RWBYKNIGHTS 2.0: Volume 1

Chapter 11: The Emerald Forest; Part 1

Jaune screamed through the air as he felt his guts rearranged from the shift of gravity. There was some gravity dust mixed in with the launch pad, and it was to make sure the launch pads did not just send students to the same place. Jaune's own launch pad was surprisingly the weakest of the bunch as he landed much closer to the cliffside than the other students passing by him.

He was surely fate's hated child. It wouldn't be a surprise now if he were to make a new enemy in this initiation or fail in a spectacularly embarrassing way, like getting himself killed.

But it wasn't going to be because of some random fall.

With all his focus now stapled onto the approaching tree line, Jaune raised his shield, placing all bets of survivability on a shield literally older than him by five times. He hadn't been entirely honest with Ruby and the rest he had spoken to, as his weapons weren't even his to begin with... They were of his ancestor's, wielded way back during the Great War.

"Don't die-don't die-don't die-" He gritted his teeth in anticipation, only to crumple from the impact of the first few branches. With every impact did he dream of the worse possible wounds possible on a man, impalement, dislocation of bones, the likes.

Yet as soon as he opened his eyes- He was safely on the ground. His body hurt like hell sure, but he was alive... A bit anti-climatic, but alive nonetheless...

~~~

Yelena winced as air rushed through her, unsure as to how such a tactic like literally throwing children off a cliff was allowed by this world's version of child protection services. She might have spent her whole life living in the wilderness, but she did hear that the Ursine academies, though brutal, still had to follow those agencies.

Whatever the case was, she was now in a crash course towards the dense forest below, and unlike the many students falling around her, she had no aura.

"Aura..." A sudden thought crossed her mind. She could theoretically recreate aura with her own arts, if it was simply a physical shield to dampen any incoming attack, or in this case, a brutal splatter onto the treelines, her ice could cushion her fall.

In an instant, Yelena channelled her ice towards her fingertips and began to imagine. In most cases, her mastery over her powers was as simple as thinking of how her arts would act, a similar case to walking or writing, but she had mostly used it to hurl freezing air at her enemies, or sharpened icicles. Aura was a far different case, since it was something invisible, she couldn't think of it, or grasp its properties, like painting on air.

If she was to recreate aura, she needed to feel how aura worked-

"Too late-" She winced as she instead covered herself with her ice, crashing through the treeline like a meteor. The moment she impacted the ground, the ice around her burst open, leaving Yelena unharmed by the fall.

'Maybe don't do anything experimental during such a scenario...' The rabbit brushed off the ice off her clothes as she turned to face the impact crater. A large chunk of the ice coating was still buried in the ground, forming the evident shape of its caster like those rubber cooking moulds.

It did tick off the very purpose of protecting here, but it was obviously not aura. However, it did give her some inspiration.

'I'll think of it later...'

ROAR

Yelena jumped as the sudden screech alerted her to a creature now standing behind her. It was hunched over, with a white-bony mask only illuminated by a set of red eyes. It had the form of something wolf-like, yet it was also incomparable to anything, with its pitch-dark body under the bone platings. It was a Grimm, or more specifically, a Beowolf.