Disclaimer: All rights to RWBY belong to RoosterTeeth.
Chapter 1: Enter the Dragon
Night fell upon the City of Vale as the passenger cruise ship, the Lady Styx, sailed into the harbour. At her bow, a young man stood alone. Even from a distance, he gave off an aura of intimidation; not a single one of the other 86 passengers had had anything to do with him, nor wanted anything of the kind, for the entirety of the journey from Vacuo.
It was clear that he was prepared for a fight. The man wore a pair of heavily armored black boots, covering up to just above his knee. A steel cover encased the entire toe of each boot with a similar plating covering the heel, and another wrapped around the front and sides of each knee. While the boots were a uniform matte black material, iridescent red lights glowed at the backsides of his knees and ankles. Belted around his waist with a broad round buckle hanged what appeared to be the lower half of a trench coat (A/N: Think of Kirito's outfit during the Fairy Dance arc) which was also black, though the inner lining of it was a deep crimson, under which he wore simple black cargo pants. Above the belt he wore a dark red t-shirt under a short black jacket, except a wide armor plate covered each of his shoulders, with similar armor plating covering the rest of his arms right down to the gauntlets covering his hands. Said gauntlets, like his boots had a solid plate across the knuckles, and a dim red light glowed at the back of each. His midnight black hair hung just past his ears in downward spikes, topped with a wide brimmed black fedora (A/N: Think of Indiana Jones' fedora, not Justin Timberlake's). Earpieces stick out of each ear, though they're not clearly visible. His face was fair, though marred by a single long scar across his right eye, partially concealed behind a pair of dark sunglasses, despite the dark of night.
As the Styx came to a stop at the docks, the young man hefted a large duffle bag over his shoulder and disembarked. Looking at the lit skyline of Vale, he pushed his sunglasses further up his nose.
Guess this is where the next chapter of my story begins… he thought.
In a dust shop named From Dust Til Dawn, a situation began to develop.
"Do you know how difficult it is to find a Dust shop open this late?" a ginger-haired man in a white suit, with a bowler hat and a cane, asked the elderly shop keeper as one of his lackeys pulled a pistol on him.
"Please, just take my lien and leave," came the old man's response, raising his hands.
"Shush calm down, we're not here for your money: grab the Dust,"
While the criminal in white kept an eye on the shop keep, his goons began collecting the shops supply of Dust, both powder and crystals. One such goon moved towards the back of the shop, where he heard faint music. Looking around he spotted a young girl in a red hood just standing at the magazine rack, while a young man in a black coat and hat stood not too far from her, staring intently at some crystals in a display case.
"Alright folks, put your hands where I can see them," he said, drawing a sword seemingly from nowhere.
Neither the girl nor the man so much as twitched.
Getting angry the goon yelled, "Hey I said put your hands in the air!"
He yanked the hood off the girl's head, revealing short black hair with red highlights, silver eyes, and a pair of headphones blasting music, "Huh?!"
As she removed the headphones the man in black finally noticed the presence of the goon and turned around, turning a dial on the small earpieces he wore, "Uh, something I can do for you buddy?"
"I said put your hands in the air, NOW!" the goon shouted, flicking his blade from the man to the girl, then back again.
"Are you robbing us?" the girl asked, her eyes narrowing.
"YES!" the goon started to get pissed off, What's with these people? Just how stupid can you-
The goon's thought processes were interrupted by the sound of the man cracking his knuckles, which the goon then realized were encased in steel gauntlets, "Not one of your smartest decisions there, pal…"
Back at the front of the store, all the man in the bowler hat heard was the sound of a fist hitting flesh swiftly followed by a scream as the goon flew past him. With a jerk of his head, he signalled the rest of his men to investigate the back of the store. They didn't get far though, as a red blur crashed into them and threw them out the store's front window. Through the broken glass all the criminals could see was the young girl holding her weapon as it unfolded from a small thin red box into an enormous red scythe.
"Okaaay…" the man in the bowler hat mumbled, slightly dumbfounded at both the peculiar sight of a girl half his size wielding a weapon bigger than he was, as well as at the fact his men weren't doing anything about it, "Well, get her!"
As the man's lackeys started to run forward, one of them was unfortunate enough to be pegged in the back of the head with a large black duffle bag. Whipping his head around, Bowler Hat spotted the man in black climbing through the broken window after his bag.
"Five heavily armed crooks, all ganging up on a fourteen? fifteen? year old girl?" he said lifting his bag up over his shoulder, "Seems kind of unfair, doesn't it?"
The lackeys all looked at each other before splitting up into teams of two, one pair charging after the girl in the hood while the other two turned on the man in black. As his two foes got closer, the man in black swung his duffle into the first thug, knocking him flying into a lamp post. Continuing the momentum of the swing, he jumped into the air in a spinning back kick, catching Thug 2 square in the chest. With both foes temporarily immobilized, the man in black opened up his duffle and withdrew two semi-automatic pistols. The pistols seemed ordinary enough, aside from what looked like a grip underneath the barrel. As the two thugs regained their balance, he leveled a pistol at each and squeezed the triggers. A bolt of red light struck each of them in the chest and they crumpled to the ground.
