Hey guys, I'm back with another new chapter for this very... ambitious retelling of the Flame and Crimson story, featuring Weiss as the main love interest this time around. As I mentioned in the notes at the end of the last chapter, the other main pairing locked in for the story is Roy x Ruby. I really like how different that dynamic feels, so I'm definitely keeping them together.
As for all the other characters, their romantic futures are still wide open! To help steer things, I've put together a massive list of potential pairing options for everyone. Take a look and see what catches your eye:
For Yang:
Yang x Baron
Yang x Valvahdern
Yang x Giblet
Yang x Shallot
Yang x Beat
Yang x Tarro
Yang x Daikon
Yang x Sun
Yang x Xander (Dark Elf OC)
Yang x Zero (My Arcosian OC from Xenoverse 2)
Yang x Caliburn
For Blake:
Blake x Beat
Blake x Giblet
Blake x Shallot
Blake x Daikon
Blake x Sun
Blake x Zero (Arcosian OC from Xenoverse 2)
Blake x Xander
Blake x Caliburn
Blake x Tarro
Blake x Valvahdern
Blake x Baron
For Sarai:
Sarai x Cardin
Sarai x Jaune
Sarai x Sun
Sarai x Shallot
Sarai x Giblet
Sarai x Yatsuhashi
Sarai x Mercury
Sarai x Baron
Sarai x Beat
Sarai x Daikon
Sarai x Tarro
Sarai x Oscar (Volume 5)
Sarai x Neptune
Sarai x Clover
Sarai x Marrow (Volume 7)
Sarai x Vine (Volume 7)
For Hailfire:
Hailfire x Jaune
Hailfire x Beat
Hailfire x Giblet
Hailfire x Shallot
Hailfire x Daikon
Hailfire x Tarro
Hailfire x Marrow (Volume 7)
Hailfire x Yatsuhashi
Hailfire x Neptune
Hailfire x Sun
Hailfire x Vine (Volume 7)
Hailfire x Oscar (Volume 5)
Hailfire x Zero
Hailfire x Valvahdern
Hailfire x Caliburn
Hailfire x Cardin
Hailfire x Mercury
For Khanna:
Khanna x Jaune
Khanna x Mercury
Khanna x Oscar (Volume 5)
Khanna x Marrow (Volume 7)
Khanna x Vine (Volume 7)
Khanna x Daikon
Khanna x Beat
Khanna x Giblet
Khanna x Shallot
Khanna x Tarro
Khanna x Yatsuhashi
Khanna x Baron
Khanna x Neptune
Khanna x Sun
Khanna x Valvahdern
Khanna x Caliburn
Khanna x Zero
Khanna x Cardin
Let me know what you guys think concerning these character polls! I'm definitely keeping Ren x Nora intact because I think they're a natural, perfect fit for each other no matter what. Other than that, any pairing goes concerning the characters mentioned above: Yang, Khanna, Blake, Sarai, and Hailfire.
Feel free to drop a comment voting for which pairing makes the most sense for each character based on what you've seen of their personalities so far!
Disclaimer: I do not own Black Clover, the Tales of series, Dragon Ball Super, RWBY, or their respective characters. I only own the original characters (OCs) who appear in this story.
Opening theme:

Opening Theme
Song: Prelude to Dawn (Opening 1 from Arknights)
Visuals
Introduction: The music kicks off with sweeping, dramatic notes as the sequence begins, replacing the original Arknights cast with the ensemble characters of this story.
The Conflict: The screen cuts between the deep-seated political divide separating the dark elves and humanity, contrasting peaceful vistas with tense standoffs against hostile Atlas soldiers. Swiftly, the tone shifts into high gear as Huntsmen and Huntresses leap into action, carving through massive hordes of Grimm in explosive combat sequences.
The Chorus: As the chorus swells, the choreography intensifies. Odyn and his fellow elves are shown locked in a desperate struggle against human forces, intercut with Faunus and Saiyan characters fighting fiercely for survival and equality.
The Climax: The music begins to wind down into a resonant, melodic cadence. The camera zooms in smoothly on a quiet, windswept overlook where Odyn and Weiss stand side-by-side, gazing out into the distant horizon. Odyn turns his head to look gently at Weiss. Noticing his gaze, Weiss breaks into a soft, genuine smile.
