Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He felt a rush of memories not his own.

What the—those aren’t my memories, what’s happening?!

A– A world without monsters?

Soulless monsters, advanced technology, fantastical weapons…

Was that even possible? Walking outside a city without risking your life?

Man’s very soul wielded as both weapon and shield—
RWBY?!

RWBY?

They doubled over, pressing their hands against their skull as if it would alleviate the pressure of over four cumulative decades of life colliding. Experiences, opinions, likes and dislikes, hobbies, interests, feelings— the lines between the two of them were already blurring. Images flashed before their eyes, impossible memories of a future yet to be.

A city overrun by monsters, a dragon gazing down—

—upon a woman in red and gold, crumbling into dust.

A man, older than time itself—

—fighting a war without end.

A pale woman standing upon the corpses of billions—

—a monster seeking revenge against the very gods.

Can we even do anything?

We have to do something.

Can we really make a difference?

We can try.

It’s the least we can do—

—with so many lives hanging in the balance.

Where do we even start?

In the same place as them.

The place where so many things will happen.

Some good, some bad.

It’ll be something to be remembered, at least.

Yes.

We– No, I will go to Beacon.

He was still sitting at his desk when he regained awareness of his surroundings, once the headache had faded enough for him to chain thoughts together again.

“What was I doing, again?”

It took finding his scroll on the ground next to him to remind him—displayed on the screen, there was a resignation letter addressed to the Beacon Academy administration. Just a button press and his future would have been decided.

“Let’s uh– not do that,” he said before deleting the message.

Not going to Beacon… It didn’t even feel like an option anymore, at least not one that his conscience would allow him to take. Not with everything that was coming.

Just over a week ago, he’d been eager to go to Beacon and become a Huntsman. Then his father… Well, then he’d lost interest. There were other things he had to do, he'd thought. Things like taking care of the workshop, the business his father had started over fifteen years ago.

To have been about to just abandon the thing he’d trained so much for… wouldn’t he be spitting on his father’s memory, on all the time and effort he’d put into training him, teaching him everything he knew, in spite of his injuries? And he’d have, what? spent his whole life as a weaponsmith-slash-repairman in a small town where barely anything ever happens?

And all it took to change his perspective on things was a life-changing event of cosmic scale.

He sighed. There’s no point in thinking about this. Might as well do something useful .

He was about to leave the room when the full-length mirror on the wall caught his attention. For an instant, he felt like he couldn't even recognize his own reflection. 

Eyes of a vibrant light green color. Long, silky black hair cascading down to the middle of his back, with only a few streaks of white to break it apart. A slight build combined with delicate features that had led to him being mistaken for a girl on multiple occasions. And then there were the ears.

He turned his head to the side and brought his hand up, parting his hair to expose a perfectly normal human ear. His gaze focused on a point just above his reflection's head and his hand continued its way up to palm a tall, furry ear. The other soon joined it in softly manipulating the two black and white lupine ears atop his head.

They were… kind of fluffy? Why was part of him so insistent on this? He didn't get it, they were normal for him, certainly nothing to get excited about. So what if Earth didn't have anything like Faunus?

His hands dropped down to rest on his hips. He looked himself up and down, his gaze more attentive than usual. His muscles weren't really obvious unless he took off his shirt. He had, what was it called, a swimmer's build? Something like that.

Even after years of training as a blacksmith, he didn't look like one at all. He wasn't even sure he could have looked like one, if he had seriously tried. His father had taught him to cheat from day one by using Aura to augment his own strength. You can't really build muscles by doing that, you need to do it the hard, old-fashioned way. What he had was more the result of Huntsman training than from his work in the forge.

He raised his hand to the mirror, as if in a trance, and slowly pressed it against the glass. His fingers met his reflection's and he looked back up to meet his own gaze through the mirror. A shiver ran up his spine.

“That's me. My name is Schwarz Beauregard,” two voices said as one.

…

What was that?

He eventually decided to simply move on and head downstairs to the workshop, like he'd been planning to do from the start.

His weapon was still on the main workstation, a long spear with a broad head meant for both thrusting and slashing. Along the shaft, blocky sections contained the mechanisms for the high calibre rifle integrated inside. It laid there half-disassembled, dust starting to accumulate on the precision parts that allowed the weapon to smoothly transition between its two forms—a spear and an anti-materiel rifle.

It’d been days since he’d last touched it, his father’s passing having sapped all his motivation. He could see that clearly now, at least.

He set about disassembling the rest of the weapon to clean it—the motions something he’d long learned by heart, having built it years ago. He looked around the workshop with a new eye. The machinery was the same, the forge hadn’t changed, and yet he felt like there was more potential in this place than ever before.

Both halves of him had always held an interest in weapons capable of changing forms, even if, for one of those halves, such weapons had only belonged to the realm of fiction. Seeing those tools and knowing what he could do with them, having the knowledge of countless works of fiction with weapons going from the simplest to the most fantastical, some magical and some mechanical… it lit a fire inside him.

When was the last time that he’d felt like this? Had he ever felt like this? Maybe at the very beginning, back when his father handed him a hammer for the first time. He wouldn’t simply reassemble his weapon, he’d build something new—no, it’d be better to modify it instead. He only had two weeks before Beacon, not nearly enough time to start from scratch. 

He rushed out of the workshop and into its attached office. There, he retrieved the physical blueprints of his weapon and unrolled them on the drawing table alongside blank sheets of paper. Before he knew it, a pencil was in his hand and he was drawing like a man possessed, ideas being thrown out as quickly as they came.

“No, too complex.”

“That wouldn’t work.”

“Hmmm, maybe?—No, too boring.”

“That’s– no, just no. “

“Huhhh– what am I even looking at? I drew that? Eurgh.”

“That—Hmm. Hmmmm. That could work—do I have enough time? Barely, maybe.”

It would be powerful, something that would allow him to take on far stronger monsters… Who was he kidding, it would be freaking cool and that was the most important part. It would be complex, however. Quite possibly the most complex thing he’d designed so far. He knew he could do it though, the principles of Mechashift technology allowed for designs that Earth’s experts would have likely called “magical” or simply “impossible”.

He threw away the last sheet he’d drawn on and started anew, this time properly planning the dimensions of the upgraded weapon as well as everything he’d need to build it.

The forge was warming up while he was preparing himself for some more traditional forging. Some parts would require him to smelt, cast, hammer and temper the metal before it could be used. He couldn’t simply use factory-made parts, not for the specs he needed—while their quality was consistent, it just didn’t quite reach what a good blacksmith could do with experience and some Aura to help. And his father had made sure that he knew how to work the forge properly .

Compared to what Earth blacksmiths had to wear to protect themselves from heated metals, Remnant blacksmiths who were lucky enough to have an active Aura could afford to wear less bulky gear. Tinted goggles went over his eyes, the leather strap tightened behind his head—he preferred it to rubber, it caught less in his hair. His long hair had already been tied in a low ponytail so it wouldn't catch into anything.

Then came the ear protection—it wasn’t quite necessary for this part, but it would be necessary as soon as he got to work on the anvil. His pair of earmuffs, instead of having a singular band on top, instead had two thinner straps supporting the triangular parts that went around his second pair of ears. He—or rather, his father—had to find a company that did custom orders just so he could protect himself completely. It really shouldn’t be that difficult to find equipment designed with Faunus in mind.

Two thick gloves and a leather apron and he was ready—good timing, too, the forge had reached its temperature. A bar—one from their good stock—went inside to be heated alongside a crucible containing parts from the two weapons he’d disassembled the day before. Those weapons had been in the workshop for months, waiting to be picked up—their owners were likely long dead by now.

A few minutes later, the bar came out white-hot—the crucible would have to stay a while longer. He brought it to the anvil with a pair of tongs and picked a larger hammer from the rack above. He smiled—now came the fun part.

His left arm tensed, holding the nearly glowing metal bar steady as he raised his right arm. A slight white glow surrounded him for a moment, before fading.

*KLANG*

He could hear it even through his earmuffs, such was the strength behind each swing of his hammer. Sparks flew with each thunderous blow as the metal was slowly shaped for its purpose. This process continued until the metal had cooled too much for him to continue working on it, then the piece went back into the forge.

In the meantime, he brought out three large molds and poured the molten metal from the crucible into them. They'd form some of the most important parts of the upgrade, yet he didn't have any piece large enough in stock, so he had to make them himself.

Then, he went back to shaping that bar into something useful.

He'd finished quenching the three largest parts earlier this morning. Now that they were in the oven, he had a couple hours to work on something else while the tempering oven did its job. 

He still had a lot of work to do. Machining the spikes, honing and grooving the tube that would serve as the new body of the spear, milling the rails, assembling the cylinders… Yeah. A lot.

So he got to work on the first items on that list. Two round shafts, cut to a length of about three feet, then installed on the lathe so he could bring them down to the correct dimensions. The larger spike would have to be hollowed out so the thinner one could fit inside.

He was halfway through the last rough cut on the second spike when–

*Ding-Ding-Ding*

Schwarz’s ears perked up at the sound of the front counter bell being pressed in quick repetitions. He frowned—he'd been hoping not to get any clients that day, he had enough on his plate as it was.

The bell rang once again, louder, faster and for even longer than before.

And it's that kind of customer too.

His father, Jean-Claude, had opened the shop sixteen years ago when he'd retired here. It was just after the mission where he'd found Schwarz and nearly lost his leg. It had never healed properly, which is what had led him to retire at the age of forty-two.

The shop’s purpose had always been to service Huntsmen, providing weapon repairs and modifications as well as a modest selection of Dust and ammunition. His father had wanted to keep contributing to the Huntsmen’s work, despite his injury.

Shipping costs out here weren’t exactly great and their prices reflected that. For the Huntsmen operating in the region, though? They were an alternative to heading all the way to Vale, which took several days—unless you flew, that is. They'd usually see at least one or two Huntsmen every week. There was even a time where half a dozen Huntsmen had used the town as a base for a series of large-scale culling missions in the whole region. They’d felt the difference in the Grimm population for a couple years after that.

It was a good thing Old Man Graham had offered to keep the shop running until he could find someone to take over, otherwise the surrounding villages might have suffered because of it.

“Is anyone there? I need my weapon repaired!” A gruff, impatient voice sounded from the front entrance.

“I'll be there in a minute, just put it on the counter!” Schwarz replied before finishing his cut and shutting down the lathe.

He saw the man's expression change the moment he came into the front area. The mix of boredom and impatience was replaced by disgust for a moment, before mostly going back to boredom—not fast enough that he'd missed it, though.

He made a show of placing a hand on the counter, right next to the man's weapon—a sort of gunblade, part of its firing mechanism visibly bent. It had only taken one time for him to learn that some people just did not take well to a Faunus dictating anything, even just prices for a service.

Part of him was used to it and considered it almost normal. Another part of him was incensed at his own resignation. It was an odd thing to try to reconcile those conflicting feelings.

“You said you needed your weapon repaired?” Schwarz asked in his best “customer service” voice.

“Who the hell are you?”

“The owner.”

“You?” The man managed to mix both disgust and disbelief in his voice.

“Yes, me,” he replied, his tone completely flat.

The man went through a series of complicated expressions, before settling on a sort of angry resignation. It seemed like his problem with Faunus was less important than getting his weapon repaired, after all.

“Here, please fill this out,” Schwarz said as he picked up a form from underneath the counter and handed it to the man. 

After several seconds staring at the paper like it'd bite his hand if he touched it, he finally grabbed a pen, leaned down and started writing.

Meanwhile, Schwarz picked up the sword to check out the damage. He spotted the man tensing from the corner of his eye and had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

When was the last time that thing had been maintained? There was dust and grime in every corner and he could even spot some rust starting to form in places. Apart from that, the damage wasn't too severe, fortunately. Those gun parts were standard enough for him to have some in stock.

The man still managed to scowl some more when Schwarz told him how much it would cost, though.

Schwarz was standing in a clearing near the edge of the forest to the West of the town. He'd chosen this place as it was far enough that he wouldn't bother anyone, yet close enough that he could quickly get back if something happened. He was holding his weapon, fiddling with it and making sure that the parts he wanted to test were moving properly.

It wasn’t ready yet, he still had a few days of work to put in. It was still ready enough for him to do some tests. The spike could be fired, in theory, even if it wasn’t yet attached properly and would fly off instead of retracting after activation. Still, he thought it was better to make sure he hadn’t just wasted over a week to make a weapon that didn’t work.

Now then.

Manually open the arms to bring the spike forward.

Lock the firing chamber in place.

Verify one more time that everything was in place and it wouldn’t just blow up in his face.

Then–

Fire.

*BANG*

Next thing he knew, his ass was in the dirt, his ears were ringing slightly and the target that should have been a dozen feet in front of him was nowhere to be seen. He spotted a flock of birds flying off, no doubt disturbed by his actions.

“Ow,” Schwarz complained while rubbing his ears.

“Note to self, brace harder.”

He got back up and started looking around. The stand that held the target hadn't gone far, it had simply fallen over in the tall grass. The target—a thick steel plate he'd found in the workshop—was found just a few steps further, at the edge of the forest. He picked it up with a grunt of effort to take a look at the damage.

A large hole had been torn through the center of the plate. The rest of the plate didn't look much better, there were cracks radiating from the center halfway to the edges.

And this is only at half power, he still had to add the cylinders for the first stage of propulsion…

“Hehe–Haha–Hahahahahaaa—,” he started laughing maniacally, pressing the plate to his chest as he doubled over, barely holding himself steady.

If there had been any birds left around after the first test, they probably would have left at this point.

“—ahahaha-woahshit fuck!”

In his distraction, Schwarz had ended up nearly dropping the heavy steel plate on his own feet and had fallen on his butt once again.

He stayed there for a few more moments to catch his breath. Those were excellent results. With this much power, piercing the hide or carapace of even the toughest monsters should be possible.

“Now where did the spikes go?”

After picking his weapon back up, he headed into the forest to search for the missing projectile. He probably should have planned for a better backstop.

