Chapter Text
RWBY
Everything had started as a relatively normal day in beacon with the first and second years making their way to Glynda’s class for their weekly combat tournament. In traditional fashion both teams RWBY and JNPR were walking with team CFVY discussing their recent ‘suffering’ at the hands of Oobleck and Peach.
However as soon as they stepped into the room it was clear that today was not going to be a normal day, as Glynda was not alone at the front of the room instead both Qrow Branwen and an as yet unnamed older woman with a walking cane and prosthetic eyes were with her.
Immediately Ruby was charging up, her semblance about to launch her toward her uncle when a single movement of his hand caused her to abort and instead sent the reaperette into Yang who seemingly unaware accepted the sisterly glomp with little surprise.
As they make their way to their seats Yang spots Qrow standing below but her own reaction is muted by the way Ruby pulls her to the seats in what is a far from normal response for the younger girl.
Now firmly in their seats the teens only have to wait a few minutes before Glynda steps forward and draws everyone’s attention. Her words however instead of calming the sense of unrest in her pupils serve to agitate them further. Looking momentarily off to the side as if confirming they haven’t disappeared she begins to speak “students, you will no doubt have noticed that today I am accompanied by people unfamiliar to you, to my right is S class Huntsman Qrow Branwen, commonly referred to as the Scythe of Vale and to my left is Retired S+ class huntress Maria Calavera, formerly known as the Grimm Reaper”
Immediately the room fills with whispers as the students discuss just what it means to have 2 of the best hunters in living memory standing in their class. Despite this it only takes a moment for Glynda to silence the room as she begins speaking again, the sudden hush showing just how much fear and respect she commands from her audience.
Looking out on the students she says “they are here due to recent events that have been occurring across Remnant, as I am sure you are aware approximately 2 months ago following a mission into Mt Glenn team RWBY discovered a White Fang plot to unleash Grimm into the city of Vale in what is now commonly being called The Breach.” She pauses a moment watching her students and the way they look amongst themselves and toward the combined RWBY JNPR CFVY group before continuing “what you will not yet be aware of is the increased mortality rate of hunters in Mistral, or the increased emergence of Grimm incursions throughout the Vytallian kingdoms. To counter this it has been decided by the councils of the Kingdoms to expedite the training of all hunters by reintroducing the apprenticeship system. This will allow for teams of students to go on extended deployments during their training with senior hunters like Mr Branwen and Mrs Calavera here. However to ensure that this does not exacerbate the problems we’re experiencing it has been decided that for a team to be applicable they will have to meet several criteria and subject to the following rules”
Glynda pauses a moment as the rules are projected behind her
“The criteria that are relevant to you are as follows:
1. all team members must submit in writing their request for consideration, and achieve an average combat level assessment above a B witnessed by 3 S-class or above hunters prior to lodging their request.
2. For first years no team shall be allowed to enlist on their own and must form a squad with at least one other team of their own or a higher year. For second years this rule applies as well with 2 first year teams being considered equivalent to one second year team.
3. No hunter may supervise more than 6 students so those of you who form 3 team squads will require 2 supervising hunters.
4. All teams must be personally approved by a senior member of the academy’s teaching staff
5. Any violation of these conditions will result in immediate expulsion.
6. Any breach of the huntsman code will be deemed a capital offence”
The room remains silent as Glynda’s words sink in and she stares into what feels like each and every one of their souls before she says “to that end, today we will begin combat testing. Will team CRDL make their way to the arena”
…
What happened next could best be described as a massacre, team after team was called up one by one to face Maria and Qrow, Team CRDL likely got the worst of it being the first called up and set to face Maria. Immediately it was clear that despite Glynda introduction they didn’t believe the woman before them was any class of huntress let alone the Grimm Reaper. What happened next had the entire cohort laughing as in mere seconds Marian had disarmed Team CRDL entirely and proceeded to kick each one out of the ring in under a minute while leading Cardin around by his ear the entire time.
The next team up, BRWN, a second year team who exemplified the term Tank faced a similar fate, failing to take Ruby’s Drunkle seriously due to his seeming flammability. Unfortunately for them he didn’t even give them the chance that Maria gave CRDL proceeding to fight exceptionally dirty while taunting them the entire time.
Team after team of first and second years faced the same fate, some of the better second year teams lasting longer than others but still none of them came close to winning or even qualifying the entire time. Eventually however there were only three teams left and team RWBY was called down the other teams seemingly moving closer to the stage to await their own beat downs.