Title Card: The screen cuts briefly to black as the title card flashes across the screen in glowing crimson and icy blue script:
FLAME AND ICE
Chapter 4 - First Steps; Part One
---
The pale morning light filtered through the high windows of the Beacon Academy ballroom, cutting through the lingering shadows with the cold, functional clarity of a day that didn't care about anyone's nerves.
The sprawling sea of sleeping bags and makeshift beds was already being rolled up and stowed away. Scrolls were tucked securely into pockets, and weapons were checked and re-checked with the sharp, methodical precision of teenagers who suddenly understood that the romantic notion of becoming a Huntsman or Huntress was about to collide with reality. The quiet, vulnerable intimacy of the previous night-the flickering candles, the unexpected confessions, and the shifting dynamics between strangers-had entirely evaporated, replaced by the crisp, high-stakes focus of what comes next.
The dark elves moved with an unhurried, practiced ease, carrying themselves like veterans preparing for a deployment rather than students walking into a freshman orientation. Armor joints were checked for friction; leather straps were pulled taut and tested; weapons were secured in their holsters with movements born of muscle memory and hard experience. For them, preparation wasn't a nervous ritual or a performance-it was simply breathing.
Roy stood near the edge of their makeshift camp, carefully retying his headband. He gave the dark fabric a firm, practiced tug, settling it across his forehead before pausing. Across the polished floor, his gaze drifted toward two unfamiliar students. A girl with bright, fiery orange hair and sharp turquoise eyes was gesturing animatedly, speaking at a mile a minute to a dark-haired boy standing beside her, who listened with the patient, resigned expression of someone who had accepted that interrupting her was entirely out of the question.
"What do you suppose that conversation is about?" Roy asked, nodding slightly in their direction.
Odyn glanced over from a few paces away. He was busy adjusting the leather straps of his vambraces, his fingers moving deftly by sheer instinct as he focused on the horizon. He watched the pair for a moment.
"Something vitally important to her, by the look of it," Odyn remarked evenly. "Though I suppose we'll find out who they are soon enough."
Roy accepted the answer with a nod, turning his attention back to his gear. Then, prompted by a thought that had been lingering in the back of his mind since the night before, he spoke again.
"Did you... get a chance to speak with her? Properly, I mean."
Odyn didn't need to ask who "her" was. He finished cinching his left vambrace and smoothly transitioned to the right.
"Briefly," Odyn replied, his voice dropping slightly. "There wasn't enough time to cover everything." He paused, his hands slowing for a fraction of a second. "Nine years is a lot of ground to cover."
Roy stepped closer, resting a heavy hand firmly on his older brother's shoulder-a quiet, grounding gesture that communicated volumes without needing a single spoken word. I know, the gesture said.
"You'll have the time," Roy offered reassuringly. "We're contracted for four years here. It'll all come out."
Odyn looked sidelong at his younger brother. A faint, almost imperceptible ghost of a smile touched the corners of his mouth-which, for Odyn, was the emotional equivalent of an outright grin.
"Listen to you. Getting all philosophical in your old age," Odyn teased softly.
"I'm sixteen."
"Exactly."
With a silent grin, they raised their fists and knocked knuckles together-a crisp, rhythmic impact they had perfected years ago, a private anchor in the chaos of their lives.
The moment passed, and they both returned to the task at hand.
Elsewhere in the ballroom, Sarai ran an oiled, lint-free cloth down the flat of her blade, treating the ritual of weapon maintenance as a form of meditation. Next to her, Khanna moved through a series of fluid, controlled stretches, embodying the quiet certainty of someone who knew that stretched muscles meant the difference between survival and a stretcher. Baron sat cross-legged with his equipment meticulously laid out before him, inspecting every piece not out of worry, but because keeping his hands busy kept his mind sharp. Hailfire was already fully armored, her heavy shield strapped securely to her back and her mace resting in her palm as she drifted through a silent, rhythmic footwork drill against the far wall.
They were ready in the way only those trained from childhood could be: thoroughly, silently, and entirely without pretense.
---
Ruby Rose, meanwhile, was ready in the way that only Ruby Rose could be ready for things-which existed entirely as its own distinct category.