It took him a couple minutes of searching through the dense vegetation to spot it. A long, bright green spike— or maybe “stake” would be a better name? —embedded a foot deep into a tree. He was nearly close enough to reach for it when a sound to the left made his ears twitch.

He quickly reacted, pivoting towards the noise. Habit had him hold his weapon like a spear, despite the fact that its spear head hadn't been reinstalled yet. Burning red eyes and a bleached bone mask met both his gaze and the front end of his weapon—he really needed a good name for it, it had been years .

The Beowolf froze for a second. Schwarz didn't even think, his right hand left the spear and pulled back the bolt of the rifle built below the new main shaft of the weapon. In a fraction of a second, a bullet had been chambered and his fingers were pressing the trigger built along the shaft. The monster had barely started to move when the side of its head vanished in a shower of red and black gore and bone chips.

The Beowolf fell over, dead, its body already starting to disperse into black smoke. An empty brass casing hit the ground. At the same time, Schwarz's blood rang through his ears from the instant of sudden and incredible violence. 

Damn. It must have been attracted by the noise I made. Was it alone, or…?

One press of a button had his weapon shift. The back of the newer, larger shaft folded down into the shape of a rifle stock while the part holding the trigger flipped down and unfolded, providing him with a proper grip for his right hand.

The forest was silent, all the fauna having gone silent at the arrival of a Creature of Grimm.

A branch snapped.

There!

Another shot blew apart a monster’s head—the Beowolves’ fairly large heads and hunched, four-limbed pose made their heads an often easier target than their chest, ironically.

There were still more around, he could feel it. He remained alert, all his senses turned towards the purpose of detecting the monsters trying to ambush him.

He heard growling from his right and spun, only for his weapon to get caught in the dense vegetation around him. Schwarz let out his own growl of frustration, before shifting his grip on the weapon and sliding the three bulky “arms” of the new upgrade all the way to the front end of the shaft.

A white glow enveloped his body and he swung , the heavy end of his weapon tearing through the trees around him and clearing a small area for him to fight in. Shards of wood and pulped plant matter flew around Schwarz. His lips twisted into a savage grin when his improvised mace slammed into the Beowolf mid-lunge. The monster's yelp as it was flung away was like music to his ears.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of them. Two more of the wolf-like monsters emerged from the underbrush and were dispatched in as many shots. One bullet left .

One last Beowolf ran out of the forest and into his little clearing. Schwarz lifted his rifle and aimed, only to hear a sound from behind him. He threw himself to the side, twisting his body towards the Grimms so he could at least shoot one of them down.

The two of them were standing side by side, looking at their next meal with hunger and hatred in their eyes. 

He aimed for the larger of the two, its size and more numerous bone growths marking it as older than the other, and thus, more dangerous. The side of its head having been rendered nearly concave by his earlier swing didn't seem to inconvenience it at all.

The other, younger Beowolf jumped an instant before Schwarz pulled the trigger, thus putting itself in the line of fire and taking the bullet for its “friend”. Except that there was no such thing as friendship or empathy among the Creatures of Grimm—this was just random chance.

“Damn it!”

The remaining Beowolf jumped over the body of its comrade, intent on tearing out Schwarz's throat. The moment Schwarz had fired his last bullet, he'd sprung back to his feet, leaving him in a position to intercept the beast with a swing from his rifle's butt right into its jaw.

No time to reload , he thought—the Beowolf was already back on its feet and ready for more. That Beowolf didn't seem quite old enough to be considered an alpha, but it was certainly on its way there. What options did he have? Bashing it hadn't worked the first time and he wasn't willing to waste all his Aura to force it to work.

The Beowolf and him were currently in a sort of stand-off, both watching for any movement on the other's part.

There, right next to the Grimm. The spike was still lodged into one of the trees he'd broken earlier.

One hand left his weapon to attempt to retrieve a magazine in his jacket. His enemy reacted the moment his hand moved—he'd been expecting it, but he'd still hoped it'd work. A quick press of a button and his weapon shifted back to its spear form, which Schwarz quickly made use of to block a swipe from the Beowolf. Then it decided that standing up on its hind legs would be interesting, bringing its height a good foot above Schwarz's.

Schwarz jumped back to avoid the first furious slash of the monster's claws and then ducked under the second as he rushed in to attack. A white glow once again signaled his use of Aura to strengthen himself as he swung, holding his weapon like a baseball bat and hoping to break the Beowolf's legs.

*Crunch*

The third swipe he'd been hoping to prevent with his attack instead struck his left shoulder as the monster nearly fell on him. Schwarz grunted as his Aura absorbed the blow.

With the Grimm sprawled on the ground, he rushed to the spike. His ears twitched. His eye did the same, albeit for different reasons.

“Would you!” he yelled as he ripped the spike out of the tree, sending shards of wood everywhere around him.

“Give me!”

Gripping the metal spike with both hands, he swung , the blunt end of the spike hitting the Beowolf's jaw and lifting it a couple feet off the ground.

“A Fucking BREAK!”

He pulled back his arm while the Grimm was still airborne, then threw the spike like a javelin with all of his augmented strength.

The long pointed shaft hit the Beowolf right in the throat and pierced straight through its skull, nailing it to the tree that was behind it.

The forest suddenly returned to complete silence again as the last monster started to disperse into smoke.

“Stake” really is a better name for this , he mused.

Schwarz slowly reloaded his weapon, swapping the magazine for a fresh one as he watched the last parts of the tenacious Beowolf disappear into black smoke.

He took several deep breaths to calm himself while the sounds of the local fauna slowly returned to the forest. A good sign that there weren't any more Creatures of Grimm nearby. These Beowolves must have been roaming nearby when he attracted them.

Stupid tough near-alpha that doesn't know when to quit. This wouldn't have been nearly as stressful if he could have actually used his weapon as a spear.

Slide this into place, tighten that, rotate this half a turn clockwise, push it up to there and—

*Click*

—Done!

Finally, the upgrade of his weapon was complete.

He put it back in the holding vices on his workstation and took the time to test every mechanism one last time.

First, the three arms of the weapon slid from the middle of the shaft all the way to its head. Then, the arms were raised slightly away from the shaft and partially unfolded, thus bringing the stake forward until it poked out from the end of the shaft by a few inches. The spear head had split into two halves and moved away to make space for the stake. At this point, the Pile-Bunker was in its “ready” position.

Then, the two-stage firing process would follow. First, the six cylinders holding the arms would fire, the Dust explosion rapidly extending the cylinders, thus lifting the arms which dragged the stake further forward thanks to the rails linking them. The very moment the cylinders reached full extension, the chamber behind the stake would lock into position and the Dust within would ignite, propulsing the stake even further and causing the arms to fold back towards the weapon’s shaft. The arms folding back would cause the stake to slow down near the very end of its extension, thus attenuating the shock caused by the impact. It shouldn’t negatively impact the weapon’s power since the supersonic stake would have already penetrated the target by this point.

The expanding gases from the second stage explosion would also cause the inner stake to extend from the outer one for another two and a half feet. Then, once the stake was fully extended, those burning gases would be released from the junction between the two parts through grooves, right inside the target.

Then, the stake would retract all the way back inside the spear’s haft as the three arms of the weapon went through their folding and unfolding process in reverse—without any explosions involved, this time.

Nothing grinding or catching where it wasn't meant to—good. He manually extended the stake all the way out, leaving over five feet of metal protruding from the spear's shaft—a little under four feet, if you measured from the tips of the split blade instead.

He estimated that the Pile-Bunker could be readied and fired in about half a second, with the “readying” part accounting for most of that time. However, retracting the stakes and bringing the weapon back to its ready state would likely take up to two full seconds. Not exactly a length of time he could afford to stay immobile for if he was surrounded. The Pile-Bunker would really be an option reserved for the strongest, toughest Grimms, especially when one considered that it can only hold enough Dust for three uses before he’d have to reload it—a process that would take several minutes.

Really, even just firing it once would cost him enough to buy a few magazines for the rifle part of his weapon, and those rounds were neither small nor cheap.

…

Eh, who cares . The most important part was that his upgraded weapon would be fun to use.

He really needed to find a good name for it, though.

The large smile on his face unfortunately wasn't enough to detract from the massive bags under his eyes.

Schwarz pulled out his scroll to check the time.

“Five?”

…

“Five in the morning? ”

That meant that his flight to Vale was in seven hours.

He had seven hours to pack all of his stuff, maybe take a nap, say goodbye to everyone and board the airship. He took a look around the workshop, seeing all the tools scattered around and thought about the pile of dirty clothes that had accumulated while he was working on his weapon.

I'm not getting that nap, am I?

He had not, in fact, gotten the time to take a nap.

He came out of the workshop at eleven, looking much cleaner but not more awake. There was an old man sitting on a chair right in front of the workshop—where had that chair come from? His wild gray-white hair was peeking under his dark gray beret and he had a smoking pipe in his hands. There seemed to be an odd shimmering in the smoke coming out of his pipe.

“Finally leaving us, Schwarz?” the old man asked in an old, gravelly voice.

“Ah, yes. Thank you so much, Sir, for taking care of the shop until I find someone. I don’t know what I—”

“Pah! Don’t worry about that, son. I needed something to do anyway. Doesn’t matter if you don’t find someone until you graduate, I figure I’ve still got more than just four years in me! Hahaha!”

“Thank you, really, Sir.”

“Off, you’ve got a flight to catch, yes? Get to it, son.”

“—kid. Hey, kid, we’ve arrived.”

Schwarz woke up slowly—when had he gone to sleep?—to see a young man standing next to him. He looked around and realized that he’d fallen asleep on the airship to Vale.

“Finally awake? Good. Welcome to Vale, kid.”

Chapter Text

Vale really was a beautiful city, when seen from the sky. Ironically, despite having flown in just the day before and one half of him having flown a few times, he'd never gotten to really see a city from above like this.

This beauty certainly contrasted with the way he'd been treated there so far, simply due to being a Faunus. He was sure someone could find something poetic to say about distance hiding the grime and dirt of the city, but he wasn't that person.

He leaned further towards the window, trying to see if the towers of Beacon Academy were visible yet. The large windows of the airship were positioned above and behind the benches lining its side, so he'd had to sit sideways just to be able to look outside. 

Nothing… maybe from the other side?

He quickly twisted around to stand back up, only to crash head first into someone who’d been passing by at the same time. Both of them took a step back to regain their balance before speaking nearly simultaneously.

“Ah, Sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“Woah– Oh shit. Sorry sorry sorry. I really need to watch where I’m going,” said the taller guy, unintentionally cutting off Schwarz's apology.

Schwarz took another step back and distractedly pushed back the long strands of hair that had fallen in his face.

“Ah, it’s fine. I wasn’t really paying attention either,” he tried to explain himself with an embarrassed smile.

“Happens to the best of us…” the stranger replied with an equally awkward smile.

Taking a moment to look at the stranger, all Schwarz had to say was that he looked… normal? average? He was slightly above average in height—tall enough that his chin was just above eye level for Schwarz. He had short brown hair and was wearing blue and black clothes. He wasn’t exactly flamboyant, especially when compared to some of the other prospective students on the airship. He also noticed the handle of a weapon poking over the guy's shoulder.

The other teenager eventually broke the awkward minute of silence.

“So… Beacon, huh?”

“Yeah…” Schwarz almost cringed at his oh so very eloquent answer.

Truly, I am a master conversationalist .

“I mean, everybody in the airship is here for Beacon, so…” he added, followed by a weak chuckle.

That wasn't better!

“Yeah…” the other guy replied with his own forced chuckle. Then, he started fidgeting and looking around, visibly looking for a way to escape from the awkwardness.

“Any particular reason for Beacon or just close by?” he suddenly asked Schwarz.

Thank the gods, something we can actually talk about.

“Both, I guess? It’s where my father went to become a Huntsman and Vale is also just a couple days away from where I lived.” Schwarz paused for a second, before clarifying, “Just 2-3 hours by airship, so it’s really not that far.”

“Family ties and distance huh… makes sense, then. Sounds like airship travel is decently common,” the stranger responded, muttering the last sentence before shaking his head and adding, “Cool!”

Ah, I guess he's also from outside the kingdom. I should probably clarify, though–

“Eh, not quite ? My father kind of scheduled an airship weeks in advance… It’s really not that costly when you arrange things with a supply flight…” he said, nearly mumbling his last sentence. He felt kind of bad about having had that privilege while the other guy had had to make do with more conventional means of transportation.

“Damnit if only I could have got one… Walking suuucks,” the guy complained.

“I imagine it doesn’t get old though… seeing everything from up here,” he continued, looking out the window with a wistful smile on his face

Schwarz's eyes went wide in surprise.

Did this guy seriously cross Grimm-infested forests alone?

“You walked here? What the hell… Then again, you are enrolling into Beacon…”

If this guy was strong enough to go solo like that, then how come he wasn't in his memories of Beacon? Sure, there were a bunch of students who never appeared in the show, but you'd think someone this strong would have shown up at some point.

Where did this guy come from?

“Yeah!” he exclaimed with a chuckle.

“My mentor and I walked here- We weren’t too far away, and we did cheat a bit . But it was mainly to help me get a crash course in stuff.”

Ohhh–

“I kinda had some stuff happen and needed the extra training,” he finished, looking slightly embarrassed.

“Oh, ohhhh. That makes more sense. I thought you meant that you’d walked all the way here on your own. The person who trained you came with you here, then?” Schwarz asked.

The stranger nodded.

“Mhm. She came with me most of the way here until we got to the place itself, then I was on my own until I got here.”

Schwarz hummed in response, then sat back down on the bench.

“Think you’re ready for the initiation, then?” He asked. He then frowned for a moment, trying to remember from which set of memories his knowledge of the initiation had come from. He finally nodded to himself after confirming that it was, in fact, normal for him to know about it.

His interlocutor didn’t seem to have noticed his hesitation, instead simply following him and sitting down on the bench.

“Yeah my mentor mentioned something about it… figured that there’d be a test of some kind,” he answered with a nervous laugh.

“I don’t know if I’m out of my depth or if I’m average or more, honestly. I’m just hoping I get in," he added.

Schwarz quickly looked around before leaning towards the taller guy.