As soon as they crossed the threshold onto the stage Maria stepped forward and looked at each of the girls in turn. Her eyes finally landing on Ruby herself she says “your uncle told me about what he taught you, know this, for today those limits don’t apply”
The entire room watches on confused as both Ruby and Yang look first to Qrow and on seeing him nod their entire bearing seems to shift. Thumbing a small buckle at each of their waists there is a crashing of glass as a pair of rocket lockers smash into the arena beside them, Yang taking out a set of greaves from within and a set of bracers that attach to and extend her ember celica while Ruby pulls a pair of short swords from her own locker before removing something else she quickly secrets on her body in a flash of semblance.
Glynda who has been watching the entire time with little more than a raised eyebrow decides enough is enough and starts the match.
Faster than the eye can see the entirety of team RWBY vanishes Weiss and Blake both quickly grabbed by their partners and carried into a growing maelstrom of razor sharp rose petals as Maria begins to grin broadly.
The entire cohort who remain conscious watch through the monitors as both Ruby and Yang seemingly let loose in a way that is unheard of for students let alone first years but is seemingly unsurprising for the daughters of Team STRQ.
Maria for her part has little choice but to enter the razor sharp maelstrom that even now is starting to glow with heat. Her preflexes allowing her to avoid the worst of the damage headed her way but unable to let her traverse the arena freely. This pattern continues for several minutes as the strength of the maelstrom continues to grow and the growing glow of heat continues to fill the room with Maria dodging spikes of ice, invisible flying ninja catgirls and high calibre rounds until Qrow decides enough is enough and launches himself into the arena.
Immediately however as Qrow crosses the barrier Nora screams “Birdy No!” And like they’d rehearsed it a million times the entirety of Teams JNPR and CFVY both move to follow him throwing themselves toward the barrier.
In the second between Qrow crossing the barrier and teams JNPR and CFVY following him both Ruby and Yang hear Nora’s warning and with near twin like instinct they both act. Immediately Ruby changes direction sending all her rose petals outward while grabbing Blake and Weiss and dragging them into her semblance while Yang lets out an explosion that detonates all the built up heat and energy she had been building up from the damage caused by Ruby’s semblance. This causes the entire maelstrom to explode like a fuel air bomb, a pressure wave of razor sharp petals rocketing out to greet the newly arrived qrow while the explosive force of Yang’s semblance throws Maria outward and toward the edge of the arena.
Had this been any two other hunters this would likely have been enough, as it is the protective shield around the arena basically shatters under the force of the attack, but this is Maria and Qrow. Maria instead uses her preflexes to ride the wave, her scythe coming out to bury itself into the ground and Qrow for his part has been subject to the side effects of his nieces semblances since day one and uses his great sword which he drives into the ground to shield himself from the oncoming destruction.
However that’s not all that happens as with the barrier fully destroyed both teams CFVY and JNPR slam into the ground beside the now reforming Team RWBY. Immediately both Coco and Velvet unleash streams of mini gun fire as Nora lobs grenades towards them and both Pyrrha and Ruby unleash precision fire on them. In the back ground Jaune glows a brilliant white as he amps Weiss, fox, and Yang with Yatsu, Blake, and Ren stood in front to protect them.
This continues for almost a minute with a growing glyph forming next to Weiss and Yang’s hair burning brighter and brighter and a half before qrow manages to raise a hand holding what is clearly the remains of his white shirt only to get it nearly shit off as Ruby screams “come on Drunkle you think we’re going to fall for that!”
Simultaneously Yang yells “yeah, last time we let you surrender you cut three inches off my hair!”
Deciding enough is enough Glynda however moves to end the match, despite what Qrow had warned her about before this she can barely believe her eyes at the level destruction 3 of her “junior teams” had wrought after just a few days under Qrow’s tutelage, hell if it wasn’t for the triple redundant directional shielding around the observation area she’s reasonably sure she would be missing several students and as it is they are getting way too much enjoyment out of this, not to mention the arena is basically a write off by now even with her semblance.
As soon as Glynda hits the stop horn however everything comes to a halt and she finds herself face to face with 9 sheepish looking teenagers, 1 proud Ruby, and 3 grinning young women in the forms of Nora Coco, and Yang. Looking at the three teams before her she begins to wind up, preparing for a lecture the likes of which not even Ozpin could survive however she is brought up short when both Maria and Qrow emerge from their cover behind his great sword (Qrow peeking out first to make sure it’s safe) laughing like they’ve just gotten off the greatest carnival ride ever created.