She had Crescent Rose out in its full, majestic scythe form, the massive weapon extended and held protectively across the front of her body like a person holding the thing they loved most in the world. With wide, devoted eyes, she gently stroked the polished metal with the reverent focus of someone communing with something sacred.
"No more awkward getting-to-know-you stuff," she murmured softly, speaking either to herself or directly to the silver steel. "Today, you do the talking."
Quietly, Roy materialized right at her shoulder.
In his defense, he hadn't intended to startle her. He had simply walked up in the normal, unhurried manner of a person approaching another, completely unaware that Ruby's situational awareness at that exact moment was entirely consumed by Crescent Rose, leaving virtually zero mental bandwidth for anything else in her vicinity.
"That's a good philosophy to have," he remarked casually.
Ruby reacted by vertically launching herself off the ground by approximately three inches.
"Ah-Roy!" She gasped, pressing a hand flat against her chest as her face flushed a warm, complicated shade of pink that she immediately tried to force back under control. "You nearly gave me a heart attack-I didn't even hear you walk up behind me-"
"I wasn't trying to scare you," he replied, maintaining the straightforward honesty of a person to whom sneaky behavior simply didn't exist as a concept. "I'm sorry."
"No, no-I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention, it's totally my fault-"
"It isn't."
"It a little bit is-"
"Ruby."
She snapped her mouth shut.
"Good morning," he said simply.
A brief beat passed. Her expression completed its rapid journey from sheer panic to something attempting utmost composure, though it ultimately landed somewhere appreciably softer and warmer.
"...Good morning," she whispered back.
A few yards away, carrying the unmistakable, laser-focused casualness of someone who was aggressively watching the entire exchange and forming a mental tally of smug commentary, Yang Xiao Long wore a grin that had literally never been described as subtle in her entire life.
"Should I give you two some space?" Yang called out, loud enough for half the room to hear.
Ruby's face immediately surged to an entirely new, radioactive level of color.
"Yang!" she hissed, using the tone reserved exclusively for an older sister who had spent years perfecting the art of public mortification.
"I'm just saying! It's a huge ballroom," Yang crowed, leaning on one hip. "Plenty of room for-"
"Yang."
"-a nice, private-"
"Yang!"
Roy, for his part, didn't flinch. He simply turned his head toward the blonde brawler with the calm, agreeable expression of someone opting for diplomatic de-escalation. "It's early," he said pleasantly. "Maybe save the teasing for after we've all actually survived the initiation?"
Yang blinked, staring at him for a second. Then a wicked, amused grin spread across her face-not quite a surrender, but a respectable concession. "Deal," she said, pointing a finger. "For now."
Ruby dropped her head forward, muttering a string of entirely unintelligible, mortified noises directly into the dark fabric of her cape.
---
The conversation about teams had been quietly brewing since before any of them had even rolled out of their sleeping bags, carrying that specific weight of debates that have been running in someone's head long before they finally break the surface into speech. Ruby's official stance-that she desperately wanted to be on Yang's team, or perhaps Roy's team, or ideally a team that somehow miraculously included both of those options-was outlined at great, enthusiastic length. Yang's counter-argument-that her younger sister might actually benefit from stepping outside her established comfort zone-was delivered with the breezy, cheerful certainty of someone who had already won the debate in their own mind and was just waiting for the right moment to drop it.
"Since when does meeting new people have anything to do with fighting?" Ruby demanded, having officially reached the outer boundary of her patience with that particular line of logic.
"It has everything to do with fighting," Yang countered smoothly. "Fighting alongside people you don't know yet is the only way to find out what they're actually made of. And what you're made of, too."
"I drink milk," Ruby stated with absolute, unshakeable conviction. "I already know what I'm made of."
The statement was so flawlessly, beautifully unanswerable that Yang could only let out a fond, exasperated sigh and stare upward at the ceiling.
"Okay, but what about when Professor Ozpin officially assigns us to teams?" Yang tried again.
Ruby's defiant certainty flickered for a fraction of a second. "I could... still be on your team."
Yang tilted her head, tossing her golden hair over her shoulder with the familiar gesture she always used right before dropping a truth bomb she knew Ruby wasn't going to like. "Or you could try being on someone else's team for a change."