“Just make sure you know how to land from really high up,” he whispered. He probably shouldn’t have known about that part of the initiation, but he still preferred giving the guy a slightly better chance, considering how unsure he seemed.

“Apart from that, so long as you know how to fight Grimms well enough, you should be fine,” Schwarz added after leaning back, as if nothing had happened.

The stranger took a minute to think before replying.

“No superhero landings and be good at killing things, got it. Think grabbing them with a third, very large hand and then cutting them up or burning them with my weapon is solid enough?”

A third, very large hand? It must be related to his Semblance.

An idea occurred to him.

“Couldn’t you just crush them in the hand?” Schwarz asked.

The guy blinked, silent.

“...I’ve never thought of it. But also, it’s just really fun to burn things with a flamethrower or to cut it… when you’re not nearly killed by it,” he said before shaking his head.

Schwarz, for his part, simply answered with a slow understanding nod—this guy knew his priorities.

“Overwhelming violence is always an appropriate answer to Grimms,” the Faunus shared his wisdom.

“Violence is merely a question–” the brown haired guy started.

Schwarz quickly took the opportunity.

““The answer is yes,”” both guys finished in stereo.

They both blinked and looked at each other.

“ Exactly! ” the apparent fire enthusiast exclaimed, a wide smile on his face.

Actually, that flamethrower comment, did that mean he used one as his weapon? He was really curious about what kind of weapon the guy used, now.

“Speaking of violence and weapons, what–” Schwarz started asking, only to be interrupted by a loud female voice echoing through the airship.

He turned towards the source to see an hologram of… Glynda Goodwitch? Probably , but recognizing real people from their depiction in a cartoon-ish series was kind of difficult.

“What the–” the other guy exclaimed as Goodwitch started her speech.

"Hello, and welcome to Beacon! My name is Glynda Goodwitch. You are among a privileged few who have received the honor of being selected to attend this prestigious academy! Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace, and as future Huntsmen and Huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it. You have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task, and now it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge and the training to protect our world."

Having said her piece, the hologram of Glynda Goodwitch disappeared.

“This place just gets weirder and weirder…” the guy to his side muttered, looking pretty surprised.

Weird? What was so weird about this? Then again, I might have been surprised too if it wasn’t for that half of my memories.

“Didn’t expect a hologram here. That’s so cool!” he added with a bright smile.

It really is.

“Hmm. I’m not an expert in that kind of tech, but I’m pretty sure it’s done with Hard Light Dust,” Schwarz explained, mostly relying on his memories of the show.

Thinking about it, we’re probably not far from Beacon now.

He twisted around to look out the window, confirming his suspicions.

“We should probably get going, we’re nearly there,” he warned his new friend as he stood back up.

The other guy took a look for himself before standing up as well.

“Great… Now I’m kinda more nervous about this whole thing. Thinking about it is one thing. But actually getting to the place and going there and trying to get in?” he said with a shudder.

“It’s like taking a really important math test… but somehow 20 times worse…”

He didn’t really feel like math tests had ever been scary in either of his childhoods…

“I mean, it’s not like you’re going to be alone for all of it. Everybody ends up getting paired with someone else during the initiation…” Schwarz said, attempting to reassure the other guy.

Considering the recipient’s groan, he didn’t think it had the intended effect.

“Somehow, someway, I know that Social Anxiety is gonna strike then.”

“Yeah… I don’t think I can help with that,” Schwarz said, feeling like he had to say something.

“Didn’t expect you to. I’ll get over it eventually though– Hopefully. Exposure therapy has done wonders so far.”

Schwarz nodded, his attention stolen by the complete view of Beacon Academy and its many towers as the airship turned to dock at the edge of the cliff atop which the academy stood.

Schwarz turned towards his new friend as they both disembarked from the airship.

“See you later?” he asked.

“Hopefully,” the taller boy answered with a smile.

Schwarz waved his new friend goodbye as they both headed off in different directions, intending to explore the grounds at their own pace. Then he stopped in place, realizing something.

“I forgot to ask his name…” he muttered to himself.

“I forgot to ask their name…” his ears picked up at the same time.

Dammit. He’d need to keep that in mind for the next time he saw him.

That was for later, though. For now, he should get more familiar with the school grounds.

He was walking around and slowly heading towards the auditorium where the headmaster's speech would take place when he noticed them. A small group of girls were standing just off the main path and talking about something.

Honestly, he probably wouldn't have even noticed them if it wasn't for the large red scythe being swung around.

Is that… Ruby?  

Considering the mass of yellow-blonde hair, one of the girls was likely Yang, her sister. Then there was a really short girl with brown and mint-colored hair and a really tall girl with bright red hair—they sure contrasted a lot with each other. Wait, that golden-bronze armor, that was Pyrrha, wasn't it? 

His memories of the show might not be the best, but he was pretty sure that Pyrrha hadn't met either Ruby or Yang during the first day… In fact, hadn't Ruby ended up crashing into Weiss because she'd been left on her own by her sister? There hadn't been any short mint-haired girl either.

Things seemed to already be different from what he remembered. He couldn’t have set off enough butterflies for things to diverge this early, so why were things different? He only saw two possible explanations.

Either this world had been different from the start, meaning that his knowledge was faulty in some ways—well, more ways than the obvious, when taking into account his human half's bad memory.

Or someone else had been making their own waves. Possibly someone who also had knowledge of the future like him. And it could be anyone, too. After all, it wouldn't take much at all to make it so that certain meetings happened early while others didn't.

He started picking up bits and pieces of their conversation—he'd been so focused on their little group that he'd ended up walking closer to them without even noticing. 

“–eight Dust cartridge!… rifles… extra kick!” he heard in Ruby's excited high-pitched voice.

What about the tiny girl? He didn't recognize her at all and yet, at a closer look, he felt like there was something vaguely familiar about her. However, he just couldn't figure out why . For a moment, he considered that she could be the source of those changes, that he was somehow recognizing her as having memories from Earth. But that was ridiculous, nothing more than a nonsensical intrusive thought.

But who, then? He'd need to pay attention to everyone around if he wanted to find out.

He decided to get closer to the group—learning more about them would be good, right? It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that they were talking about weapons.

Definitely .

“–sibly overcompensation. No offense,” the short girl finished saying.

No, really, she was wearing something like three-inch heels and she still only came up to his nose, how short was she?! It felt mean to think about, but even short people must feel tall next to her.

In any case, he'd gotten close enough that he could hear them without any issue, even with all the prospective students walking around and talking.

Ruby spoke up just as he arrived near their group.

“None taken! Overcompensation is half the fun. Plus, the recoil dampeners are built into the folding stock so it took forever to get the balance right without making it clunky, and I needed just enough to keep it from messing up the shot.”

Partway through her explanation, she flipped her weapon over to show its underside.

Crescent Rose, according to his memories from Earth. It really was a beautiful weapon—even several feet away, he could tell just how precise everything was. Every part perfectly machined and assembled to fit together flawlessly.

“The whole scythe blade runs on a triple-hinge system too. I had to custom-mill the joints so it wouldn’t shear itself apart when it spins,” she continued.

“Oh, that’s sick as hell!” the shorter girl exclaimed. “I was trying to get some custom joints for my weapon too, but I couldn’t quite get them working. Just used a set of standard pins instead to compensate.”

He couldn't help but step forward to ask about that. Maybe he could give her some advice for her weapon.

“Hmm, were you trying to fix a problem with the joints, or was it more about optimizing things?”

She blinked at him a few times, clearly surprised by his sudden appearance—understandable, really. Being honest, he probably shouldn't have barged into their conversation like that, but it was a bit late to change that, now. Still, the girl eventually smiled and answered his question.

“Mostly just a matter of stability. Anytime I fire I get way too much kickback, so it messes with all the internals. Had to find a way to distribute it evenly without tinkering with it every five seconds.”

“Oh, hey! Are you into weapon design too?” Ruby jumped in with a question for him. She was very excited at the idea of meeting more people who shared her interests, if he had to take a guess.

He'd wanted to advise the shorter girl regarding her weapon, but… It'd be rude not to answer Ruby, right? But he really wanted to help… Especially since heavy recoil was something he’d dealt with while adding the Pile-Bunker to his weapon.

No! Don't be rude, Schwarz.

“Yeah! I learned how to repair and modify weapons from my father while helping him in the shop,” he finally answered Ruby.

“I built my weapon from scratch, too. Although I did spend the last two weeks doing a near complete rebuild…” he added, lifting his weapon—currently in its collapsed “carry” form—for emphasis.

Then, he turned back towards the other girl, hoping to be able to voice his earlier thoughts.

“That sounds so cool!” Ruby interrupted him once more, this time nearly jumping from excitement. “But wait, total rebuild in two weeks?”

Yeaahhh… He had to admit that doing what he did in only two weeks was kind of insane. He probably shouldn't tell Ruby just how much sleep he'd missed during that time. He didn't want to give her that kind of bad idea just as she was starting classes at Beacon.

His ears flicked as he caught a murmured “impressive” from the tiny mint-haired girl.

“You’ve got to show me what it does!” Ruby added before freezing and taking the time to look at the many students walking around near their group.

“But, uhh, probably not now,” she added, before folding her scythe and placing it back in the harness on her lower back.

Schwarz already had both hands on his weapon and was about to deploy it. He too looked around and realized Ruby's point.

“Yeah…”

He wisely followed her example and put his weapon back on top of his suitcase, where he'd be less tempted to fiddle with it. Then, he had an idea and checked the time on his scroll to make sure it could work.

“We’ve still got a while before the headmaster’s speech, though. Maybe we could move somewhere less packed?” he asked the two girls.

“Yes! That’d be just perfect!” Ruby shouted. Then, she turned around to speak to– no one?

“Yang, I’m gonna–” she paused for several seconds after realizing that her sister wasn't there anymore. Were those the spots of yellow and red he'd seen moving in the corner of his vision earlier? Yang must have left with Pyrrha back then.

“Anyways, that sounds great!”

The shorter girl had looked like she was about to say something, but instead she simply sighed and agreed in her own way.

“Alright, yeah, why not?”

Having come to an accord, they all started walking away from the main path and towards the far less busy side paths criss-crossing the expansive school grounds.

Schwarz was the first to speak after they’d started moving. He was about to try and steer the conversation back towards weapon design when he remembered the way his last conversation had ended. 

“So, what– Wait, no. Names first. I’m Schwarz, you?”

“Ahh! Right!” Ruby yelled before rapping her knuckles against her forehead. “I'm Ruby! Nice to meet you.”

The mint-haired girl who'd been staring up at Beacon’s towers shook her head and presented herself as well.

“Sorry! I'm Lio. Kind of took a bit of a 180 there.”

Ah– was that about the way he'd changed his question mid-sentence? His head tilted to the side in confusion.

“Nice to meet you two! Also, one-eighty? You mean me asking for your names? Yeah… I completely forgot to ask while talking to someone earlier, so I decided to ask before I could forget again, this time,” he explained, growing more and more embarrassed as he spoke.

“No, no, you’re good, uhh, Schwarz. I just, mean me,” Lio clarified, somewhat awkwardly.

Schwarz slowly nodded—it was just a misunderstanding, then. He suddenly pointed at Lio as he remembered their earlier topic.

“You said something about excessive recoil earlier, right? I had to deal with a similar problem while redesigning my weapon, so… maybe we could share some ideas? After the initiation, I mean. Not much point in doing that now since we don't have time to work on our weapons,” he said, changing track halfway through when he realized that they didn't have the time for a deep dive in weapon design.

“Uhh, yeah! That sounds–” she began answering, only to be cut off by Ruby's excited shout.

“That sounds awesome!”

She then started throwing punches into the air— old memories from Earth told him that she could probably use some practice with her jabs.

“We’ll be like a full-on weapon-design squad!” she added, her voice full of excitement.

That would be pretty fun, being able to talk weapons with his team whenever. Then again, what were the odds that they'd all end up on the same team? Things would have to go even weirder than they already had for that to even be possible.

“Okay, that sounded cooler in my head…” Ruby added, getting embarrassed as she calmed down.

Lio smiled at Ruby's antics before turning back towards Schwarz.

“I’d be open. I was saying, I’m not super into the weapons side of Mechashift, but I'm a pretty decent engineer and, worst case scenario, I learn along the way. I’ve got a friend who helped me build my weapon though, so I can’t imagine what it's like making one from scratch.”

“Mm. Yeah, you don't have to worry about not having formal training for mechashift. Most people who work with it tend to develop their own style anyway. The best trait a mechashift engineer can have may well be adaptability. Well, that's what my father said, anyway.

“As to making a weapon from scratch… he trained me as a blacksmith as well, so I guess it's just kind of normal for me?” he finished with a shrug.

“Oh woah,” Ruby exclaimed, now leaning towards him and staring at him with eyes that were practically sparkling.

“You actually forged it and everything? Like, fire and metal and hammer kind of forged?”

“Yup,” he couldn't help but brag a bit in front of the girl who, at this very moment, almost seemed to consider him the coolest person ever. “Even had to melt a bunch of parts and pour them into casts to make the largest parts. I didn’t have any stocks big enough, so I had to make do,” he added, putting a hand on his weapon for emphasis.

“ So cool! ”

The younger girl was practically shaking in place, just barely stopping herself from grabbing his weapon to inspect and—quite possibly—field strip it right then and there.

Lio, for her part, replied with a far calmer “S’cool.”

She then spun the umbrella she'd been carrying in her hand and opened it. As it went to rest against her shoulder, with the canopy positioned to hide her from the cruel midday sun, Schwarz realized something that had been right in front of his face from the start.

That umbrella is her weapon…

With the canopy opened, the mechanisms set along the central shaft became obvious—as did the reinforced branches of the canopy. Hmm, wasn't the shaft strangely thick too? Some of the parts along the shaft revealed the truth to him.

Oh. Ohhhh. It's also a gun.

“My gram– Grandfather used to do stuff like that, and I don’t know exactly how but from what I've seen it's a pretty involved process,” Lio explained, unaware of Schwarz's realization.