Before she can even recover let alone speak Maria has beaten her to it saying “now that was a fight, I haven’t had that much fun since i spent that winter hunting Goliath in the grimmlands”
Qrow for his part looks proudly at his nieces and after saying a quick “good job squirts” he turns back to the remainder of the room saying “and let this be a lesson to all of you, if you’re outclassed, you have two options, run, or bring in enough backup to deal with the problem” then looking around the destroyed arena, the arrayed hunters before him and the still glowing Yang he says “maybe not this much backup, but you get my point,”
Locking eyes with the teams across from him he shoots a look at Maria who nods and then announces “full marks for the lot of ya, but before you go getting a big head just know you’ve just set the bar real high for yourselves when we’re all out in the field”
Glynda quickly comments that Qrow can’t seriously expect that he can just assign the students to himself but is cut off at the knees when he says “come on Glynda, we both know unless you and Jimmy have spare time or Raven decides to be a decent person, after a showing like that no one else could keep up” and as much as she hates it she is forced to agree, if for no other reason than the sheer collateral damage they’re capable of, no one else will touch these three teams with a 10ft pole
The rest of the day for Teams RWBY CFVY and JNPR passes in a state of juxtaposition on the one hand between them everything is normal, with Yang and Nora both giving play by play analysis of the coolest moments of their “battle” while their partners share looks at their exuberance. Meanwhile as the rest of the team enjoys the antics of Yang and Nora (even Weiss as much as she will deny it) Jaune Ruby and Coco are walking alongside the newly joined Maria as they discuss just how they had come up with their tactics
Even as Yang mimics her favourite super saiyan pose in the background Ruby says “yeah, well after several months of uncle Qrow’s ‘how not to die like a bitch classes’ you get pretty good at doing the unexpected, and well none of us really felt like going home for the break so…”
Maria hearing the casualness of the young reaperettes statement takes a few moments to confirm that yes she had heard correctly before asking “how not to die like a bitch classes?”
Coco for her part nods and says “yeah, they were an optional class usually reserved for disciplinary issues back at Signal, it’s how I met Goldilocks and The Red Reaper here, turns out it really came in handy during The Breach so we got together and over the break the three of us convinced him to take our teams through it again”
Turning to Jaune Maria quirks an eyebrow at him before asking “and what about you, did you take this class?”
Jaune laughs, bringing his hand up to rub the back of his head “well, I guess I should mention I uh, didn’t go to combat school, but as it turns out Qrow’s ‘rules for not dying like a bitch’ are very similar to the ‘how to survive having seven huntress trained sisters’ rules I came up with”
then seeing Maria’s continuing curious look Jaune says “you know things like ‘everything is deadly especially the cute things’ or ‘there is no kill like overkill’ or ‘never sleep with your head where they expect it to be’.” As he finishes his step stutters as he remembers the mullet incident before he had learnt that last rule.
Maria for her part sees the look on his face, one she has seen on many war forged veterans and recognises that as strange as it sounds this young man must have some hard won knowledge and if the way both Coco and Ruby flinched as he recounted the rules they must be pretty effective.
Flashback /// Flashback /// Flashback ///
Teams RWBY CFVY and JNPR all stand around Qrow as he lounges on top of a fallen column near where they had gotten their chess pieces during initiation. After a few minutes of silence in which the more aware members are getting more and more concerned Qrow closes his flask and says “welcome kiddos to my famous week long ‘how not to die like a bitch’ course and now for lesson #1 “never be where they expect you to be”” and with that there is a scream overhead as never more pinions rain down on them.
Almost half an hour later they have defeated the nevermore Qrow had somehow summoned. The entire time however things had been going from bad to worse, first off Ruby had been hit by rule #2 “never assume your equipment will work, always double check” when it turned out someone had swapped several of her dust magazines for rocks, fortunately this had allowed her to demonstrate rule #3 “everything is a weapon if you try hard enough” and rule #4 “everything is deadly especially the cute things” when she had proceeded while still pouting to use her semblance to launch them like bullets at the nevermore.
This had naturally lead into rule #5 “always be aware of your surroundings” which Blake had learnt the hard way when the nevermore nearly crushed her. And rule #6 “there’s no kill like overkill” demonstrated while Coco proceeded to rake high calibre gunfire across the downed avian her assistance only delayed by the fact she had failed to follow rule #7 “always have a backup weapon and a backup for your backup” which she discovered when her mini gun handbag became mysteriously jammed after the first couple shots.
None of this was helped by the way throughout all this ‘misfortune’ Qrow who had somehow landed on Fox’s shoulders and ‘commandeered’ the boy’s telepathy semblance was telling them all of these rules as they happened. In the end though they managed to defeat the Grimm and they turned their attention to what they were collectively coming to realise was their true enemy. And with that being discovered Qrow grinned, before back flipping off Fox, shooting them a grin and dashing into the forest.