Ruby processed the words, letting out a slightly strained, nervous laugh-the kind of laugh that comes from hoping against hope that if you look at a terrifying statement from an angle of gentle confusion, it will magically turn out to mean something else entirely.
"My dear, wonderful sister Yang," Ruby began, her voice pitching up an octave, "are you... by any chance implying that you don't want to be on a team with me?"
"That is literally not what I'm saying-"
"Because I have to point out, that would be a catastrophic-"
"Ruby, that is not what I'm-"
Before the debate could spiral any further, they were abruptly interrupted by Jaune Arc, who wandered straight through the middle of their conversation with the majestic, unbothered obliviousness of a man currently living inside a completely different crisis.
"There is zero chance I put my equipment in locker six hundred and thirty-six," Jaune announced aloud to the empty hallway, rubbing the back of his neck. "I would have remembered having to count that high."
He muttered to himself and disappeared around the corner.
The two sisters blinked, slowly turning their heads to watch him go.
"...I kinda like that guy," Yang admitted after a moment.
"He is an absolute walking disaster," Ruby noted dryly.
"Those two things are not mutually exclusive."
---
Weiss Schnee and Pyrrha Nikos had naturally gravitated toward each other, falling into that comfortable proximity shared by people who are entirely self-sufficient, yet have discovered through a few hours of conversation that the other person is actually worth listening to.
If the records were to be believed-and they were, entirely because the records consisted of tournament brackets and championship trophies that Pyrrha had zero capacity for false modesty about simply because she had done nothing to earn them beyond showing up and winning-Pyrrha Nikos was the single most decorated active competitive fighter in her age bracket across all of Mistral. She carried this hefty distinction with the effortless grace of someone who had spent four years navigating celebrity and had long since realized that fame mostly just made it harder to talk about anything other than fame.
Over the past day, Weiss had also noticed something else: Pyrrha was an exceptional listener, and she was remarkably careful about what she chose to ask. In Weiss's book, that specific trait was the dividing line between people worth talking to and people merely worth tolerating.
"Have you given any thought to who you'd like to be partnered with?" Weiss asked as they busily organized their lockers.
"I've mostly been leaving it to the process," Pyrrha replied smoothly. "Whatever the initiation decides to throw at us." A brief pause followed, accompanied by the careful diffidence of someone who had been harboring a question for two days and was simply waiting for a polite opening. "I hope this isn't overstepping-but might I ask you something?"
Weiss offered a subtle gesture indicating go ahead.
"That boy." Pyrrha tilted her head with a small, observant movement toward where Odyn stood some distance away, deep in conversation with Sarai and Khanna. "The one with the dark blue hair. You've spoken with him several times since we arrived. I've been quite curious." She met Weiss's gaze. "Who is he?"
Weiss absorbed the question without blinking. It was an inquiry she had been bracing herself for ever since Odyn had casually stepped into the courtyard and addressed her as princess right in front of an audience. She had spent intervals of the past twenty-four hours debating how she would handle it.
"His name is Odyn," she said evenly, staring at her locker door before looking back up at Pyrrha. "Odyn Albanar. And yes-we know each other." A slight edge entered her voice. "We've known each other since we were children."
Pyrrha's expression shifted through a rapid recalibration-the mental adjustment one makes when presented with information that is entirely unexpected. "Childhood friends," she repeated.
"Yes."
"Is there a reason it feels like a secret?"
Weiss hadn't anticipated that particular question. Most people naturally gravitated toward the obvious follow-ups-how did you meet, how long has it been-rather than picking up on the social currents. She regarded Pyrrha with a newfound layer of respect.
"It's complicated," Weiss admitted, which was about as honest as she could be without unloading a decade of Atlas baggage. "Let's just say that if certain individuals discovered the full extent of our... connection, it would cause a considerable amount of friction for both of us."
Pyrrha held her gaze for a beat, reading the subtext, before nodding simply. She had the look of someone who recognized that understanding the rough shape of a locked box was enough for now, and the contents could wait.
"I won't press," Pyrrha said.
Weiss let out a quiet breath. "Thank you."
A comfortable silence settled between them-the kind that only forms when two people have established a mutual boundary and see no need to overcomplicate it.
"In any case," Weiss said, gliding back to the previous topic with the smooth pivot of someone shifting gears without a shred of friction. "I was thinking that the two of us might make a rather formidable team."
