So, I've gotten a few people asking about what AU idea of Coeur's I'm basing this off of, and it uses the same title, A Few Seconds Too Late. It was an idea he had for a story up until late 2018. I was hoping that he'd post it but when it didn't look like he ever would, I contacted him about it, and here we are.

Enjoy the chapter!

~MindsandMirrors

Ruby flashed a dark smile at her opponents, an Elder Beowolf and a half-dozen mature Beowolves. She released the long cylindrical bayonet hidden inside Crimson Rose and cracked her neck, exuding rage and enjoyment.

Her first target was the Beowolf in the back of the pack, so she snapped the rifle up, the sudden movement exciting an attack from the pack, and used her Semblance to propel her forwards with a blast of displaced air distorting the foliage behind her. The Grimm never saw its death, until the metal rod was buried deep in its forehead, that is.

She quickly pulled it free and turned to the rest, who all howled in unison at the death of one of their own, mocking how true wolves act. One of their howls was cut short when a round pierced the underside of its jaw. Black blood flowed freely from the wound, turning to smoke a moment later, as the corpse fell to the forest floor.

This time, they didn't bother howling and simply went for the kill, the Elder Beowolf hanging back, watching, waiting.

Ruby welcomed one with a Dust round through the eye socket, the bullet punching through soft tissue and bone before reaching brain and killing the creature and another with a near-super-sonic combat boot to the face, snapping the bone-plate with a loud crack. She pushed off of it into the air, took aim, and fired. The round blasted through the broken plate and buried itself into its skull. The recoil of her weapon made her do a back flip in the air and she landed mid-way up a tree. She crouched against it, her momentum keeping her suspended there for a few moments before she sprung back off of it, using her Semblance to increase her speed once again, the sheer force cracking the tree behind her.

The cylindrical bayonet shattered the bone-mask and the following bullet obliterated whatever remained of the skull. She pushed a boot against its shoulder and sprung away to safety. She looked at the remaining mature Beowolf before, in an absent-minded fashion, launching a round through its skull. She then locked eyes with the Elder Grimm, silver against red, and loaded a magazine of explosive Dust rounds, ejecting the standard round and slipping it into her ammo pouch.

Without a sound or warning, the Elder Beowolf launched itself at her, deadly claws extended and arms ready to tear her apart.

She had a small flashback of a similar instance, back when she was just a toddler, and pure rage entered her system. She threw her rifle like an awkward spear at the Beowolf and as it batted it away, she disappeared from its sight-line. It looked around in confusion for a half-moment before it detected her scent, the sharp tang of Dust and a sweeter scent of roses, above it. There was a pop like a gunshot and it expected a bullet to enter its body somewhere, but not for it to hurt very much as her main weapon was missing. What it didn't expect, was a combat boot striking its spine and shattering the bone and placing a crater in the tough flesh.

She grunted in pain as her legs ached from the force of going from several hundred miles per hour to not moving at all, but also winced at how much her Aura dropped from doing such a thing. She then jumped off of the Elder Beowolf's motionless body and moved towards her rifle, limping slightly. She picked it up and removed the magazine, ejected the round, converted it into a bolt-action, and inserted a single Gravity Dust round. She took careful aim from three yards away, and pulled the trigger, the force from the recoil knocking her off-balance slightly, not having the appropriate body-mass in order to counter the force.

She looked at the rapidly-dissolving-and-now-headless-corpse and spit, frowning at it and walking off, she ejected the shell, loaded a magazine, and converted it back into a semi-automatic.

The next time she encountered anything was when she reached the ruins, where her sister and five other people were standing about, idly chatting and holding gold or black chess pieces. She smirked slightly as a quiet-looking girl with a bow had her ears assaulted by her sister's incessant talking. She pushed through the foliage, turning on the safety and slinging her rifle over her shoulder with one hand while waving with the other, catching the attention of a number of them.