For the better part of the next week the three teams hunted Qrow through the forest quickly coming to terms with the man’s rules. For the first three days things were particularly hard as Qrow sabotaged everything from weapons and rucksacks to food and sleep. But on the third day things started to take a turn, especially after Yang, Ruby, Coco and Jaune shared their own rules for survival that they remembered. By this stage Qrow was being forced to admit the kids were learning and he was also forced to add a new rule rule #125 “don’t try and out strategise a guy with seven huntress sisters, he was born to the crazy”. Then again maybe the reason things were becoming easier for them was the raging inferno of a forest fire that Yang had ‘accidentally’ started when they had ‘nearly captured Qrow’ and the man had escaped but only after cutting off a not insignificant portion of Yang’s hair. To be fair the man had been trying to teach rule #93 “always assume the enemy is about to kill you” but he had forgotten rule #117 “don’t mess with Yang’s hair” a rule that the majority of Signal knew off by heart since she first unlocked her aura at age 6 and a boy put gum in it.
Either way by the end of the week the entire group were running on fumes and exhausted unable to even care that they had managed to ‘capture Qrow’ (only after his flask went dry) but they were one of the first groups to ever survive Qrow’s week long intensive course without a major loss of sanity or loss of life/limb although Qrow argues Weiss cream was less sane than her sister after she unlocked her summoning trying to use a death stalker and beringel to kill him
Flashback end
With the momentary distraction ended the teams continue on to the main dining hall quickly finding themselves arrayed in their usual spot equidistant between the pancake station and sushi station, however unlike all other students there who just took what was on offer pair by pair each set of partners made their way up getting their own food and returning to the table but only after ‘making sure everything was still safe’ Maria noted.
Without Maria even having to ask this time it was Weiss who offered “Rule #52 any food you didn’t make, kill or check yourself is not to be trusted” even as Ruby growls “Raisins” under her breath in a near demonic voice even as she chomps down on a cookie earning them both a nod from Maria which quickly turns to amusement when they all as a group get up and move 2 tables to the left mumbling “Rule #1”. her amusement turns to grudging acceptance when minutes later the table they had been at collapses spontaneously as the next team moves to sit there
Approximately 43 minutes later by seeming unconscious and unanimous agreement the group gather their plates and leave the dining hall making their way toward their next class, Grimm studies with Professor Port. As they wind their ways through the halls everything seems perfectly normal, with students joking and laughing until without warning the entire group comes to a complete halt suddenly with Jaune and Nora sharing a look followed by a nod causing Nora to grab the nearest person (in this case Cardin) and hurl him down the hallway as Ruby says “rule #47 if things are going well it’s a trap” even as Cardin’s body slides through the door to Ports Classroom causing a crash, followed by a high pitched scream as he flees the room almost as fast with a juvenile beringel chasing him.
In moments the hallway is filled with the sound of gunfire as seemingly everyone from Teams CFVY JNPR and RWBY pull out a gun even Weiss and Jaune pull out a SMG and a shotgun respectively as Maria can only watch, listen, and repeat to herself “Rule #6 there’s no kill like overkill”
///Time jump end of the day, Faculty meeting Ozpins Office///
They’re a walking disaster zone!” Glynda screams throwing her hands into the air before she points to Qrow “and it’s all his fault”
Qrow lounging on a sofa with his flask in hand says “I hardly see how this is my fault”
“How it’s your fault? How it’s your fault?” Glynda screams incredulously “I have a list of things 14 pages long your ‘students’ have done since lunch! And every time before they do something verifiably insane they quote one of your stupid rules!”
“Hey, just because they quoted one of my rules doesn’t mean I’m responsible and besides what makes you think they’re my rules anyway?”
“Qrow, you start making sense this instant, or I swear to Monty I will quit this job and make my entire life about causing you suffering!” Glynda cries as she points her crop at him the room starting to fill with her purple aura
Sluuuurpp… and like that the entire room turns to look at Ozpin in his vaguely phallic chair as he says “now Glynda, I’m sure that won’t be necessary, what I’m sure Qrow is trying to say is that the rules the children have been learning are far older than either of us”
Glynda looks at Ozpin incredulously and asks “Oh really, then who do they belong to then”
Without hesitation both Qrow and Ozpin turn to look at Professor Port the man’s bushy moustache quirking up even as his eyes smile and he says in a voice older than time itself “I’m surprised you dont remember Glynda my dear, after all I imbed them into all my stories”
*Glynda faints*