnered with then, in that case. And how would it be decided? was Rusty's only real thought about the situation. It didn't bother him, though he hoped to be grouped with Yang and Ruby. People began throwing down their bedrolls, choosing places next to people they knew, or on their own in the corner of the room. Rusty threw his down roughly in the centre of the room, against one of the walls. Not even a huge distance from Ruby and Yang, who were just on the other side of the makeshift path that had been created.

By the time it had reached night, people had already begun preparing for bed, or even fallen asleep that quickly. Rusty looked towards his left, noting the lack of people between him and a girl with black hair, reading a book. He shuffled down towards her. Rusty had a fair interest in reading, he used it as escapism in the advanced classes in Signal. "What book are you reading? What's it about?" He asked, rather quietly. The girl clearly had pretty good senses, because she wasn't startled in the slightest. Her face looked up from being buried in the pages. "It's a story about a man with two souls, fighting for control of his body. You should read it, if you like books." Her voice was soft, but she was still pretty clearly concise in the way she spoke, preferring to keep her sentences short.

"Perhaps I will. Sounds pretty good, at least. What's you name then? Cute girl like you must have a pretty nice one." He let off a small smile at her, hoping to get into her good books too. Lots of nice girls here. Sweet. Rusty thought. It was certainly pleasing to have so many to choose from.

"It's Blake, and...thank you. That's kind." There was barely a blush on her face, this girl was certainly good at hiding her emotions. "So, you're a reader, then?" Blake quickly reasserted herself. "Yeah, I am. Used to do it a lot to ignore the kids in my classes. I can see you are, too." Rusty was definitely an open book to someone he shared interests with, especially if they were a nice-looking girl.

"So, what's your weapon like? Bet you must be packing something powerful, arms like those." He gestured to her well built arms, wiry but still clearly powerful. "Well, they're in our lockers aren't they? I'll see if I can show you tomorrow. Anyway, I'd like to get back to my book. May I?" She asked, gesturing to it, still open in her hand. "Yeah, sure. Have fun! Maybe I'll see you around." He answered, hopping back to his bedroll and turning from Blake's light.

By the morning, and by the time Rusty had awoken, most of the people had finished washing and getting dressed. By the time Rusty had finished, everyone was preparing for this initiation thing he had heard about. He ran to the locker room, heading to his locker to grab his weapons. He punched the code in, before getting his equipment. He pulled the glove over his hand, the custom-tailored material fitting his hand perfectly. Rusty slung the the quiver and dust rods over his back, and locked the pistol around his wrist, blade inside the barrel. He did one last check-over of it all, before running off, to see the first group already being launched into the air towards a forest. Well, that's one form of initiation. ran through his mind, before a way to land began to run through it not long after.

He stopped just short of the plates and turned to Professor Ozpin, and his blonde-haired assistant. "I'm sorry I'm late professor! Really sorry!" He bowed twice quickly in apology. "It's fine, Rusty. Just make sure it doesn't happen again, wouldn't want to be late saving your team, would you? Now go, get on a plate and everything will be explained."

He placed his feet on the metal plate. He had practically chosen this one, next to Blake. A blonde haired girl, eyes deep blue took up position next to him. He had barely noticed the end of her hair, dip-dyed a bright, electric blue. She would be easy to find in the forest, she certainly looked tough at least, as she pulled her weapon from her waist. Rusty didn't have time to see what it was, before Ozpin spoke up.

"Now, any questions?" Ozpin asked after finishing with his explanation of what was to happen. Nobody replied, and he gave the signal to whoever would send the group flying into the forest. Rusty saw the students on his left getting flung into the air, preparing to land in each of their respective ways.

As his plate sprung, Rusty ran through the plan in his head once again. He pulled out his blade in mid-air as he went flying towards the branches of the trees that were quickly coming towards him. The red dust rod went from the quiver into the pommel of the sword just in time for him to send a wave of fire towards the first branch, obliterating it just before his feet hit it. Rusty did the same for the next branches that came toward him. As he was going through the last few branches, he heard a high pitched yelp from his right. Probably the blue girl. He would go to get her after he had landed.

As the wave of fire incinerated the last branch, Rusty seemed to disappear from the sky. He had, in fact, activated his semblance. His barely visible form crashed into the ground, perfectly on his feet as a small crater formed under his boots. He became visible again, looking to his right to where he had heard the scream. Rusty ran towards the source of what seemed to be a struggling sound, leaves falling from a shaking tree. "Hey, is there someone in there?" He shouted up. He had to try and get whoever it was out as quickly as possible, the shaking and shouting would be likely to attract Grimm, and that would certainly be bad.

