RWBYKnights: Volume 1 [Old Version]

Chapter 8: Free

Yelena flew past the trees and other students, as she saw some already begin to fall, she also began to fall, as the treelines began to cover her vision, she raised her arms to stop any branch from cutting her face. She readied her arts as she landed, quickly covering her impact with snow and the ground turning to ice, the ice erupted upwards, freezing the trees and creating some form of ice wave.

Looking around, she quickly found that her landing spot wasn't the most ideal, as her impact had alerted the nearby grimm, she looked around, roars and howls now echoing throughout the forest...

As the first of the grimm came charging at her, through the cracks and holes the ice wave left behind, Yelena thought of the few days she and her father had when journeying towards Beacon City and the grimm they had encountered. Back then, her father's powerful strikes were enough to deal with the horde. Yet even without him did Yelena find them to be easy, as, with a strike of her finger, the air around her froze as her arts imitated the strike of Patriot's halberd, a large movement of ice formed, cutting apart the Ursa grimm in two, the ice imitation of her father's spear swipes cracked and fell to the ground as more of the species charged onto her.

Schwing! Schwing! Schwing!

More imitations of her father's strikes appeared and shattered in front of her as grimm bodies fell. Back then in her world, Yelena was too sickly all the time to use the full power of her arts, as it always worsened her sickness, it was due to her overexertion that she perished. But now? She was free to see just how far her healed body could go.

As she was delighted with her work, a Beowolf snuck up behind her and lunged at her, yet having already seen the movement of the wolf-like grimm before, she formed a wall behind her, with the monster crashing onto the ice wall and falling off, a vertical ice spear fell onto the fallen grimm, impaling it onto the ice ground. It was an imitation of her father's throw of his spear, and how dangerous it was to any who was his target...

Yet, Yelena noticed something else happening, the shape of the ice wall looking similar to her father's band of shield guards. It stood adamantly, with an axe gripped tightly on the ice statue's free hand, the other held onto its shield, the symbol of her father's elite squad...

Memories filled her with the countless sacrifices the men under her father had given up to save people like her. As she held onto the forearm of the statue, she quietly nodded and left, remembering once again she wasn't in Terra, but in Remnant...

~~~

Glynda looked at her scroll, showing many panels that came from hidden cameras all over the forest, the two teachers stood in front of the launching ground.

"She has already proven herself exceptional in dealing with large amounts of grimm all by herself, even without the need of a weapon." She said as she scrolled past the other cameras, with Ozpin still standing, sipping his coffee.

"Although her movement is particularly slower than the other students, it could just stem down to her taking note of her surroundings, her cautious nature being the one slowing herself down." Ozpin nodded at the remark as he asked for the status of everyone else.

"Apart from her and one other, everyone has already met their parings." Glynda winced as the screen changed to Pyrrha and Jaune wading through the thick forest.

"Although Miss Nykos may have drawn the short end of the stick... I don't care what the transcripts say, that Arc fellow is not ready for this level of combat..." Glynda shook her head in disapproval as Ozpin merely stared out to the forest. But soon enough, the man turned to face the professor.

"There is actually another transcript which would make Mr Arc's transcript look genuine..." He said, grabbing onto the tablet, he scrolled all the way to the end, where a man sat on the corpses of torn apart Grimm...

~~~

Yelena wandered around the forest, looking up to the sky and using the sun as a means of direction, she walked towards where she needed to go, not anymore encountering any trouble from the grimm. Yet, she still had to be careful, with each step she took she scouted the area. This continued for several minutes until finally the first sign of something happening was heard, as the sound of metal clashing was heard, Yelena perked her ears as she began to walk towards the sounds of fighting...

She soon found herself in a large opening from the forest, with signs of fighting everywhere, she could clearly see patches of crushed grass, where a bunch of grimm laid dead, now gone with the wind as they dissolved away. Looking around, she saw no one else, and thinking the huntsman who caused all this had left, she shrugged as she began walking, the location she was supposed to go just being across the field she was in.

"Hello there mate." Suddenly, the voice she did not recognize came from behind her. Immediately reacting, she jumped and spun around, forming a wave of ice to separate her and the source of the voice. Yet as she did, the boy staggered back as he raised his arms.

"Whoa there, calm down." He said, with Yelena sighing, she broke away the ice barrier to reveal a young man in long grey hair, wearing a sleeveless white coat, its buttons were furnished in a mix of gold and bronze. Underneath, a simple black shirt was adorned with an armoured chainmail vest. Below, he wore white, tattered cargo shorts, with several bits of metal plates providing some armour for his legs, as steel-tipped jump boots peaked out of the loose pants.

Yet the most notable feature the guy had was a pair of wooden gauntlets that covered both his entire arms. They took the shape of muscular arms, with the wooden surface coated in a painting that showed of rough waves capsizing a large wooden boat. 

"Sheesh if miss ice over here were less merciful my head would've been done in by now..." The man joked as he smiled, coming closer to Yelena.

"Sorry, I never liked surprises..." Yelena apologized as the guy extended his wooden gauntlet hand for a handshake, with her slowly stretching out her own for the handshake.

"Errr, it may have been my fault anyways for scaring you lass. Name's Free." He introduced himself, with Yelena nodding as she introduced herself as well.

"So, reckon we're both going the same way, how about we talk while we're about it huh?" He said, patting the shoulders of the rabbit, with Yelena nodding, the two made their way onto a broken-down stone platform as they met two familiar figures already on the platform.

"Oh, it's Yelena!" Yang said as she got down the platform, holding an ace of clubs, Yelena nodded as she greeted back. Turning her eyes, Blake stood silently on the platform, holding an ace of clovers, Blake also nodded at Yelena, seemingly wanting to keep their relation to each other a secret to Yang.

"Oh, and who is this guy?" Yang said as she slithered her way beside Free and nudged him on his wooden shoulders.

"Name's Free."

"Yang, and that girl up there is Blake."

"Well miss Blake, Yang, fine day aye for initiation?" He said as he walked up to the platform, Yelena following suit, Yang also joined as they inspected the cards on the stone pedestals.

"Some of these cards seems to be missing..." Crouching down and looking at the empty pedestals, Free rubbed his chin as Yelena simply went ahead and took the joker piece.

"Well, I guess we weren't the first ones here then," Yang said, shrugging. Suddenly, a roar alerted them as Yelena scouted the area, wondering what it was...

"Well somebody must've stepped into a scorpion's den," Free commented as he looked up, being the first to notice Ruby falling from the sky...

~~~

Yes, I changed the relic pieces. Yes, there is now an OC in the story. Well, there were supposed to be 2 more actually but I scrapped that as I couldn't bring myself to stuff in 2 more side stories relating to the other two OCs. Also, Free was supposed to be a mix between Gulliver from Gulliver's travel and Jack Sparrow, but somehow I gave up on that. He won't be that important in the main story, more like he will be as important as Ren and Nora if you remove Volume 4. That being said, I still have plans for his character...

One of the planned OCs was supposedly a Spider Faunus with a mask covering her disfigured spider face, and her semblance would be her shooting out spider silk and allowing her to control a target's body or put wire traps to cut away a victim. Maybe she will come again in a later chapter?