Ruby—who'd taken to walking backwards at some point—nodded and then got to talking about her own weapon.

“I built mine at Signal, so they had a bunch of spare parts we could use. But, my Uncle Qrow has a super similar one too, so he had lots of pieces I could use instead! I even based Crescent Rose off it too,” she said while putting a hand on the weapon stored on her back.

“Oh, so you got to go to a combat school before Beacon, then,” Schwarz said, acting surprised in an attempt to keep the conversation going.

“Mmhmm!”

It didn't work very well.

Schwarz paused for a second, scratching his neck in embarrassment before trying to improvise a response.

“I… really shouldn’t be that surprised. I don’t know, I guess I kind of assumed you’d gotten in through the entrance exams like me.”

“What about you, did you go to a combat school too, or…?” he then asked as he turned to Lio.

“Uhh, nah. Honestly I'm hoping that I’ll get some real good experience here,” she answered while tilting her head towards the center of the academy.

“There’s an entrance exam—?” Ruby asked, completely bewildered.

“I know about the whole initiation thing ,” Lio said, shaking her hand to signify fright, “But I don’t know. I trust that it’ll work out.”

Schwarz could only shrug in response.

Ruby started awkwardly fidgeting, before asking, “Soooo uhh, if you two don’t mind me asking, what are your weapons called?”

Yeah, about that…

“Iiii… kinda don’t have a name for my weapon yet? I haven’t found something that really fits so far,” Schwarz answered.

“Huh, well I hope you–” Ruby began, only to be interrupted by Lio’s shout.

“ Havoc! ” she said in a deeper voice as she closed her umbrella and held it like a gun, further proving Schwarz’s theory about it also being a gun.

Schwarz pointed straight at Lio and commented, “That’s cool. ”

She looked back at him with a teasing smirk on her face.

“It better be. Spent like 10 minutes thinking it up, so much more time then ‘ not at all ’”

“ Oi! ” he complained, half offended and half amused.

I'll find a name that'll blow yours out of the water, you just wait.

Ruby giggled at that before taking a moment to look around.

“Does anyone know where we’re going...?” Ruby asked after a couple minutes of silence.

“I mean, the idea was mostly just ‘Away’ , right?” Lio responded, “I mean, I don’t really…see anyone.”

Schwarz froze, then slowly shook his head.

“Don’t look at me, I have no idea either.”

That didn’t exactly seem to please Lio.

“So we– Fuuuuu– ” she started, before looking at Ruby and seemingly changing her mind, “ –uuuuudge… ing are in a bit, we’re doing– damnit. ”

Schwarz, realizing that they’d all forgotten something rather important, took out his scroll to check the time.

“We,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect. “Have seven minutes to get back to the auditorium.”

Everyone froze while they processed that information. Ruby was the first to react.

“Last one there’s a rotten egg!” she called out before vanishing in a whirlwind of red petals.

“ Shiiiiii–! ” Lio cursed as she started running after the taller—and much faster—girl.

Schwarz followed her, his suitcase being dragged behind him.

“ Fuuuuuu–! ”

He’d reached the auditorium just barely in front of Lio—a feat, considering that he'd been carrying both his weapon and his overly large suitcase all the way. Then again, she was wearing heels and had shorter legs, so they both had a handicap, he supposed.

Of course, Ruby was nowhere to be seen when they arrived—not very surprising considering her speed. Maybe she went to join her sister?

He didn't have time to wonder too much about that however—professor Goodwitch was already urging the prospective students to quiet down for the headmaster's speech. He and Lio both hurried to the back of the crowd.

As he tracked the headmaster approaching the microphone, he felt a light touch at his side. Looking behind, he saw Ruby standing there with a sheepish smile on her face.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

He promptly stepped aside so she could squeeze between Lio and him.

“Didn't you arrive before us?” He whispered his question to her while making sure to keep an eye and an ear or two on the headmaster.

“Ahem. I'll try to keep this brief, everyone,” the headmaster's speech started.

“Couldn't find my sister,” Ruby whispered back.

Schwarz simply nodded. Lio, for her part, seemed busy trying to peek over people's shoulders to catch a glimpse of the headmaster. He pushed away an intrusive thought—grabbing her by the waist and lifting her above his head just wasn't a great idea.

He turned his attention back to the headmaster.

“Each and all of you have traveled here today, some further than others, in search of knowledge. You wish to hone your craft, to acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you and all I see is energy in need of purpose.”

Hmm?

Hadn't he said “all I see is wasted energy,” originally? Had butterflies already reached Ozpin or was Schwarz simply misremembering the speech?

A spot of white at the corner of his vision caught his attention. He turned his head to see her . She had stark white hair with the slightest silvery sheen worn in a low bun— the best hair color , half of him insisted while the other half couldn't help but agree. He could only barely see the side of her face from this angle, but it was enough for him to conclude that, well…

She was really pretty.

Perhaps the most interesting part—or rather, the most distinctive and unusual—was the armor she was wearing. He could only see down to her shoulders due to the crowd and yet it was enough for him to appreciate how practical yet stylish it seemed. Her perfectly maintained white chainmail gleamed in the sunlight, with the black gambeson underneath providing a very nice contrast. She even had a gorget that reached partway up her neck. Did she have a helmet to go with it? He didn't remember ever seeing a huntsman who wore a helmet, so it would certainly be novel.

‘Is there anything cooler than a woman in armor?’ a part of his mind asked. To be frank, in that moment, he was hard pressed to find an answer to that question.

And then the moment was brought to an end by the man to her side shifting and hiding her from view. He was a mountain of a man, taller than most of the students around him and decked in heavy gray plate armor. Being honest, that plate armor looked pretty cool, even if the decorations seemed to be limited to golden trim along the edges.

Schwarz shook his head and returned his attention back to the speech, just in time to catch the last few lines.

“–that knowledge can only take you so far on its own. It is up to you to take the first step.”

A shiver ran up Schwarz's back at those words. There was just something in them that made the whole thing feel almost personal.

Then Glynda came forward to officially end the welcoming speech.

“All of you will gather in the ballroom tonight. Tomorrow at 8 AM, your initiation begins. Be ready.”

“Sooo… That's that done,” Schwarz said as people slowly started dispersing to wherever.

He looked at Ruby who seemed to be trying to peek over people's head, searching for someone.

“You good?” Lio asked her just as he was about to speak.

“You were looking for your sister, right? Need any help?”

She turned around suddenly, having apparently forgotten his presence.

“Oh! Yeah, that'd be great! Yang’s the blonde girl that was with me earlier, like this tall-” she mimed something- “and she’s got a leather jacket on? And purple eyes, and an orange scarf, and- other clothing?”

“The one with her boobs spilling out her top?” Lio muttered. Schwarz frowned at her comment. 

Really, that's what you have to say about Yang?

“Exactly!” Ruby agreed, seemingly unoffended by Lio's comment—either that or she hadn’t quite caught it.

“Oh, yeah. She shouldn't be too hard to find, with all that hair,” he answered Ruby's earlier description, attempting to get things back on track.

After a few seconds of searching, he spotted the mass of yellow hair in a corner of the auditorium. Ruby probably would have spotted her even without his help.

“Found her! Can you see her?” He asked Ruby while pointing in her sister's direction. By then, the crowd had dispersed enough that Ruby could easily spot her sister.

“Yes! I see her! Thanks!”

She took a few steps, then turned around, barely keeping still from excitement as she waved towards them.

“Bye Schwarz! Bye Lio!”

“See you later, Ruby,” Schwarz replied, with Lio saying her own goodbye right after.

“Don’t be a stranger!”

“I’m probably gonna go too,” she then said to him, pointing off vaguely in Ruby’s direction. “I’ve got some bags– bag I need to check actually got here, and then I wanna check out the school itself a bit. Uhh, nice to meet you?”

“Yeah, see you later,” he responded with a wave before she turned around and walked away.

Now back to being alone, Schwarz found a bench to sit on and got to thinking. Not about the headmaster's speech—no, that thing was far too cryptic for him to bother losing time on. No, what bothered him was the sheer amount of students who he'd never seen in the show, in spite of them looking more than strong enough to get through the initiation.

Those two from earlier, the white-haired girl and the big man in armor– they both had a very distinct style, yet he hadn't recognized them either. The only student with white hair he remembered was Weiss, but she really didn't seem the type to wear armor like that. The big guy was just as much of a mystery, and for much the same reasons too. Who even wore armor in the show?

Jaune did, but he was blonde and only wore a breastplate and maybe arm and leg guards. Not a full set like this. Hmm… Didn't Cardin wear armor too? Not quite as heavy as that man's, but still heavier than Jaune's, if his memory could be trusted. What was Cardin's hair color, again? This man's was a light brown…

Could that really have been Cardin? He sure hadn't looked that cool in the show.

Ok, sure, using a process of elimination to identify someone wasn't great, but it was either that or yet another unknown student who looked far too “special” to just be relegated to the ranks of “faceless background characters.”

Just how many new students were there that had never appeared in the show? He was starting to seriously doubt the usefulness of his knowledge at this point.

He sighed.

He really should stop thinking about this, it just wasn't going anywhere. He'd have to see how things turned out during the initiation, only then would he be able to judge how much things had changed.

He’d dropped off his luggage in the ballroom, where he'd been assured that it would be safe. Then, while he was in the locker room—the one with the crazy rocket-propelled lockers, to be precise—he’d decided to make sure that his weapon ran smoothly before storing it in a locker. He wasn't that lucky.

*Skrrrhh*

That was the last sound he wanted to hear at that moment. Parts grinding against each other when they really shouldn't .

“Fuck!”

The few people who were in the room at the time looked at him weirdly when he shouted. He waved them off and stormed out to try and find a member of staff—surely it wouldn't be that hard to find one, right?

He ended up finding one hanging around near the ballroom—likely there in case something happened. He didn't recognize them, but that wasn't exactly surprising, what with the whole three teachers shown in the entirety of the show. In any case, he got what he wanted and was directed to a weapon testing-slash-maintenance room. He quickly took over a work bench and got to work.

For all of five seconds before going all the way back to the ballroom where his suitcase was. He came back with a few specialty tools as well as a handful of spare parts for his weapon—just in case. Then came several hours of carefully dismantling, cleaning and re-assembling his weapon. The problem had been caused by a minuscule steel chip left from machining— because of course it was, gods fucking dammit .

At some point during this, he'd even managed to remember that he needed to eat, and so had gone to grab a plate from the buffet being held for the students. After cleaning up the work bench, he’d stored his weapon in a locker and then went to take a much needed shower—he was covered in oil and grease.

The only thing he did after that was to grab his sleeping bag and go to sleep. Any other concern could wait until the next day.

Chapter Text

He'd never slept in a room with dozens of other people in either of his lives before now and he'd promptly decided that he hated it. It just wasn't fun for someone used to the privacy of their own home like he was. The fact that some people sweat like pigs while they slept and he could smell it certainly didn't help.

Anyway…

He shrugged on his cargo jacket—an oversized thing with plenty of pockets both inside and outside—and headed to the locker room to finish readying himself for the initiation. It seemed like the tendency to have weirdly numbered lockers was true even in Beacon, as there definitely weren't over five hundred lockers in the room, and yet, he'd been able to stash his equipment in locker number 621 the day before. He smiled at a reference he'd likely be the only one to understand and opened the locker in question.

First were the padded, lightly armored thigh pouches containing extra Dust cartridges for his pile-bunker. Then his rifle ammunition was loaded into magazines and stored inside his white jacket. Finally, a few other useful knick-knacks such as a sturdy compass—he still hadn't found his sense of direction, so he'd be delegating to something more reliable in the meantime.

He'd begun to hear humming coming from the locker to his left partway through his preparations. The source of the rather pretty voice was hidden behind her locker door and he had to refrain from sneaking a glance in favor of focusing on his weapon. He'd rather not have to field strip it in the middle of the forest for some emergency repairs, so he had to make sure that everything worked properly while he still had time.

The rifle’s mechanisms worked perfectly. The stock folded and unfolded exactly as intended—same for the grip into which the rifle's trigger was built. The pile-bunker’s arms slid smoothly along the spear's shaft, along with the wide blade splitting in the middle and shifting away as the stake was brought forward. The arms folded and unfolded without issue, the rails holding the stake following behind without a single sound of complaint.

Once he'd fully extended and then retracted the pile-bunker's stake, he went about slotting in all twelve Dust capsules necessary for the weapon's functions. The small cylinders that would push the arms out and initiate the stake's movement received their small Combustion Dust canisters. Then the remaining Fire and Wind cartridges went at the sides of the sliding section holding the arms, right beside the internal chamber within which both Dust types would mix, ignite and finish propelling the stake forward.

He went back over everything, making sure that the Dust valves were in the correct position to fire at half power—just one incorrectly set valve would be disastrous and, at the same time, he'd rather not perform his first live test at full power, just in case he'd messed up those calculations.

The nice humming had stopped at some point during his verifications—not that he'd noticed. What Schwarz did notice, however, was the low, appreciative whistle that came from beside him and startled him so hard he nearly dropped his weapon.

Schwarz spun towards the source of the distraction, only to freeze completely at the sight of the girl. 

It was that very same girl he'd seen during the headmaster's speech. The same white hair tied in a bun, a few stray locks framing a beautiful face with stunning, vibrant blue eyes. She was wearing the same white chainmail and black gambeson, with her helmet hanging on her belt alongside the same kind of armored pouches he used to carry Dust.

And then there was something he hadn't seen the day before, some kind of pale blue ghostly copy of the girl floating around her. In fact, the double was currently staring back at him with a cheeky smile on her lips.

“Going giant-killing, are we?” the girl asked in a rough-as-sandpaper voice, interrupting his staring and sending a shiver running up his spine. Then the girl’s lips shifted to match her double’s, which really didn’t help his situation.

Gods…

“Uhhh–” was his oh-so-eloquent reply to the pretty girl's question.

Dammit, focus, Schwarz! Focus!

“What was– Giant-killing? Uhm, well, it is meant to take on larger Grimms, yeah,” he finally managed to answer, albeit haltingly. “Although… If it’s based on something used to destroy giant mechs, does that count?” he asked, unconsciously tilting his head to the side, much like a dog would.