"Yeah! I need to get out, I got stuck in this tree!" It was certainly a feminine voice coming from the tree, so it was indeed likely that it was the blue girl that had been next to Rusty on the launch. Rusty shouted back up the tree, "Ok, I'm coming to get you! Just, y'know, wait up there. Not as if you're going anywhere." He mumbled the last part to himself. He dug his blade into the trunk of the tree, standing on the hilt before creating a small gouge in it with an explosion from his glove. He dug his hand into the hole, before using his feet to dislodge his sword and create a platform above him again.

Rusty repeated this until he reached the top where the blue girl was. She was tangled up in the branches, her hair a mass as she lay there, no real way to get down without harming herself. He tossed a reassuring smile to her, before placing his feet on the branch and walking towards her.

As he got within distance, the girl wrapped her arm around his neck and shoulder, using him as leverage to stand slightly. He put his left arm under her legs, lifting her onto him as he prepared to jump from the tree. Before the girl even had a chance to protest, he leapt from it, her screaming the whole way down. Just before he hit the ground, he activated his semblance again, the pair landing on the ground with a resounding thud, completely unharmed, except for Rusty's drained aura.

Rusty let her down, but as soon as her feet touched the ground, he had a stinging slap mark on his cheek. "How dare you?! What if you're semblance hadn't activated? And why didn't you tell me? We could have died you fool!" The girl slapped him again for good measure, and to drill her point in deeper. Though her palm dug deeper than her opinion.

As her hand swung towards Rusty's face again, he disappeared, her hand phasing through him, leading to her falling onto the ground. Rusty turned around towards her, kneeling slightly. "Please stop. Using my semblance drains my aura as it is, I don't need you draining it too."

The next thing Rusty heard was not her hand whistling through the air, but rustling in the bushes nearby, followed by a low growl. He pushed the girl away, and dodged himself, as a large beowolf leapt out of the bush, claws gouging into the ground where they were just seconds ago. Before they could even react, they were surrounded by even more Grimm. They couldn't run from this fight, and Rusty enjoyed a good scrap anyway.

He pulled his sword from it's sheath, placing it straight forward from him, legs apart. Next he took an ice dust rod from his quiver, before placing it in the pommel of his sword. The girl pulled her sword from her waist, showing it much more clearly. It seemed rather simple, the only complicated part being what seemed to be a dust container at the base of the blade. He could see about 7 beowolves around the pair. Well, this should be easy. Rusty thought to himself, as the first leapt at him.

He swung his arm up, materialising a wall of ice out of the ground, which the Grimm crashed into. He followed it up by clicking his fingers, creating a large explosion inside the ice, sending the Beowolf flying backwards, smouldering, and shattering the wall, firing shards of ice all around. Blocks flew into two of the beowolves, but melted before they did any serious damage. The pair leapt at Rusty, but before they could reach him, he disappeared, reappearing behind them.

Rusty swung his sword twice, dividing the first Beowolf in three, blood gushing from its wounds and over the ground, before dashing to the second one and pulling his pistol from his wrist, firing it at point blank range, turning the Beowolf's head to bloody chunks on the ground.

While that was happening, the girl was fighting the other four. As the first two ran towards her, she flicked the switch below the box on her weapon and switched her grip, firing it full auto into the two Beowolves in front of her, tearing them down, blood spurting from their wounds onto the earth as they collapsed. As the other two looked to eachother, she dashed towards them, sliding under the first and gutting it from throat to groin, soaking the ground and her in blood, before switching to the gun mode again and putting two shots in the last Beowolf's chest and head, blowing off its snout and leaving a large hole in its chest.

Rusty and the girl sheathed their weapons, both splattered in blood that had already begun to drip off them. Rusty out his hand out towards the girl, offering in both partnership as students and friendship as, well, friends. She grabbed his hand, giving it a firm shake before speaking. "I'm Azure. That was a good fight, even after you being a fool back there at the tree. What's your name?" She asked, finally revealing her name to Rusty. "I'm Rusty. Good to meet you too. We make a pretty good team, huh? And since we've already made eye contact, I'd say we're partners now!" A wide grin spread across his face at the thought. She was pretty damn beautiful, and her fighting skills seemed as sharp as her tongue.

Azure agreed wordlessly. "Where do you think the relic is? And what is it?" She asked, looking around with an almost ditzy look on her face. When she looked back at Rusty, she tilted her head to the side and pointed behind her. "How about there? There's some embers. Maybe some other people went that way?" Rusty looked over her shoulder. There were definitely embers, probably from someone using dust.

The pair made their way towards the fire, now died down, leaving just blacked ground and leaves behind. Rusty was the first to notice the tracks along the ground, heading up towards a hill. Likely from whoever had started the fire. At least it should lead them to either someone, the relic, or both. As Rusty called to Azure, bushes started rustling behind her as her eyes were focused on the ground. Even with his speed, Rusty wouldn't be able to make it in time to protect her from whatever emerged from the foliage.

End of chapter 2, guys! Ooooh, cliffhanger, huh? Have to find out in the next chapter what came from the bush.