Pyrrha's face lit up with genuine enthusiasm, completely devoid of the rehearsed pleasantries common among students trying to politic their way into partnerships. "I would like that very much."
"Wonderful." Weiss allowed herself a small, thoroughly satisfied nod.
In the quiet, calculating theater of her own mind, she let herself indulge in a thought completely unbecoming of a proper Schnee heiress, yet mathematically undeniable: the most technically precise student in her year paired with the most decorated tournament champion in all of Mistral. The arithmetic was airtight. The outcome was, by every logical metric, inevitable.
She was right in the middle of admiring her own mental spreadsheets when Jaune Arc blundered directly between her and Pyrrha, moving with the trajectory of a man hunting for a lost item and entirely unaware that he had wandered into an active conversation.
"You know what else is great?" Jaune announced to the empty air. Then he blinked, finally registering Weiss's presence. "Me. Jaune Arc. Short, sweet. The name just sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?" He struck a pose that could only be classified as aggressively optimistic.
Weiss stared at him like he had just spoken in ancient Sumerian.
Across the hall, Odyn winced visibly.
"You, again," Weiss said, her voice dropping into the icy flat tone of someone who had neither forgotten nor forgiven the 'natural blonde' comment from yesterday.
Pyrrha stepped forward with the cheerful, diplomatic urgency of someone diving in to prevent a murder. "Nice to meet you, Jaune!"
Jaune possessed a rare, baffling talent for managing to entirely ignore the most prominent person in the room simply because a different person was standing closer. He literally stepped around Pyrrha to maintain unbroken eye contact with Weiss. "I couldn't help but overhear your glowing fondness for me the other day."
"My what?" Weiss choked out.
"No need to be so shy about it. I was just thinking, with all these team rumors flying around, you and I could probably-"
"You are," Weiss interrupted with the terrifying calm of a mathematician correcting a toddler, "completely out of your mind."
Pyrrha tried a different angle. "Jaune, teams are actually formed in groups of four, so the actual selection process-"
"Is that so?" Jaune pivoted toward Pyrrha, seemingly noticing her for the first time not as a spatial obstruction, but as a potential audience. His expression shifted into the specific, cocksure register that Odyn-still watching from afar-immediately recognized as Jaune attempting a risky pivot. "Well, in that case, hot stuff, if you play your cards right-"
"This," Weiss hissed, planting herself directly between them with the absolute authority of a woman convinced she was the sole functional adult in the zip code, "is Pyrrha Nikos."
"Hello again!" Pyrrha offered with a polite wave.
"Pyrrha graduated at the absolute top of her class at Sanctum Academy."
Jaune blinked blankly. "Where?"
"She won the Mistral Regional Tournament four consecutive times. A record, I might add. A brand-new record."
"The what?"
Weiss's restraint was rapidly hitting its final expiration date. "She is currently plastered across the front of every single box of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes in three separate kingdoms."
That finally landed.
It hit the exact way celebrity status always hits someone who has never had a reason to view the person standing in front of them as an actual public figure-the frantic mental scrambling, the sudden, violent inflation of a regular teenager into a monumental entity that existed on a global scale.
"That's you?" Jaune blurted out, pointing an accusing finger. "Wait, they only put elite athletes and cartoon characters on cereal boxes!"
"It was quite an honor," Pyrrha said with the practiced humility of someone who had endured this exact conversation a hundred times. "Though the cereal itself is-"
"Roughly ninety percent sugar and zero nutritional value," Weiss supplied.
"Yes. Regrettably."
Jaune looked at Pyrrha. Then at Weiss. Then back at Pyrrha. Finally, he looked down at his shoes. His posture deflated, his shoulders sinking a solid foot.
"Right," he mumbled, suddenly looking defeated. "Sorry for bothering you guys." He turned on his heel to shuffle away.
And Pyrrha Nikos-who simply possessed an inherent aversion to leaving any room worse than she found it if she had a choice-spoke up. "Actually... Jaune. For what it's worth, I think you'd make a great leader."
Jaune stopped dead in his tracks. He spun back around, looking like the sun had just broken through a miserable storm cloud.