“You said it yourself, ‘destroy giant mechs’,” the girl chuckled, leaning forward to ogle his weapon some more, barely paying him a glance.

Schwarz stopped himself from replying with something dumb and inconsequential, instead choosing to look at the ghostly double's antics to distract himself and hopefully regain some composure.

The pale-blue see-through girl half-melted back into the original. A pallid spectre splitting off of her at the waist and tittering behind one hand while the other rested on its creator's shoulder.

It reminded him a bit of a certain witch character in a massive game he'd played a few years earlier…

“I’m no mechashift engineer, but that’s some fine work. What’d you do with the cartridges to prevent a lucky hit turning into a detonation? Myrtenaster here uses some Dust-tempered glass, not perfect but being on par with lower end steel alloys before Aura reinforcement is good enough for my purposes, and having easy visual on what is slotted and how much is left in the chamber is worth the compromise.”

“Um, thanks,” Schwarz replied, hoping he hadn't gone too red from the compliment. And then Weiss’ ghost double leaned forward to whisper “cute” in his direction and his blush went from bad to worse in an instant.

Whyyyyyyyy?

“Uhh, umm– for uhm–” fucking hell, Schwarz, get a grip, “For the cartridges, the– the fire and wind ones there are Dust-tempered glass,” he explained, pointing at the six cartridges sticking out from the main body of the weapon.

“These ones aren’t, though. I didn’t have enough time to custom-make them, so I’ll be replacing them as soon as I can. At least they aren’t too exposed from the front, so I should be fine with just reinforcement for now,” Schwarz added as he gestured to the much smaller Combustion Dust cartridges that were half-hidden on the cylinders behind the bulky arms of the weapon.

He then frowned as he thought back on the girl’s exact words. Hadn't she mentioned her weapon's name?

“Myrtenaster?” he said, voicing his thoughts.

Schwarz looked down at her waist, finally noticing the weapon sheathed at her side.

“Weiss!?” he loudly asked, incredulous. 

Half of him couldn't believe he'd been so blind. How hadn't he realized it sooner? The hair, the eyes, the height, even the voice! Sure, the tone was just slightly different and she talked in a far more casual way, but still…

His other half tried to be more reasonable. She was behaving completely differently, wearing actual armor, something Weiss had never done in the show, and she even lacked the scar near her eye!

And then there was that ghost double.

The ghost double that looked like Weiss herself…

The ghost double that looked like one of the Schnee Semblance's summons…

His gaze settled on the double's partially manifested form.

Didn't they need to kill something to be able to summon it?

He blanched and stumbled back a step.

What the hell is going on here!?

“I think you’re the first to recognize me by my weapon since I decided to switch up my wardrobe two weeks ago.” Weiss chuckled. The ghost, for its part, simply melted fully into her body. 

Some tiny part of his mind that wasn't freaking out managed to drag him out of his spiral and get his attention back on a piece of crucial information.

Two weeks ago… That was when the two “him” had become Schwarz. He'd already considered the possibility that he wasn't the only one with memories from Earth, since things already seemed to be diverging. What if there were more, then?

“Two weeks? Specifically two weeks? You–” Schwarz asked, then cut himself off and shook his head before continuing.

“That, umm… Her, she’s from two weeks ago, too, isn’t she?” he asked, tone apprehensive, dreading the answer.

In an absurd moment, the ghostly summon in question peeled a hand off of Weiss’ wrist to cheekily form a thumbs up. Then, just as quickly as she'd appeared, she retracted back into her summoner's body.

“Yes, although she isn’t quite what you’re probably thinking. Just my will to stand up straight and hope to be a better person put into a rather hyperactive package, far as I can figure out.” Weiss replied with a wan, crooked smile, “The Schnee Semblance just keeps pulling out surprises.”

Schwarz's expression grew somber as he listened to Weiss’ explanation and thought about some of the implications.

If he understood correctly, she was saying that the ghost wasn't the ‘old’ Weiss. Well, it certainly tracked with the way she was acting… He didn't know if that was better or worse, that there wasn't even a shadow of the original left.

Fuck…

It seemed like he'd been really lucky, in comparison.

“Yeah… surprises. Unfortunately, I’m getting the feeling that some of the targets of that surprise weren’t as fortunate as others.” 

Schwarz let himself fall back against his locker as he began thinking, his expression far more serious than before.

“This isn’t how I expected this day to start at all,” he complained before turning back towards Weiss, ”We aren’t the only ones, are we? There must be others, things are too different already.”

Weiss's smile was an expression of pain. 

“Fortune is sometimes a breaking wheel and all we can do is pick up the pieces ” she commiserated bitterly, before adding much more quietly, “Cardin and Pyrrha. Former’s a changeling like me, unsure of the latter’s arrangement.”

That… might explain some of the divergences so far, actually. Pyrrha was there with Ruby's group the day before.

“Right… I’m pretty sure I saw Pyrrha with Yang yesterday, when I met Ruby and Lio,” he relayed, thinking back on the previous day’s events. “That explains that divergence, at least…” he muttered. 

“For Cardin, I’m guessing that was the big dude in armor that was with you yesterday?” Schwarz asked before frowning, “Wait, how did you even end up meeting him?”

They couldn't have had that much time to meet each other, unless Weiss had left Atlas as soon as she could. Even then, it'd take some weird luck for them to run into each other, wouldn't it?

“We both ended up signing up for spars with the Malachite twins.” Weiss replied with an easy shrug, casually sidestepping fifty pounds of context. The locker room was largely deserted for now and they were keeping things quiet, but still.

“Riiiiight, that sounds like a story,” Schwarz replied with a slow nod. 

An uncomfortable silence followed and he slowly realized just how thoroughly he'd killed the mood with his questions.

I should probably try and change the subject back to something lighter, shouldn't I?

“What were we talking about, again? Weapons and equipment, right? Uhm, I really like your armor!” 

Mouth, what the hell are you doing!?

The mood didn’t really manage to pick back up from where it had started, but they at least traded names so Schwarz didn't have yet another friend who didn’t know his name. 

She also offered to spot him the money for those cartridge upgrades if he could set up Myrtenaster with a robust extending shaft to turn it into an ahlspiess at will—a sort of thrusting spear that could indeed be described as a rapier-on-a-stick. Before they could shake on it, however, the bulk of the Huntsmen hopefuls came through like a stampede and that was that for any sort of quiet conversation.

This was it. The initiation was about to start and he was about to be catapulted into a forest filled with monsters. He'd soon get the chance to truly test his improved weapon in real-life situations. Speaking of…

He reached into his jacket and retrieved a white magazine marked with a black dot surrounded by four arrows pointing outward. Gravity Dust rounds, specifically of the Recoil type. They were effectively blanks with gravity Dust added to the propellant charge for massively increased recoil. Useless or even dangerous for conventional forces, but well-liked by Huntsmen with more acrobatic combat styles.

He loaded the magazine into place and relaxed—his preparations were done, all he had to do was wait for his turn to be flung into the forest.

Taking a look around, it seemed like the remaining participants were arriving. Directly to his right was Weiss, who he gave a small wave to, followed by the armored bulk of Cardin. The pretty girl replied with a quiet “Good luck and happy hunting,” alongside a small, crooked smile. At the same time, the seemingly sapient ghost-Weiss summon took the opportunity to peel off from her side to give him a bright smile and a thumbs up.

Hmm, had he seen that correctly or was there only fire and wind Dust loaded in Myrtenaster? Bit strange that she was limiting herself like that… Maybe the "new” Weiss just really liked fire?

On his left was a very tall girl with red hair, his friend from the airship who he'd forgotten to ask the name of, and then an even taller Faunus girl with raccoon features. Seeing how his friend had surrounded himself with two massive skeletal arms—interesting Semblance—and looked this close to freaking out as he stared down into the forest, Schwarz wisely opted not to bother him.

Schwarz stopped snooping around as Ozpin began to explain how the initiation would go down. It wasn't anything he hadn't already known—get flung into the air, land in a way that doesn't involve needing to be scraped off the ground, find the ruins, grab a “relic”, get back to the cliffs. Also, survive. That part was rather important.

Speaking of landing, wouldn't Jaune need help? Pyrrha was apparently in a similar situation to Weiss and him, so there was no guarantee she'd save him.

Schwarz leaned forward to try and spot the blonde teen in the line of people, only to fail miserably. The blonde guy was nowhere to be seen.

Wait, that sword– it was a bit too far to be sure, but it looked like it might be Jaune's. Except that it was hanging at the waist of some guy wearing plate armor and a face-concealing helmet. Not exactly a match for Jaune’s hoodie-and-a-breastplate combo.

Did he also get someone else's memories or was Schwarz just mistaken about recognizing the sword?

Wait, was that really Coco standing next to Ozpin? Was she also– Nope. He wasn't even going to finish that thought. The morning had been exciting enough already without adding even more isekai'd people to the quickly growing pile. Plus, the initiation was starting, so he really shouldn't be paying attention to other people.

Soon enough, it was his turn to be sent flying above the forest. One moment, he was standing on the launching platform and in the next he was soaring through the air at high speeds.

“Wooooooo!”

He enjoyed the air rushing past his face and his jacket flapping in the wind while he could, until his trajectory reached its apex and he started descending towards the forest. A press of a button on his spear had the pile-bunker arms unlock and slide up to the top end of the haft to then unfold the slightest bit.

With that done, Schwarz aimed his weapon towards the ground below, bent his legs to rest his feet on the pile-bunker's arms and fired. A burst of black energy exited his weapon's barrel and his legs bent to absorb the intense recoil as he suddenly decelerated. Once, twice, thrice he fired, with the third and last shot happening just shortly before reaching the forest's canopy.

In one movement, Schwarz unfurled and folded back the arms of his weapon, raising the spear above his head as he did so. Then, at the last moment, he swung down, cutting a hole through the thick canopy, sending branches and leaves flying and, most importantly, allowing him to see the area he'd be landing in.

Schwarz landed on his feet, Aura-reinforced legs bending to absorb the shock and leaving him feeling no worse than after a simple six-feet drop.

“Ah hahahaa– that was kind of fun, I wouldn't mind doing it again every once in a while.”

Schwarz looked around his landing area, making sure he wasn't about to be ambushed by Grimms. Dirt, bushes, trees and more bushes were all that he saw and insects and birds were all he heard. The area seemed clear. He set about removing the Dust round magazine, carefully extracting the chambered recoil round and placing it back in the magazine as he did so.

With his rifle reloaded with a more standard ammunition type, Schwarz fished out his compass from one of the many pockets lining his jacket. Now properly oriented, the Faunus took off at a jog towards the northern end of the forest where the ruins should be located.

It didn't even take a minute before he ran into something hostile as he came face to face with a lone Ursa. Schwarz grinned as the massive bear growled and roared at him—it was time for a live weapon test.

*BANG*

A noise like a cannon shot combined with the sound of metal being hit with tremendous force resounded through the forest, shaking a small part of the canopy and causing birds to take flight in a much larger area. Loud maniacal laughter followed only a few seconds later.

“IT WOOOOOOORKS!!!!”

Schwarz wondered if he might not have bitten off more than he could chew with this group. It’d been a few minutes since he’d gotten to test his pile-bunker and he’d already ran into a sizable pack of Grimms. Five Beowolves were currently dispersing into smoke from having half their heads blown off by rifle shots, but that still left over a dozen assorted beasts. The two Ursas and three Boarbatusks were enough of an issue as it was, but the remaining Beowolves just made everything worse by forcing him to keep moving constantly so as to avoid being surrounded.

He decapitated a lunging Beowolf and jumped back to avoid two others, which also had the effect of placing more trees between him and the boars that were doing their best imitation of a murderous Sonic the Hedgehog. A touch of Aura in his legs and he jumped over the handful of wolf-like monsters that had surrounded him to land on a thick branch high above. The respite allowed him to reload his weapon with a fire Dust magazine—he hadn’t skimped on these, so the fire blast should be pretty satisfying.

Unfortunately, before he could start incinerating the opposition below like a filthy camper, his perch trembled. His eyes widened as he spotted the Ursas below quickly ripping through the trunk of his tree. The tree he was standing on slowly started to shift and lean to the side.

“Shit!”

*CRACK* 

Schwarz quickly jumped down, rolling on the ground to kill his momentum and almost losing his grip on his spear in the process. He scrambled to his feet and aimed his rifle-spear at the group. Just as he was about to press the trigger, he saw two massive skeletal arms raise a Boarbatusk into the air from the very back of the pack and slam it down on its back, followed by the characteristic stream of black smoke that signaled a killing blow.

His ears caught the culprit’s voice as he executed the Boarbatusk, “Swing and… Dead.” Schwarz smiled at the familiar voice of his friend from the airship, the one he’d forgotten to ask the name of.

Schwarz watched him grab hold of a nearby branch with his Semblance’s arm and pull to swing himself away from the main group of monsters. His friend landed on a different tree, using his axe to create a handhold for himself.

“That was… close,” Schwarz just barely heard him mutter to himself.

“Hi! looks like we ended up as partners after all!” Schwarz shouted, wiggling his ears in place of a proper salute as his hands were rather busy. In the next moment, he pressed the trigger and the body of an Ursa burst into flames, the blast large enough to scorch the nearest few Grimms. It wouldn’t be enough to kill them, but it would slow them down a bit.

“Hot damn that’s a lot of fla–”

Then a second blast ripped a burning hole through the closest Beowolf and showered the one behind in its flaming remains. A press of a switch then had his rifle’s stock straighten back just in time for Schwarz to lunge into the coming group of monsters with his spear held to the side.

“Less talking, more murder. Got it,” his friend commented, bringing a small smile to Schwarz’s lips.

“Eh, communication is never a bad thing,” Schwarz replied just before swinging in a wide arc, attempting to decapitate the Beowolves in front of him. Two of them managed to back off just in time, with the last one only receiving a groove in its exposed skull.