"Yo, Rubes! Get over here and meet my partner!" Shouted Yang, who was standing next to a quiet black-haired girl that Ruby vaguely recognized as someone Yang had spoken to the night before, before all the lights had gone out.
"Hey, Yang. How's Initiation treating you so far?" She asked, throwing a quick glance towards the quiet girl.
"Ah, right, this here, is Blake Belladonna. Ninja extraordinaire and a master cosplayer."
"Cosplayer?" Blake asked flatly, looking at Yang.
"Yeah, the bow? Looks exactly like cat ears." Said Yang off-handedly, not looking at her and instead turning to Ruby. The comment got a set of wide eyes before the surprise was quickly quelled, not that Yang noticed, but Ruby did. She filed that bit of information on the maybe-closet-faunus away for a later date and focused her attention on her sister. "So Rubes, where's your partner? Ooh, is it that sexy blonde from last night? What was his name, Juan?"
"Jaune, and no, I don't have a partner yet. I thought I'd meet them on the way here or something, but I guess I had some bad luck. Oh, well, I'll just grab a piece and wait for whoever comes along next." Ruby shrugged and started to move over to the chess pieces, when a familiar voice called out.

"Someone looking for a partner, 'cause I kind of need one." He said, looking at the assembled group of people and making a show of counting them out, and coming up with the odd number of seven. "So, who needs me?" He said with a shit-eating grin that brought the innuendo to that relatively innocuous statement to the forefront. Despite that Ruby still raised her hand and spoke.
"Hey, didn't you know it was poor form to keep a lady waiting?" She asked, walking up with a Rook chess piece in hand.
"Hmm, no, my family must've missed that part in the hundreds of hours that they drilled how to be a proper gentleman into me." He held out a hand, his natural one, and spoke, "So, nice to make your acquaintance, partner."
"Same here. Let's get back to the cliffs."

Just then, a loud screech rang out across the forest and a shadow came across the ground. Everyone looked up at the sky in unison and saw a giant Nevermore fly above them.

"Sonofa," started Yang.

"Fucking," continued Ruby.

"Bitch." Finished Jaune, just as they Ancient Nevermore screeched and swept one wing, and a cloud of black, bone-tipped feathers started raining down upon them.

"Scatter!" Yelled someone, just as everyone started moving, readying their weapons and in some cases, changing the ammo type.

They gathered under a nearby copse of trees and with their weapons ready, discussed their plan.

"What's the plan? Anyone?" Asked Yang, keeping an eye on the Nevermore.
"Let's lead it to the rest of the Ruins. We've got more space to move there." Stated Ruby.
"And less cover! Besides, why should we listen to you? You're much too young to be here in the first place." Ruby growled in a way that was kind of adorable yet intimidating.
"At least I got here on Ozpin's invitation instead of my daddy's money, princess. Now, unless someone has a better idea, let's start running." With that she turned towards the area that was the location of the Old Beacon Lighthouse.

With a blast of Rose Petals she shot off, much to the surprise of others but without hesitating Yang followed, her, shouting at them.
"Blake, Jaune, you gonna let you're partners run off without you or something? Hurry up!" Jaune just laughed and followed while Blake sighed and started running.

"Ooh, Renny, let's go! This looks like fun!"
"Yes, Nora." He sighed out before running with her, sliding his weapons back into his sleeves.

"We can't just let them fight that thing on their own." Said Pyrrha with a sigh, stowing away her xiphos and shield and running after them.
"Those absolute... Dolts!" Shouted a certain heiress, before sheathing her own blade and running after them, unwilling to be left behind by even her own partner.

Cough, cough, so... Did you guys enjoy?

Alright, enough jokes. I'm sure anyone of you people who actually enjoy my stories (as strange as a thought as that is for me to think) have noticed, my other two stories have been listed as on an 'INDEFINITE HIATUS'. For those of you worrying, no, that doesn't mean that they're dead, just that I'm going to be focusing on this story for a good while, possibly until it's finished. As it stands school is being an annoyance what with finals coming up so I'm spending a fair bit of my free time going over materials, and that just adds more to the head of an over-stressed-teen who doesn't sleep enough. I can hardly work on three stories in optimal conditions, those being during summer. So I'm going to push those to the back until then.

Alright, with that boring crap out of the way, I'm sure some of you are raging at me about how I've stretched Initiation out so far, but don't worry, I've got plans to end it within the next thirteen chapters.

Thank you all for the time of day, and please, review. It's the lifeblood of us authors you know?

~MindsandMirrors.