Odyn, observing from across the hall, thought: Of course she said that. Because it's probably true. Beneath Jaune's staggering lack of social awareness and misread confidence, there was an undeniable core of grit. Whether Jaune even knew it was there was a different debate entirely.
Whether Weiss considered this a positive development was abundantly obvious from the murderous scowl she was currently directing at her new partner.
"Spots are filling up fast," Jaune told Pyrrha, thoroughly reinvigorated. "I know I'm technically not supposed to do this, but I could probably pull a few strings, put in a good word-"
"Pyrrha," Weiss said, dropping the name like a coordinate for an airstrike.
Pyrrha had already materialized her weapon-a sleek, beautifully balanced spear that had smoothly transitioned from its rifle-dust configuration. With an apologetic, wincing grimace directed squarely at Jaune, she flicked her wrist.
The weapon flashed through the air, caught Jaune neatly by the back of his collar, and swept him off his feet, pinning him firmly against the far hallway wall with the clinical, pinpoint precision of a four-time tournament champion who understood physics down to the decimal point.
Pyrrha calmly recalled her weapon to her hand. She stared at Jaune, who was currently dangling vertically against the drywall strictly due to the lingering momentum of her throw.
"I am so sorry about that!" she added brightly, right as the academy intercom crackled to life overhead and Professor Goodwitch's voice echoed down the corridor.
---
All first-year Beacon students are requested to report immediately to Beacon Cliffs for initiation. This is not a drill. All first-year students to Beacon Cliffs.
---
The morning air atop Beacon Cliffs was the kind of cold people describe as "crisp" when they really mean freezing, but with good intentions. The rocky precipice faced due east, dropping off directly into the dense, emerald-green expanse of the Forbidden Forest below. At this early hour, the rising sun hit the canopy at an acute angle, turning the endless sea of trees into a continuous gradient of deep green and blinding gold-breathtaking in the exact way places are breathtaking when they are also about to become hazardously relevant to your personal survival.
The students gathered along the edge, arranging themselves across the silver, shield-shaped launch tiles with the instinctive precision of kids who recognized that standing on the right symbols was probably a prerequisite for not dying immediately. The metal plates were highly polished, catching the morning light with a gleam that suggested they were both deeply ornamental and terrifyingly functional.
At the front of the line stood Professor Ozpin.
He possessed that rare, quiet brand of presence-not the loud, manufactured authority of someone who treated leadership as a performance, but the dense, heavy gravity of a man whose power was structural rather than decorative. In his hand, he held his signature ceramic mug, a comforting bit of domesticity that somehow only heightened the intimidating aura of the headmaster.
"For years," Ozpin began, his voice carrying effortlessly across the cliffside, hitting every ear with the polished resonance of someone who had said this exact thing a thousand times and never needed to raise his tone. "You have trained to be warriors."
He paused, letting the wind whisper through the clearing.
"Today, your abilities will be tested within the Emerald Forest."
Professor Goodwitch stepped forward beside him, holding her digital tablet with the effortless competence of someone managing ten different crises at once and finding peace in the efficiency.
"The rumors you've all heard regarding team assignments are entirely true," Goodwitch announced. "You will be assigned a partner today."
A collective murmur rippled through the rows of students-the unified sound of a hundred teenagers processing a massive piece of information they had half-expected and were still entirely unprepared for.
The dark elves stationed along the row of tiles absorbed the announcement with the unshakable calm of people for whom unexpected variables were Tuesday afternoon.
"An aggressive approach," Khanna observed mildly, crossing her arms.
"Forced adaptability," Odyn replied, his eyes fixed on the treeline below. "It makes tactical sense."
"I like it," Hailfire grinned, shifting her mace. "You can't overplan for a partner you've never met. Keeps you honest."
Roy looked down the line of students with genuine, easy curiosity rather than competitive anxiety. "Should be interesting to see how the numbers shake out."
"The very first person you make eye contact with after landing," Ozpin continued, his voice cutting cleanly through the whispers, "will be your permanent partner for the four years you spend at this academy. I would strongly recommend, therefore, that you choose that initial eye contact with extreme care."
Two tiles down, Ruby Rose experienced a momentary, catastrophic glitch in her worldview.
"What?" she squeaked, pitched entirely at a frequency that suggested her brain had briefly attempted to divide by zero.