“Want hel–” Schwarz heard from the side, the words suddenly cutting off with a scream. A quick look showed him his friend being held against a tree by a Boarbatusk.

So long as you don't get distracted, that is.

“Shit–” Schwarz swore, right before the two Beowolves jumped in to try and rip him apart, preventing him from intervening and helping his friend. A white glow surrounded Schwarz for an instant before he swung back with his spear, hitting both monsters and creating a small shockwave as they were sent flying back into the forest with a scream of rage.

“ARRGH!” You go back from whence you came!

“Get away you big ugly bastard…” his friend groaned, shortly followed by the roar of flames which nearly drowned his voice.

“I SAID GET BACK. GO AWAY!”

Schwarz had neither the time to look at his friend or appreciate his own improvised homerun as the still-smoldering Ursa rushed towards him to try and crush him under its forelimbs. He interposed the heavy length of steel that was his spear just in time to catch the monster’s paws. Schwarz’s legs buckled for a moment under the crushing weight of the Ursa until, with another burst of Aura, he overpowered the oversized bear. The push of his spear flowed into a swing, decapitating the Ursa in one clean cut of the wide spear head.

“...Fuck,” he swore. One down, many more to go.

His ears twitched as he heard the sounds of some kind of scuffle coming from his friend’s direction.

“There we– Catch!”

What?

Schwarz turned towards his friend in time to notice a Boarbatusk flying right towards him. His eyes narrowed in concentration, he pulled back a leg to strengthen his posture, shifted a hand to one of his weapon’s triggers and thrust right into the exposed belly of the Boarbatusk. Time seemed to slow down as he watched the blade easily pierce through the monster’s hide, all the way to the back of the spearhead.

He pressed the trigger the moment the boar touched the end of his barrel. Flames exploded from the boarbatusk’s body, ripping it apart and showering the battlefield with its rapidly evaporating burning remains. Any satisfaction he felt at the justified carnage vanished as he felt sharp claws scrape down his back—his Aura might have blunted the blow, but it did nothing for the force that threw him onto the forest’s floor.

“That was awesome… But also… oh shit!”

Schwarz stood back up just in time to see his friend grab onto a tree with his Semblance and send himself spinning with his axe brandished, looking like some kind of living saw blade. He passed right by Schwarz and through the Beowolf behind him, cutting it in two on his way to crash into a tree. Thankfully, the large phantom ribcage around him seemed to have protected him, allowing him to simply slide down to a sitting position instead of crumpling to the ground after his stunt.

Huh, so it's not just a pair of arms, then. Interesting.

“I… hate forests…”

Hah.

For his part, Schwarz had more of a hate-love relationship with forests. He liked the environment, but the environment did not agree with his fighting style. Particularly when it came to the whole “blowing fist-sized holes into Grimms with an anti-materiel sniper rifle”. Well, the sniper part wasn't quite true anymore—he really needed to fit a scope back onto his weapon, something that the pile-bunker's arms made a bit more difficult by blocking the view.

Oh well, just one more thing to add to the list of upgrades.

“Thanks for the assist,” Schwarz called out to his friend.

There they were, side by side, facing the remaining Ursa and the four Beowolves that had so far survived the orgy of violence. The Ursa in particular was visibly larger and smarter than its deceased cousin, having opted to stay back and let its prey tire itself.

“Not many left…” Schwarz commented as, with a press of a finger, the butt of his spear reformed into a rifle stock.

“Still too many for comfort. And I swear to fucking all that is holy… as soon as this is over, I’m gonna burn this accursed place down,” his friend grumbled as he got back to his feet using his axe as a crutch.

Schwarz smiled. Speaking of fire…

Schwarz suddenly brought his weapon up and fired two consecutive shots, removing two more Beowolves from existence and scorching the large Ursa with the edges of both fire blasts.

“That’s all from me, as far as incendiaries go,” he warned his friend, returning his weapon to its proper spear form as he did so.

As if on cue, the Ursa and its remaining Beowolf buddies all opted to stop circling around and charge the duo, with the Ursa letting out an impressive roar as it did.

His friend swung his axe to ward off the Beowolf charging him and simultaneously blocked the Ursa's claws with his Semblance's skeletal arm. A moment later, the ribcage around him dissipated to be swiftly replaced by a second arm.

Hmm, can he only keep two body parts active at once?

Any attempt Schwarz would have made to attack the giant bear's flank were rendered impossible by the second Beowolf that jumped his way. It forced him to back off for a moment, lest he be caught between the raging Ursa and the trees to his side.

“Take the other one– then we tag team the Bear!” came the call from his friend amidst the chaos that came with being stuck in close quarters with a rampaging Ursa.

“Perfect!” Schwarz responded right before blocking another swipe from his Beowolf.

However, right as he was pulling back his spear to strike and finish it off, he was forced to transition into an Aura-enhanced swing in order to block the massive bear claws aiming for his head. The impact knocked the offending limb away, causing a small shockwave that bent the grass around them for an instant.

Unfortunately, the Ursa’s attack ended up distracting Schwarz long enough for the Beowolf to claw at his ribs. Holding back a grunt, Schwarz jumped back, his leap bringing him several feet above the ground. A bloodthirsty smile appeared on his face as he shifted his hold on his spear and reared his arm back. He aimed and threw. His spear sailed through the air and pierced right through the monster’s neck, nearly bisecting it.

The moment Schwarz landed, he ran back to his weapon, reaching into his jacket to retrieve a new magazine as he did so. In a few quick movements, his rifle-spear was picked up and reloaded, the empty magazine marked with a red flame left to fall to the ground—he'd pick it up once the fight was over.

Schwarz turned back towards the Ursa to see it immobilized by two giant skeletal arms holding its forelimbs to the side and rendering the Grimm barely able to even struggle. His friend was running straight towards the bear, a beheaded Beowolf corpse left to disperse behind him.

Schwarz promptly decided that this Ursa wouldn't get a clean death. He ran in and slid between the giant bear’s legs holding his spear at an angle in front of him.

“Jump!” he yelled to his friend, praying that he'd understand. Things would be really awkward if he didn't.

To his relief, his friend understood his intentions and jumped right onto the folded arms of his pile-bunker.

With an upward swing, Schwarz catapulted his friend upward on a trajectory that would have him fall right on the large Ursa’s head.

“Let’s rip it apart!” Schwarz shouted, signaling his intentions.

“Let’s!” his friend enthusiastically agreed.

He twisted in midair and started spinning, using that momentum to slam his axe into the Ursa’s shoulder. At the same moment, Schwarz swung his spear into a rising slash, putting his Aura into the blow aimed right between the Grimm’s legs.

The combined blows cut deep into the old monster, the axe cleaving its upper torso in two and the spear splitting the monster’s belly all the way to its ribs. Then the true finishing blow came as the massive skeletal arms restraining the Ursa began to pull. The monster’s flesh produced a wet, disgusting sound as its entire body was ripped in two, letting its already smoking entrails fall to the ground around the victorious duo.

“We did it… That was a lot harder than I thought it’d be,” his friend said after having caught his breath.

“It’s–” Schwarz paused to breathe for a moment, “–pretty easy to get surrounded. Makes things a lot more complicated.”

It was the whole reason he’d gotten into this mess of a fight…

“Yep… We need to begin moving soon. We’re sitting ducks now.”

“Good point. We probably only have a few minutes before new friends arrive, with all the noise we made,” Schwarz replied before going back to pick up the empty magazine he dropped earlier.

“Oh joy, company… I always hated it. I just hope that we don’t have to deal with anything too strong.”

Are you trying to invoke Murphy?

“Please don't say that, I don't want the world to prove you right.”

“Sorry– The world has a tendency to do that anyways though.”

Schwarz suddenly remembered something he’d forgotten to do.

“Dammit, I nearly forgot again– Hi, I'm Schwarz,” he said, transferring his spear to his left hand so he could extend his right for a handshake.

“Obi… Now let’s just get the hell out of here,” his friend replied as they shook hands.

Obi… Shouldn’t be too hard to remember.

Schwarz then fished his compass out of his jacket. North, North, North… This way.

“Ozpin said the ruins were in the northern parts of the forest, right? In that case they should be in that general direction,” Schwarz said as he pointed to the North, according to his compass.

“I think so? I didn’t pay much attention, honestly,” Obi replied, grabbing a granola bar from his bag and beginning to eat it.

Snacking now? Really?

Schwarz's ears perked up and he turned his head, hearing something Obi hadn't quite noticed yet. The rapidly approaching sounds of trees breaking and falling in the path of something massive. Whatever it was, it was coming from the South-East and it was coming fast.

“This is your fault,” Schwarz stated.

Obi turned his head in that direction a moment later, once he began hearing it for himself.

“Every day, I regret waking up more and more…” his friend complained, dropping his snack back in his bag so they could start running.

Even though they couldn’t quite see its source yet, the sound of trees breaking and shattering was getting uncomfortably close. 

“It’s gaining on us! What do we do?”

Schwarz risked a quick look over his shoulder, just in time to see an utterly massive Boarbatusk emerge from the trees behind them, rearing its head to effortlessly shatter the last trees in its path and sending large chunks of wood in their direction.

“Duck!” Schwarz called out, heeding his own advice a moment later to let a two-feet-long piece of wood soar above his head.

After avoiding the projectiles, Obi glanced back and his eyes practically bulged out of his head at the sight of the monster.

“THAT THING’S FUCKING HUGE!”

“Yeah…” he answered before taking another glance at the giant angry boar. It really was massive. At a guess, it must have been at least a story tall at the shoulder and it was also sporting tusks longer than either of them were tall.

“Fuck! It’s getting closer!” Schwarz swore at the realization.

“I’ve got an idea… It’s a terrible one that might not even work. But it’s an idea,” Obi said, although Schwarz was only barely listening at that point. He was too busy looking around and trying to judge both distance and timing.

“It might at least give us a few more seconds… Sorry!”

With that said, Schwarz pumped Aura into his legs and jumped to the right, cratering the ground around him as he did so. He practically rammed into his friend like a quarterback twice his weight and wrapped an arm around him to pull him in his jump. They both flew between trees for a few dozen feet before messily landing in the dirt, far enough to the side that the gigantic boar would need to stop its charge and reorient itself to keep chasing after them.

It’d give them a few seconds. Five, ten, maybe fifteen if they were lucky.

They both groaned a bit as they got back up, although Obi seemed to have taken it harder than he did.

“That… was better than my plan- which was just to pour Aura into my Semblance and see what happens.”

Schwarz looked towards the path they’d just left, already seeing trees topple amidst flashes of black hide, white bone and malevolent red eyes..

Yeah… about that…

“We might still need that idea. Come on,” he said before going back to sprinting through the forest in a direction that could generously be described as “Northward”.

“Right! Tell me when and I’ll stop the thing right in its tracks… Hopefully.”

It only took a minute or so before they ran into another problem. Or maybe it could be an opportunity?

“Stop!” he yelled back at Obi, having just stopped himself from falling right down the incredibly steep rocky hill this part of the forest suddenly transitioned into. From up there, it looked something like a forty or fifty degree slope, the kind of slope formed over time by countless landslides.

“Again, I’m burning this place down the moment I get a chance.”

What has this forest done to you, Obi?

“Actually, we might just be able to throw the Boarbatusk down there, if we bait it and get away at the last moment. Think it’d work?”

A grin formed on Obi’s face as his Aura spiked around him, “I think so.”

Schwarz took a fortifying breath before nodding, “Ok, let’s do this.”

The titanic boar was quickly closing in, crushing and battering everything in its path while the two young men stood still, staring in the face of possible death and praying that they wouldn’t miscalculate the timing.

“NOW!” Obi shouted. They both jumped away with Aura-enhanced strength

The Boarbatusk, seemingly wise from the similar trick they’d pulled just earlier, planted its legs and even its tusks in the ground to try and slow down. The two Huntsmen-to-be watched in dismay as the monster slowed to a stop just at the edge of the cliff and then proceeded to slowly turn around to face them, as if mocking their failed plan.

““Fuck.””

“Now might be the time if you can push it off!” Schwarz shouted, urgency clear in his voice. He'd said he might be able to stop it earlier, right?

“I’ll try!”

Schwarz watched as the two massive skeletal arms appeared behind Obi. Then, as he pushed more Aura towards his Semblance, the arms rose higher in the air, at the perfect height for a torso to form in between them. Lastly, a large skull manifested on top of the whole, completing the massive gray ghostly skeleton from the waist up. All in all, its height rivaled the giant Boarbatusk’s size. If the skeleton had legs, it’d probably be over three stories tall. The skeleton then went on to grab the boar by its tusk, attempting to push it back.

That’s… pretty damn awesome.

“I’ll call this… Full Throttle.”

That felt like a reference… One he hadn’t watched enough Remnant media to be able to understand, it seemed.

Schwarz watched as his friend gave his all to push back the massive Boarbatusk. The monster was enormous, just its tusks were larger than either of them—the entire Grimm must have been at least fifteen feet tall in total, utterly dwarfing both of the Huntsmen. A living mountain of muscle and bone whose sole purpose was destruction, just like any other of its kind. Even then, comparing it to its lesser brethren seemed like a disservice, as this particularly massive specimen was even more heavily armored than the average Boarbatusk.

And yet, in spite of all that mass, of all that power, Obi’s Semblance was still slowly pushing it back towards the cliff, even as the boar struggled and fought over every inch it lost. Seeing how Obi seemed to already be struggling, however, Schwarz felt like they might not have enough time. Pushing himself that hard… just how fast was his Aura dropping right now?

Obi grit his teeth and took a step forward. All the while, his skeleton summon was constantly adjusting its hold on the monster to counter its every struggle.

Fuck. At this rate, Obi might run out of Aura before we get rid of that thing. We'd be back to square on, except with even less resources at our disposal.

“Fuck it. Might as well try and finish it,” Schwarz swore.

With a resounding “Clank”, Schwarz’s weapon shifted to its pile-bunker form. The three arms moved forward and opened as the blade split and shifted away from the stake emerging from the tip of the spear.

Let's hope half-power will be enough…

“Hold it down for a moment!” Schwarz yelled before rushing towards the gigantic boar, pile-bunker-spear already pointed at its target.

