Save the world? Fuck that, I want to make money! (RWBY SI) ch 61

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Leather boots landed on soft dirt. Thief's Respite flashed in her hands, the screams and excited yelling of her compatriots carrying over in the distance. Emerald hefted her weapons up, checking her pistols over one more time before she marched off. Her ears picked up dull thuds in the air, the whirring of weapons, and the roaring of dying monsters. Emerald thought little of it, wondering when her time to face the Grimm would come.

From what she could pierce from research, these forests used to be the hunting grounds of both game and Grimm back in the day. She was going to have to be careful not to spring any surprises left behind by the old hunters. Not huntsmen of modern fame but the actual profession of finding game. Emerald thought it frivolous that the old nobility spent resources to hunt Grimm when they could just go out of the walls and into the countryside to do it but she supposed that was far too dangerous for them since it actually required placing themselves in even more danger.

Habits of the past aside, she kept Thief's Respite at the ready. No one ever knew if Grimm were just about in the corner.

The bushes shifted. Emerald halted, Thief's Respite lowered itself. Her eyes narrowed as the bushes shook more and more and...spat out a rabbit. Emerald's face softened as the rabbit with hits bushy tail, brown fur, and beady eyes hopped on all fours, whiskers twitching as it gave Emerald a look of curiosity.

"You're rather friendly, aren't you," Emerald commented.

Then out of nowhere came a roar as a massive creature of bone and shadow leapt from the darkness and pounced on the rabbit. It was dead the moment as the Beowolf's jaw wrapped the furry creature in thick canines and split it in red gory mist. Such was its disdain for life, it trounced its front claws onto the spot the rabbit once stood. It let out a roar of victory before it noticed Emerald.

It roared again in challenge and broke into a full sprint, charging straight towards the tanned Wayland. Emerald stood ready to meet it, raising her pistols and...vanished just as the Beowolf swiped down, tumbling and landing on the ground. It shook its head, billowing out a frustrated roar as it searched around for its target.

The target obliged it as a shadow fell from above. Thief's Respite flashed wickedly under the light as its blade dug itself deep into the Beowolf's skull. The Beowolf let out one last hateful snarl before finally, it stopped moving. Emerald let out a huff, hefting her weapon up. She was more than content to simply travel through the tree tops, avoid the Grimm and the more noisy students, and pick a suitable partner for herself. But the rabbit had to be avenged.

Huffing again, Emerald shook her head and glanced forward. She needed to move, find someone and get it over with. And so, she trudged on, Theif's Respite connecting to a tree as she climbed.

Far from Emerald, overlooking her in fact, Ozpin stood, cane in hand, and eyes set on the forest ahead. His ears perked as light foot falls echoed behind him.

"Our last pairs have been formed, sir," came the voice of Glynda, striding up with scroll in hand. On it, screens showing students in various states of activity. "Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren," she counted, the screen showing a particularly enthusiastic girl poking a much quieter boy's cheek. Said boy took the poking with pronounced apathy and disinterest.

"That girl is going to eat him alive," she commented, noting their difference in personality. Her voice turned dismissive as her eyes saw what was nest.

"Pyrrha Nikos and...Jaune Arc," she clicked her tongue in disappointment. "His transcripts promise a mountain of skill but so far, he's delivering a molehill." Her glasses flashed with reflections of the Mistrali Champion supporting the blonde boy on her shoulder as they passed through the forest canopy.

"Theory is different to practice, yes," Professor Ozpin replied, still clutching his cane. "But practice reveals so much more about one's character even more so than theory, Glynda."

The Headmistress of Beacon clicked her tongue again, setting her scroll on the side. "This boy needed help to get down from a tree instead of freeing himself. If this was truly the battlefield, he would be a massive liability," Glynda shook her head. The silence stemming from Ozpin however muted her concerns. She had seen the applications and processed them but it was Ozpin who had the final say to admission. If he had a reason for putting the boy with obviously forged papers then she wasn't going to argue.