Somewhere further down the line, Nora Valkyrie pumped her fist. "I told you so!"
Ren, standing right beside her, wore the profound, long-suffering expression of a man who had indeed been told, was currently being told again, and had officially accepted this as his permanent state of existence.
Ozpin was not finished.
"At the northern end of the forest, you will locate the ruins of an old temple. Each pair is tasked with recovering a single relic from within and returning with it to these cliffs." He paused, letting the weight of the objective settle over them. "You will encounter opposition along the way. You will not hesitate. Our instructors will observe your progress, but we will not intervene. Your final evaluation will measure both your combat capability and your capacity for judgment when circumstances demand quick thinking over simple instruction."
Jaune Arc immediately thrust his hand high into the air.
He had, Odyn noted with a quiet sigh, the distinct quality of a person who raised his hand in situations where the concept of hand-raising had clearly been abandoned-not out of rebellion, but from a sweet, bewildered faith that the administrative systems of the universe were still operational.
"Professor-" Jaune started.
"Take your positions," Ozpin commanded.
The floor beneath them hummed to life.
What followed unfolded with the rapid, overlapping urgency of a mechanism engineered to eliminate second thoughts. The heavy tiles hissed and rose into the air. Students locked their knees and shifted their weight. And one by one-some with the crisp, acrobatic grace of seasoned fighters, and others with the flailing, frantic panic of people still trying to remember if they packed lunch-they were launched into the sky.
Odyn stood on his tile, glancing down the row.
Across a short gap, Weiss caught his eye. She stood completely composed, her rapier resting neatly at her hip, the pale blue ribbon in her ponytail fluttering sharply in the high-altitude wind. She looked at him with the exact expression she had worn since childhood whenever a massive, life-altering moment was about to unfold and neither of them had the words for it yet: steady, unyielding, real in a way that defied explanation.
Odyn offered a single, sharp nod.
Weiss returned it, the corner of her mouth twitching upward into the faint ghost of a smile.
Below them, his launch tile triggered.
The solid stone of the cliff vanished into nothingness, the roaring rush of the forest rushed up to meet him like an incoming tide, and for one suspended second, the entire sky was everywhere at once.
---
Roy's launch tile engaged just moments later in the sequence. Before the pneumatic mechanism fired, he cast a glance down the line and caught sight of Ruby Rose. She was staring straight down at the dizzying expanse of the forest canopy below, wearing the fierce, slightly manic expression of someone committing with absolute, terrifying dedication to an idea.
Roy offered her an encouraging thumbs-up, wearing the easy, breezy cheerfulness of a person for whom being launched a hundred feet into the air at high velocity was just another standard Tuesday morning.
Ruby spotted the gesture and instantly fired back her own, raising her fist and bumping an imaginary knuckle forward in the air-emulating the very same fist-bump-adjacent greeting they had shared earlier, treating it as a fully established ritual she was ready to deploy at a moment's notice.
Then, the floor dropped away, and he was airborne.
---
The remaining launch tiles fired in rapid, mechanical succession-each one sharp, precise, and marking its own small, irreversible leap into the unknown.
Yang launched herself next, tearing through the air with a triumphant, echoing whoop that practically beat her to the tree line below. Roughly thirty seconds later, Ruby vanished into the slipstream, her path illuminated by a brilliant, signature swirl of rose-petal red as her Semblance tore open the sky behind her.
At the far end of the row, Jaune Arc was still trapped in a frantic state of panic, his internal monologue having rapidly shifted from what is the emergency landing strategy? to are you entirely sure they didn't pack parachutes? and finally landing squarely on, I understand gravity exists, what I'm asking is whether falling is legally optional.
Headmaster Ozpin calmly raised his ceramic mug and took a quiet sip of coffee.
The tile beneath Jaune detonated upward right in the middle of his sentence. The resulting launch was, by all technical definitions, a complete success.
---
On the stone observation platform high above the precipice, two of Beacon's newest faculty members stood side by side, watching the final streak of silver-and-red energy vanish into the sprawling green canopy below.