“I’ll buy all the time you need and then some…” his friend replied with bravado before planting his axe in the ground to help anchor himself further.

He'd aim for the Boarbatusk's overly thick neck. It seemed like the best option since its head might be too tough to penetrate and its body too large for him to deal a lethal blow. With the neck, even if the initial strike didn't hit anything too important, the burning exhaust should finish the job. Or so he hoped.

The massive Boarbatusk likely hadn't gotten to this size—or the age necessary to reach it—by being stupid or careless. It was like the boar had felt that something was amiss as it started thrashing even harder, rendering Obi’s task of keeping it in place even more difficult than it already was.

“Damn rotten bacon… Whatever the hell you’re gonna do, do it… Now!”

Things unfolded in very quick succession. Schwarz arrived right in front of the Boarbatusk, practically standing under its massive head and slammed the point of his spear—the tip of the pile-bunker’s stake—against the Grimm’s thick neck. In the very next moment, just as he began pressing the trigger to fire his weapon, the Boarbatusk roared and reared back, putting all of its strength into this one act. At the edge of his vision, Schwarz vaguely noticed Obi being thrown into the air with his Semblance, yet most of his focus was on his target..

This very action from the monster even shook the earth, destabilizing Schwarz and allowing the Boarbatusk to knock his weapon aside at the last moment. The weapon still fired, projecting a nearly six-feet-long metal stake at supersonic speeds right into one of the Boarbatusk's frontal bone plates in a nearly deafening boom. By this point, the alignment was off by far too much and, instead of penetrating deeply and ripping a gaping hole into the monster, the pile-bunker’s stake merely glanced off the plate, practically ricocheting off it, practically shattering the hard bone in the process. Not that Schwarz got to see much of that as the view was almost instantly blocked by the burst of burning gases emerging from the exhausts along the pile-bunker's stake.

Still, it seemed like the duo had some luck, even in their misfortune. In its desperate thrashing, the giant Boarbatusk had weakened the ground at the edge of the cliff. Just as it reached the apex of its movement, its head raised towards the sky in triumph, the earth gave way under its legs and gravity asserted its power over the monster, dragging it down the steep rocky hill along with several tons of dirt and rocks.

Schwarz took a few steps back as the monster fell, grabbing Obi's axe as he did so. Once he'd put some distance between him and the crumbling edge of the cliff, he allowed himself to fall on the ground right next to his friend and just breathe for a while.

Holy shit…

“Here,” he said, handing the axe back to its owner. He then put his own weapon in his lap to manually return it to its spear form—yet another system he hadn't had the time to complete while rebuilding the thing.

“Thanks”

They both took a minute to rest in silence before Schwarz decided that anymore than that would be purely wasted time. That and he had a feeling the boar would find a way to track them down if they stayed there too long.

“I think I see the ruins over there,” Schwarz said, pointing at a set of stone structures in a lower area to the North-East.

“Oh shank goud…” 

What?

Schwarz turned back to see his friend still munching on a granola bar. He couldn't help but roll his eyes at Obi’s antics. 

Schwarz stood up and stretched, groaning as he did so.

“Yeah. Better get going if we don't want to be the last to arrive.”

Schwarz and Obi arrived at a jog in the clearing surrounding the temple ruins containing the so-called “Relics”. And it seemed like they were far from the first to arrive, too.

“Good fucking god… I did not know I could make a half-skeleton appear yet,” Obi commented at his side in between exhausted panting.

That was… Pyrrha and Yang, Weiss and Cardin in their armor, Ren and some blue-haired guy he thought might have been in Cardin's team in the show. Although that huge hammer sized for a Monster Hunter game that he was wielding definitely wasn't in the show.

Another one? Were they just multiplying behind his back or something?

Just how many of us “isekai’d” people are there?

“We learn all kinds of things about ourselves today,” Cardin commiserated with Obi. 

Schwarz had to wonder, just what kind of day had Cardin had for him to be feeling this way?

And then there was Nora with Blake—if that was really her partner, then he mourned for Blake's peace and quiet—in addition to those two really tall girls he'd seen on the platforms and… Oh, Lio and Ruby.

“Schwarz oh thank god,” Lio exclaimed like a sailor seeing land after being adrift for days.

Schwarz waved back in the general direction of all the people he'd met, “Hey! Looks like we’re among the last ones to arrive.”

“Given that all the relics are still here, we’re probably the first groups to arrive, actually,” Pyrrha said, correcting him… just for the sake of correcting him? Wasn't she being a bit pedantic? Ok, he wasn't one to talk, the half of him that had lived on Earth had been the kind to do that too.

I mean, I was talking about me and Obi, but sure, whatever.

Obi, for his part, weakly pumped his fist in the air, still exhausted.

“Sweet… all that fighting wasn’t for nothing…” 

Which reminded Schwarz… “Huh, well we might want to get going pretty soon, otherwise we’ll have to deal with a really pissed off boar.”

Then again, they could probably kill it relatively easily with that many people.

“Me and Raxa got a rock golem chasing us,” the tall redheaded girl—the one who wasn't Pyrrha—added, prompting a somewhat worried comment from Ruby, “Is everyone bringing angry Grimm here?”

His ears twitched as he heard Weiss let out a bloodthirsty chuckle. Schwarz turned her way in time to catch her ghostly double fist-pump excitedly, like she'd just won a prize.

“Apparently!” Weiss commented with a voice practically dripping with her eagerness for battle.

Oh damn, she's a battle maniac…

Hot.

“Hey, the more, the merrier!” Yang added as she cracked her knuckles.

“I don’t think people like to say that about Grimm,” Cardin commented in a dry tone.

Wellll… As a Huntsman, more Grimms just means that you don't have to go looking for them, no? So long as you don't get overwhelmed, that is. And that you have enough ammunition. And– anyway.

Schwarz glanced at his weapon before hefting it on his shoulder, “Then again, I could use another opportunity to properly test the pile-bunker…”

I haven't tested it at full power yet, after all.

“I think I can go all out again…” Obi said before continuing in a lower voice, whispering to himself, “Hell, I might even be able to do it twice.”

Oh? That was good to know. Actually, the more he thought about it, the more certain Schwarz was that his only male friend hadn't received any formal training. He'd thought that Obi was talking about some kind of remedial lessons when he'd mentioned receiving a “crash course”, but now he was starting to wonder if that hadn't been the entirety of his training. Was Obi really just coasting by on pure guts, sheer Aura strength and that crazy Semblance of his?

Sure, he himself was somewhat lacking when it came to his training, having had only a few opportunities to train against live Grimms due to his father’s injury preventing him from supervising. For Obi to be like this, however… Just where did he come from?

Wait, could he also be–

Weiss’ voice interrupted his train of thought with an iconic line from a cult game series, “I’m partial to a good ‘die, monster, you don’t belong in this world’.”

Pfft– not enough vampires for that one, I think.

Had they really been discussing one-liners while he was getting lost in his thoughts?

His attention was then captured by a pair emerging from the forest. A gray haired Faunus girl with fox ears—or maybe jackal ears? He couldn't quite say—alongside the armored form of maybe-Jaune. Actually, make that probably-Jaune since that sheathed sword really looked like the one he remembered, now that he could see it from a better angle. Probably-Jaune had gotten messed up, his whole armor was a mix of dented and scratched and he was even missing an armguard. The girl to his side who looked rather annoyed had–

Oh. Oh what the fuck– Lady, what the hell did you do to your weapons?

That Faunus girl was carrying the most beat up spear and shield combo he’d ever seen. The spearhead was more cracks and chips than blade, to the point where he had to wonder how she even fought with it. The spear’s haft was in the same kind of state, carrying innumerable scratches and visibly having been bent and poorly forced back into alignment. Her shield barely even deserved the name at this point, having enough rents, tears and dents in it that he simply gave up on counting them.

“Oh look at that, we’re the last ones, shocking,” the Faunus who couldn’t take care of her gear to save her life snarked at probably-Jaune.

“Frankly I’m surprised we made it in time to grab a relic,” probably-Jaune replied.

“Yes,” the Faunus drily replied before grabbing him by a gap in his armor and dragging him to the ruins holding the “Relics”.

Schwarz stopped paying attention at that point as he realized that he hadn’t grabbed a piece either. He really should stop getting distracted by everything…

A loud screech came from above as a giant Nevermore flew above the area. Right after, a massive Death Stalker burst out of the woods, breaking all the trees in its way.

Ah. So someone still ended up angering them, despite all the differences so far.

Still, Schwarz checked his weapon in preparation for battle, just to be sure.

Nora chirped up, “Is that it? I expected–”

Don't you dare, Nora, Obi already did it on–

One of the last walls still standing in the ruins exploded inward, revealing  an utterly massive rock golem, its stone arms already rising back into the air for a second destructive strike. And then their Boarbatusk friend from earlier came back right next to the Death Stalker. Because of course it came back.

Fucking hell.

“Ah, party’s starting. Fun,” Schwarz couldn't help but comment, voice full of the sarcasm his human half used so very often.

“Lio, Schwarz- are those weapons armor piercing?” Pyrrha suddenly called out.

What? How does she know my– Oh, right, Lio shouted it earlier.

Schwarz glanced down at his weapon before looking back at Pyrrha, “Yeah. And I've got something else in case AP isn't enough.”

“Uhh, haven’t really used it at that level but… We'll see?” Lio answered as she pulled down the lever of her weapon to eject an empty bullet casing– no, at this size it'd be more appropriate to call it a shell casing.

Is that a Bolt-Action Cannon-Umbrella?

Holy shit. That’s cool.

“Good enough,” Pyrrha replied, right before turning towards the others, “Blake, are you mobile in the air?”

“I can be.”

Obi grabbed his axe, a skeletal arm already forming behind his left shoulder, and looked at the utterly massive stone golem—a Petra Gigas, if Schwarz remembered correctly, “T-This one’s big.” 

Yeah…

“Weiss, Cardin, Jaune- take your partners and take the Borbatusk. Lio, Ruby, Schwarz- you guys take the Petra Gigas. Yang, Blake, Nora- we’re on the Nevermore. Everyone else, take down the Death Stalker,” Pyrrha barked, issuing orders to everybody.

So it is Jaune.

“Got it!” Ruby responded with a massive smile on her face.

“I know it’s the wrong situation… but god I’ve always wanted to say this,” Obi said as the fully powered form of his Semblance appeared around him. “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!” he yelled, raising his axe into the air as he did so.

I'm sorry, what?

No, seriously, you too, Obi? was I just too blind to realize before now, or?

That might actually explain why his training is lacking. I… No, fuck it, we can talk about that later. I’ve still got a chess piece to go grab.

Schwarz quickly caught Obi’s attention with a tap on his shoulder. “I’ll go grab our relic,” he told him before running off to the ruins housing the pedestals with the chess pieces. In the meantime, Obi, Ruby and Lio all went to confront the Petra Gigas.

He quickly reached the ruins in question, but now had to decide which piece to choose. It would decide who the two other people on his team would be. He really didn’t want Obi and him to be stuck with people who weren’t in the same situation as they were. It’d be… complicated.

Black Knight, White Pawn, Black Bishop, White Rook…

A large rock came flying in from the Petra Gigas’ direction. It crashed through the structure encircling the relic pedestals and shook the ground hard enough for all the remaining chess pieces to fall to the ground.

“Fuck!”

A quick look towards the ongoing fight allowed him to see Obi and his Semblance get swatted by the giant golem, sending him flying to the side towards the forest. Ruby practically flew after him, using her Semblance to catch up before he could crash into the ground. This left Lio to deal with the Grimm on her own…

“Shit! No time to waste!”

Schwarz grabbed the first piece he could find on the ground—a black Knight piece—and turned back to go help Lio. He pushed Aura into his legs and jumped forward, clearing dozens of feet in an instant.

“Oh COME ON!” he heard Lio yell just as he arrived in her general area, firing three consecutive shots at the Petra Gigas’ mask to distract it and force it to protect itself rather than try to flatten Lio like a bug.

“Oh thank god,” Lio said when she realized that some reinforcement had arrived. She quickly moved towards him, pulling out more shells to load into her cannon-umbrella as she did so.

Schwarz continued alternating shots with Lio, trying to both keep the Petra Gigas occupied and destroy some of the rocks floating around it so it wouldn’t be able to use them as projectiles anymore.

“Get back here quick, Obi! We’ll need you if we want to take out that thing!” Schwarz yelled in Obi’s direction as he took a quick pause in between his calculated shots. He couldn’t afford to waste ammo and would really rather not be empty at the last moment.

“How the hell are we supposed to deal with this thing?!” Lio yelled, having just escaped from getting crushed by pulling herself away with some kind of thread she’d created and stuck to the ground nearby.

“Oh thank god for Threadline,” she muttered to herself right after.

Threadline? So that’s her Semblance?

“I don’t know! But we can do it, I promise!” Obi yelled in response, using a burst of Aura to jump toward the Petra Gigas. “Now YOU!” He pointed at the towering stone golem, using both his actual pointer finger as well as his Semblance’s, “I BELIEVE WE HAVE UNFINISHED BUSINESS!”

What was the name he’d heard just earlier? Silhouette? Right.

“Oh my god we’re gonna get squashed–”

Lio, it’d be great if you could stop panicking for a second.

Both Ruby and Obi were still running back at this point—they’d really been thrown far away, hadn’t they?

The Petra Gigas, decided to try and do something about the Faunus peppering it with precise shots powerful enough to slowly chip at the rocks composing it. It slammed an enormous hand into the ground and dragged it towards Schwarz, attempting to either crush him or bury him in one go. The white glow of his Aura momentarily appeared around Schwarz before he jumped over and away from the monster’s attempt at burying him alive under a few tons of dirt and rocks.

Upon landing, Schwarz armed his pile-bunker, its arms moving forward and partially unfolding as the spear head split in two and moved out of the way of the metal spike emerging from the weapon’s haft.