"We shall see what mettle he has, I suppose," Glynda ended as she held her scroll up to glance at the next batch. Again, she clicked her tongue. "Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee."

"Is something the matter, Glynda?" Ozpin asked.

"The poor girl, Ruby, she's getting bullied by Miss Schnee," she said flatly. She turned her scroll around, showing off the screen. On it, Weiss paced around, talking repeatedly, as Ruby bristled at her lecturing. Ozpin watched quietly before turning away back to the forest.

"The girl really takes after her father after all," Glynda commented as she turned her scroll around.

"I would not make such a hasty judgement, Glynda," Ozpin replied, the breeze coming up to cool his face. "Miss Schnee has much to learn before she can be an effective leader. Miss Ruby too would benefit from having Miss Weiss teach her how to stand up for herself." He paused. "Is she arguing back?"

"She is," Glynda reported. "Rather passionately so."

Ozpin clapped. "There we go! In this line of work, personalities will clash against each other. They must learn that and work together despite it. We are making Huntsmen and Huntresses, free spirited warriors, not soldiers. They must be free to think and for themselves. Is it really freedom if we impose structure on them?"

Glynda stayed silent. "And if they do not understand your vision? What then?"

"Some don't," Ozpin admitted freely. "But others do. Will we give up the apple tree when there a few bad apples."

He lifted a hand, gesturing to the forest below and continued. "It is in here we see those that understand their responsibility and those who don't."

He looked on into the distance, piercing the young silver-eyed girl butting heads with Miss Schnee. She was young but she was full of spirit. In time, she would find strength and will. A necessity if she was going to fight the forces of darkness. He would have to cultivate this growing Rose until finally, she would be ready to join the Long War. Ozpin did not doubt his plan to prepare Miss Ruby. There was no other alternative that he hadn't already tried. It was only thanks to Ruby's gift that the Grimm could well and be truly gone, erased from existence as their evil deserved.

If he was ever going to meet her mother in the afterlife, he would have to apologize to her for that.

"Oh?" came Glynda's voice.

"What is it?" asked Ozpin.

"That Wayland girl, Emerald. She's avoiding the others," Glynda reported. Her glasses registered the green-haired girl leaping from tree to tree, ignoring all other potential students that came her way. "If she keeps this up, she won't be able to find a partner."

"Not entirely. She needs to find a chess piece first then she can be placed in a team," Ozpin mulled. "We have more than enough students to put her into one."

"That is unorthodox, sir." Glynda pointed out.

"It's happened before with slower students," Ozpin shrugged. "She is more than qualified and to let our rituals stop her from being a huntress is absurd, Glynda."

"Wouldn't the other students feel that we are giving her special treatment for putting her into a team?" Glynda asked, concerned. She knew how petty and spiteful teenagers were not even mentioning huntsman teenagers.

"Again, we aren't exactly setting precedent here with something new. It's happened before so it is not setting new roads," Ozpin assured her. "And besides, that is going to be a challenge for Miss Wayland to manoeuvre. If it gets too overboard, we will be putting a stop to it. Until then, we must allow her and her fellow students to have obstacles, Glynda, or they will never grow."

​He can only hope that they will grow fast. 

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A/N: Jesus christ I am so out of practice. 

I am going to be honest, gents and ladies. I am hella burnt-out from my uni stuff so much so that I have gotten sick these past few days. But hey, guess who got juicy flat one grades babyyyyy. (Highest is 1. Lowest if 5 here) I am no longer beholden to acads so I am freer now. 

Guys, I hope you don't mind if I put out some one-thousand word updates instead of 3-4k words in patreon. You see, it will allow me to updoot way way faster instead of building a juicy update as you have noticed in the early parts of this fic where I was putting up updates nearly everyday. I am in no way a professional at this, just a guy that writes for fun and pressuring myself to put up big juicy updates is taking the fun out of this. I want to have fun again and I want you all to have nice frequent bites.

​so tldr: 1k ish updates, faster updoots nearly everyday>juicy weekend updates.