Sybyrh Arkham wore the quiet, unbothered expression of a woman who had anticipated roughly ninety percent of the morning's chaos and had simply accepted it as the unavoidable overhead cost of working within a human-run institution. Right beside her stood Tarro-the other recent addition to the faculty ranks, whose arrival had been quietly brokered through the exact same back channels that brought Sybyrh and Lylah to the academy. He was staring intently at the empty space where Jaune Arc had been a second prior, his face a complicated mix of mild amusement and genuine professional concern.
"He could have at least given the boy a heads-up before triggering the tile," Sybyrh noted quietly, addressing the open air rather than anyone in particular.
"He could have warned all of them about a great many things," Tarro replied, crossing his arms.
To their left, Professor Goodwitch drew a slow, deliberate breath through her nose-an intake of air that, to anyone who knew her well, carried an entire unwritten editorial on the subject.
"You are both still new here," Goodwitch said, her tone clipped, "and I will not tolerate faculty members openly criticizing the Headmaster's administrative methods."
A short, polite silence stretched across the platform.
"That being said..." Goodwitch continued, her gaze dropping to her digital tablet as she tapped a few commands. "His approach to the initiation leaves certain variables to sheer chance that a more conventional preparatory phase might have easily streamlined." She didn't look up from her screen. "Speaking strictly in a professional capacity, of course."
Ozpin took another unhurried sip of his coffee, completely unfazed. Below them, the vast, ancient trees swallowed up his students one by one, and the morning sun continued its slow, steady climb across the golden canopy.
The initiation had officially begun.
---
- To Be Continued -
Next Time: Chapter 5 - First Steps, Part Two: Into the Emerald Forest.
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Ending Theme
Song: Reincarnated as a Sword (Ending Theme 1)
Visuals
The Memory: The gentle, melancholic opening chords begin as the screen transitions from the cliffside to a grand, sunlit room within the Schnee Manor in Atlas. In place of Fran, a young Weiss stands by a towering window, looking up wistfully at the open sky.
The Chase: The scene cuts to a young Weiss running across a wide, sun-drenched meadow, her boots kicking up dust before she suddenly stops. Standing a few yards ahead is a young Odyn, watching her quietly.
The Transition: The children stare at one another for a beat before the screen softly blurs, transitioning them into their older teenage selves. From alternating perspectives, the two sprint across the expanse toward each other, the distance closing rapidly.
The Finale: The song reaches its final, uplifting notes as the adult Odyn and Weiss are seen walking side by side. Odyn flashes a warm smile, extending his hand outward toward her. Weiss looks away with a flustered, blushing expression for a split second before smiling back and placing her hand in his.
Freeze Frame: Interlocking their fingers, the two continue walking side-by-side into the distance as the scene locks into a warm, glowing freeze frame.
Author's Note:
Hey guys! Hopefully, you all enjoyed the chapter-even if it was a little bit on the shorter side of things. The Odyn x Weiss dynamic is going to remain a primary focus moving forward, but I'll definitely keep doing my best to weave all the other fun pairings and character dynamics into the narrative as well!
When I was brainstorming how to organize everyone into squads beyond the standard RWBY and JNPR setups, I put together a few alternate roster variants. Take a look at these proposed team lineups:
Odyn's Team:
Odyn Albanar
Hailfire Caldern
Roy Albanar
Jinjer Wukong (Sun's sister)
Khanna's Team:
Khanna Branwen
Daikon Koizumi
Lazuli Kitsune (Android 21 / Flare's sister)
Beat Bronzewing (Dragon Ball Heroes)
Sarai's Team:
Sarai Albanar
Baron Caldern
Flare Kitsune
Zero Kazamaki
Other Characters That May Appear:
Shallot Zenkai
Giblet Zenkai
Scarlett Reinhardt
Aiko Reinhardt
Note Nightcrow
Xander Arkham
Valvahdern Arkham
Possible Pairings (Open for Feedback):
Baron x Yang
Sarai x Cardin
Khanna x Daikon
Beat x Lazuli
Zero x Flare
Blake x Giblet
Shallot x Velvet
Mercury x Jinjer
Xander x Aiko
Oscar / Neptune x Hailfire
Sun x Scarlett / Note
Confirmed Pairings (Locked In):
Odyn x Weiss
Roy x Ruby
Let me know what you think! Drop a review or comment if you'd like to see these alternate team arrangements or if any of the prospective pairings stand out to you based on the list above.
Anyways, that's all for now! See you guys in the next update!