“I’ll try to keep it occupied until you arrive!” he called out to his friends

“Screw keeping it occupied, just deal with it!” Lio angrily yelled at him as she swung Havoc around, aiming at one of the Petra Gigas’ feet and releasing a powerful Ice Dust shot, encapsulating one of its legs in a miniature glacier.

Seeing the opportunity, Schwarz jumped towards the trapped leg with Aura-powered strength and rammed the tip of his spear into the ice-covered lower leg of the Petra Gigas. In the next instant, the entire boulder that was its limb shattered and exploded in a blast of flaming rocks and ice shards.

*BANG*

As soon as he’d fired, Schwarz jumped away with his spear now sporting a steaming, nearly six feet long metal spike jutting from the front end.

The Petra Gigas’ body let out a reverberating rumble as it tilted forward, the now uneven stance and the massive shock that removed its leg causing it to fall, its landing causing a giant cloud of dirt to rise up from its impact.

“Holy shit!” Lio exclaimed, looking between the fallen Petra Gigas and Schwarz with disbelief on her face, “That was cool as hell!”

“Thanks! I might be able to destroy its body with that, but I think I’d need full power. Think you can secure me ten seconds for that?”

“That's perfect!” Ruby shouted, just before jumping into the air and firing right into the giant golem’s face mask, “I’ve got a plan, we’ll immobilize it first and then you’ll have your opportunity!”

“We’ll buy you ten minutes if we have too!” Obi added, having just jumped onto the Petra Gigas’ back and starting to try and pull away some of its constituent blocks. Ruby quickly joined him in trying to tie down the golem for the moment.

“Yo!” Lio called out to Schwarz as she ran towards him, “That thing? That is your weapon? And you still haven’t named it?!”

“It’s a work in progress, ok!?” Schwarz shouted as he frantically tried to re-arm his weapon, the task made far more difficult by the fact that the stake was still almost boiling hot.

The Petra Gigas’s stone body, still being held down by Obi, slowly started to rise, pushing back against him and dragging him up as it rose.

“Fucking fuckkkkkk,” He tried to hold on, grabbing another larger piece of stone from its back and sticking Silhouette’s fingers inbetween a crack, keeping Obi just barely held on to the Petra Gigas.

As it slowly rose, the Petra Gigas extended a stony arm towards the nearby ruins to grab one of the larger intact stone blocks and dragged it towards its body. As soon as the block got close enough to its main body, a shadowy black limb suddenly emerged from the massive boulder serving as the monster’s core and plunged into the pillar. Rocks that had previously fallen after the destruction of the Petra Gigas’ leg began to float and reorganized themselves around the monster’s replacement leg.

“Oop–” As the golem rose, Ruby was thrown off and had to use a quick burst of her Semblance to safely land near Schwarz and Lio, falling on her butt as the petals of her Semblance dispersed around her.

“Hey! I just got rid of that!” Schwarz couldn’t help but complain. For his trouble, he then had to dodge around the sudden hail of dog-sized stones flying towards him. He wasn’t quite acrobatic enough to avoid all of them, however, and ended up nearly knocked to the ground by the one he tried to block, leaving the next to take his legs out from under him.

Just a few feet to the side, Lio went through the same attack completely unscathed, all the projectiles having been effortlessly blocked by the deceptively tough canopy of her umbrella.

“Forgot about me…” Obi grunted from the back of the monster as he grabbed his axe and slammed it into the Petra Gigas. He used its handle as a foothold so he could rip out a chunk of rock from the Grimm and attempt to bash it into another spot on the Grimm.

“Obi! Get down!” Ruby called out to him

Obi turned to look at Ruby before nodding. He grabbed his axe and jumped only to be swatted down by one of the hands of the Petra Gigas. The blow sent him right down to the ground, shattering Silhouette in the impact.

Shit, is he okay–

“That’s never happened before…”

You got smacked away like, two minutes ago, Obi. This is not new.

The Petra Gigas was moving towards his fallen friend, raising its arm and preparing to finally get a kill.

Before Schwarz could even try to intervene, he saw Ruby rush towards his friend, activating Petal Burst to reach him in time. She took hold of him as she passed, narrowly avoiding the Petra Gigas’ hand in the process and only deactivating her Semblance to drop him once they were both over a dozen feet away.

“Woo, that was close,” the girl said, relieved.

Yeah… Damn.

“He’s gonna kill himself before we even get into Beacon,” Lio commented—rightfully so, considering just how much risk Obi kept taking. She then returned to trying to draw the Petra Gigas’ attention away from them with another powerful cannon shot. This particular shell exploded in flames on impact, nicely charring the side of the enormous boulder serving as the Grimm's main body.

“Guys! Let’s freeze its legs!” Ruby shouted before following through with her own order and loading Ice rounds into Crescent Rose.

“Obi! Can you keep its arms occupied?” she added, this time directed towards Schwarz's slowly recovering partner.

“On it!” Schwarz replied while fishing in his jacket for his magazine of Ice rounds. If he was to try and guess her plan, he'd say it likely involved destroying the monster's legs once more to limit its movement, thus allowing them to deal a finishing blow much more easily.

“We already did that!” Lio loudly complained. Again.

“OH WHAT A RUSH!” Obi shouted, prompting Schwarz to glance his way. Silhouette was back in its full form with Obi standing in front, grinning and laughing like a complete maniac as he looked up at the Petra Gigas. “I’ll hold it back as long as you need me too!”

How the fuck?! Schwarz thought, clearly seeing the blood on his friend’s lips and the fact that his Aura was starting to flicker from near-depletion. Right after, Obi leapt at the Petra Gigas, grabbing onto an arm, then swinging and jumping to the other as the Grimm tried to grab him.

“Catch me if you can! You big rocky loser!” he cackled as he grabbed onto the Petra Gigas’ left arm, pulling on it and jumping into the air before twisting the Grimm’s arm at an angle whilst the other tries to catch him)

“This time we won’t let it recover! We need to set things up so we can kill it in one go!” Ruby answered Lio's complaint as she began encasing one of the Petra Gigas’ legs in a quickly growing block of ice, one round at a time.

Schwarz followed suit by firing Ice rounds at the other leg, starting at the very bottom to anchor it to the ground and gradually raising his shots to properly cover the leg. In the meantime, Lio helped Obi distract the Grimm with covering fire.

“Now we break its legs! I’ll distract it in the meantime. Schwarz, you start setting it up!” Ruby called out.

“Right. I’ll break one–” Schwarz started saying before Lio interrupted him with an extremely enthusiastic attack. She ran in, holding her umbrella like a baseball bat and slammed it into one of the frozen legs. As she did, Schwarz noticed faintly glowing black patterns on Havoc’s folded canopy.

Is that… a Dust weave?

WHAM!

“I’m so SICK OF THIS!” Lio yelled as her blow caused large cracks to spread through the entire block of ice, fracturing the stone beneath.

Schwarz’s ears twitched, causing him to look back up just in time to see a massive stone hand coming down towards him with Obi and his Semblance hanging onto it. Forced to move away, he elected to leave things to his partner.

“Obi, break its leg! I’ll cover you!” he shouted, following up with shots to the Grimm’s mask, alternating his shots with Ruby’s.

“Gotcha!” He leapt from the hand and wrapped Silhouette’s arms around himself before smashing through the leg like a cannonball, shattering it on impact. I’m getting myself the nicest steak I can afford after this…” Obi said after having landed on the other side of the Petra Gigas.

“I HATE ROCKS!”

Lio? What’s up with your and Obi’s hatred of inanimate objects?

The Petra Gigas’ weight ended up doing the rest of the work, crushing its legs and bringing it down to its knees, forcing Lio to yank herself away with her Threadline and Obi to shield himself with Silhouette.

That was his cue to start setting up for the killing blow. Schwarz backed off a few more steps and kneeled with his weapon on his lap. Six valves to set to full on the cylinders controlling the pile-bunker arms as well as two more valves controlling the Fire and Wind Dust input. He couldn’t afford to even look at his friends and see how they were doing, lest he risk messing it up and unbalancing one of the pile-bunker’s firing stages. Which would likely result in the whole thing violently exploding in his hands. As opposed to the whole thing exploding in his hands because he might have possibly messed up his calculations regarding the force the weapon would need to withstand. Still, that didn’t stop him from hearing all the gunshots as well as the sounds of rocks grinding and crashing into each other.

And… Done.

Schwarz looked back up to see Ruby handing a bunch of threads to Obi's skeleton Semblance. Looking up, the threads led to the now thoroughly bundled up parts of the Petra Gigas with its main body right in the middle of the mass, just exposed enough for Schwarz to be able to aim.

Yeah… that'll work just fine.

“RAAAARGHH!” Obi yelled at the top of his lungs as he pulled on the countless threads with all of his and Silhouette's strength. His Aura was visibly flickering and his Semblance wavering as he put all he had left into this one action.

The Petra Gigas slowly began to tilt forward, tons upon tons of rocks ready to crash down into the earth. That was his cue.

Schwarz rushed in, positioning himself in front of Obi and Silhouette, right where the Petra Gigas was about to fall. He looked up at the dozens of tons of rock bearing down on him, the Threadline strings connecting to it practically forming a tunnel straight to its chest and smiled. With a profoundly satisfying “Ka-clunk”, he armed his pile-bunker and braced it against the ground, the tip of its metal stake pointing straight at the heart of the monster.

This was the moment of truth. Whether his weapon was powerful enough to make a difference against the larger threats and whether it was strong enough to withstand that very strength.

Time seemed to slow down. Aura flooded his body as he reinforced it, both to protect himself and to ensure he wouldn’t lose his grip when the weight of the Petra Gigas started pressing down on his weapon.

He almost sighed… All this and he still hadn’t named the thing. Oh well.

A manic grin returned to his face at the last moment, a fraction of a second before the Petra Gigas’ main body touched the point of his weapon. He pulled the trigger the very instant it happened. The sound it produced was deafening, like the sound of a jack-hammer magnified by a hundred combined with the noise produced by an artillery cannon. His ears rang for an instant before suddenly cutting off. For a brief instant, he thought he could even see a pressure wave spreading through the air, originating from the pile-bunker stake's sheer speed.

Tons of rock shattered before him as a six-foot metal spike was launched forward at supersonic speeds. The burning gases produced by the ignition of Fire and Wind Dust violently expanded and jetted out from the exhausts along the spike, filling the cracks in the rocks and lighting them up from the inside.

The rocks were only just beginning to fall under gravity's grasp when he saw a bright red line cross his vision. The line split the Geist in two before it could even attempt to flee, right as it emerged from the shattered pieces of its host.

Ruby…

Time seemed to finally return to normal as Schwarz looked at the tons of shattered rock falling right towards him. He wouldn't be able to move away in time, he–

His vision was suddenly blocked by Havoc's overly large canopy thanks to Lio running in to protect him from the falling debris.

Schwarz looked around once the dust had come down enough to actually see something. Lio was holding herself up with her weapon, mouth open and chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath—not that different from his state, honestly. He might not be panting, but he certainly wasn't moving from there until he felt a bit less like he was dying.

Obi was lying on the ground, looking up at the sky and trying to rest, which was perfectly understandable, considering the crazy shit he'd been pulling off non-stop since the fight had started. Ruby… Ruby was only barely refraining from jumping around as she celebrated their victory with—presumably—very loud cheers.

He wasn't too worried about his current deafness. He knew from experience that his Aura's healing would take care of that in about an hour. Maybe two, considering how depleted it was right now.

He was still holding his weapon upright, its extended stake violently steaming from all the superheated gases that had just passed through it. Hmm. In that moment where time seemed to stop and he witnessed the destruction brought forth by his creation, he'd thought of a name.

“From now on, your name shall be Last Word,” he proudly declared.

He noticed movement to his side, Lio was flapping her mouth at him, presumably complaining about something. Hmm, what should he answer? Ah.

“It’s definitely an even cooler name than Havoc.”

Lio's face fell flat before she said something else.

Still celebrating—probably, it was kind of hard to tell sometimes with the world being on “Mute”—Ruby sent him a thumbs up, to which he replied in kind. Oh, he should probably inform them that he was deaf at some point, shouldn't he?

“Now if only I could actually hear anything, that’d be great.”

He spent the next while trying to fold back his pile-bunker without burning himself on the hellishly hot stake. Judging by how the heat felt against his Aura, it was maybe around three hundred degrees Celcius? Not exactly the kind of temperatures he was willing to touch bare-handed, even with full Aura.

“Gonna need to add some kind of cooling system…” he muttered to himself.

And some kind of silencer on the cylinders and at the end of the spear, right where the stake comes out.

Frankly? The trek back to the cliffside that was required to complete the Initiation was an absolute pain. He couldn't hear shit, he was itchy from all the stone dust clinging to his hair and clothes and he had to carefully watch his Aura levels because he had to rely on it to be able to move with any level of agility while carrying his stupid eighty-pound weapon.

Thank the gods for all the practice he had strengthening himself with Aura or he'd have run out halfway through the climb back up.

He didn't remember ever being this tired in recent years. It took some actual effort not to start yawning on stage while the headmaster announced the teams.

“Jaune Arc. Weiss Schnee. Wanda Mephis. Cardin Winchester. The four of you retrieved the black rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Swamp, led by… Weiss Schnee!”

Hmm neat, Weiss’s a team leader.

“Schwarz Beauregard. Ruby Rose. Meloria Chip. Obi Grey. The four of you retrieved the black knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Rosemary, led by… Ruby Rose!”

I'm on a team with the other weapon maniacs, that's actually fantastic.

Ruby being leader wasn't surprising either, even without Ozpin having reasons to want her in that position, she'd still been faster than the rest of us at noticing things and coming up with a plan amidst the chaos of combat.

“Lie Ren. Sky Lark. Raxa Kivera. Arianell Grayson. The four of you retrieved the black king pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Laser, led by… Lie Ren!”

Poor guy…

“Yang Xiao Long. Blake Belladonna. Pyrrha Nikos. Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the white queen pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Pineberry, led by… Pyrrha Nikos!”

Hmm. Cool.

“Your dorm assignments and class schedule have been sent to your email, team leaders. You are all dismissed.”

Sleep, blessed sleep. Soooon.