Looking around at his counterpart's battle raging around him, the man in black watched the red hooded girl knock the last of her thugs to the ground at Bowler Hat's feet.
"You were worth every cent, truly you were," he muttered, snuffing out his cigar with his cane, "Well Red, it's been an eventful evening for you me and Darkie over there, but I'm afraid this-" he pointed his cane at her, the bottom flipping up, "-is where we part ways."
As Bowler Hat fired his cane, the man in black jumped into the path of the streak of fire that erupted from it, not that it mattered as she was already dodging the shot. The flare-like projectile struck him square in the chest, knocking him to the ground though he didn't seem to take any damage from it. She gave him a weird look before saying, "Jeez easy there, mister superhero."
He climbed back to his feet, rubbing the back of his head, "Heh sorry, reflex… Hey, where'd the ginger go?"
Looking around they both spotted Bowler Hat climbing a fire escape. "You okay if we go after him?" she asked the shop keeper, who nodded an affirmative.
The man in black tilted his head until he felt the joints in his neck crack, "Let's do it; by the way, name's Dante."
"Well mine's Ruby." She grinned as she worked the bolt on her rifle.
Ruby used the recoil from Crescent Rose to propel herself to Bowler Hat's rooftop, while Dante simply leaped up and kicked off the wall of an adjacent building to meet her at the top.
"…Persistent…" Bowler Hat grumbled, as his Bullhead airship flew over the rooftop so he could climb aboard, "End of the line brats!"
Pulling a red crystal from his pocket, he threw it at the pair below him before firing a flare from his cane after it, causing an explosion. That ought to teach them to stay out of my hair, he chuckled.
As the smoke cleared, however, he spotted a tall blonde woman with a riding crop creating a purple barrier to protect the two from harm. Adjusting her glasses, the mystery woman swung her riding crop, unleashing a series of purple streaks that battered the bullhead, jostling its passenger. Bowler Hat struggled into the cockpit, taking the stick over from a woman in a red dress, "We've got a Huntress!"
With a flick of her riding crop Glasses sent a purple flash into the night sky, causing a dark cloud to form. As the cloud built to its apex, she snapped the crop downwards and glowing shards of hail rained upon the fleeing bullhead, nearly impaling Bowler Hat as he tried to maneuver the airship away.
Her heels clinking against the steel floor of the bullhead, Red Dress glared down at the three people below her. Glowing orange with power she unleashed a burst of flame onto the roof only to be blocked by Dante, who simply absorbed the flames before returning fire with both pistols. Not to be outdone by her new friend, Ruby collapsed her scythe into a more compact rifle form and opened fire as well. Despite the inconvenience of having to block their storm of bullets, Red Dress raised one hand towards the trio on the roof.
Glasses glanced downwards, seeing that the ground had begun to glow dangerously. Waving her riding crop to force Ruby out of harms way, Glasses nimbly flipped away and left Dante to absorb the force of the explosion that occurred in that instant. Bowler Hat took advantage of the distraction to fly the bullhead away from the battle.
As Dante dusted himself off from the explosion, Ruby stared in awe at Glasses, "You're a huntress… CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH?!"
"I hope you two realize that your actions will not be taken lightly! You placed yourselves and others in great danger!"
They were in an interrogation room at the Vale Police Department's head office. Ruby and Dante were sitting at the table as Glasses paced behind them. Though he had removed his fedora, Dante still wore his dark sunglasses, which he pushed higher on his nose before saying, "For the record, ma'am, it was self defense."
"Y-yeah, they started it," Ruby straightened up in her seat.
"As such, if it were up to me, you would be sent home with a pat on the back. And a slap on the wrist!" Glasses' riding crop snapped onto the table, startling the girl. "But, there is somebody here who would like to meet you."
The door opened to reveal a silver-haired man in a green suit, carrying a mug of coffee and a plate of cookies. "Ruby Rose, you—" He moved closer to the young girl, "-have silver eyes…"
While the two on the other side of the table looked at each other in confusion, the man simply carried on as though he had said nothing. Indicating towards a scroll held up by Glasses, which began to play video footage of the fight between Ruby and her pair of goons, he asked "So where did you learn to do this?"
"Si-Signal Academy…" she answered awkwardly.
"They taught you to use one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed?"
"Well, one teacher in particular…"
"I see…" Green Suit set the plate of cookies on the table in front of Ruby and Dante. Ruby proceeded to start shoveling cookies into her mouth at an astonishing pace, while Dante scooped up just one that he simply started tapping against the tabletop. Suit continued, "It's just that I've only seen one scythe-wielder of that skill before; a dusty old crow…"
Ruby tried to respond before swallowing the last of the cookies, "That's my Uncle Qrow, he's a teacher at Signal. I was complete garbage before he took me under his wing, but now I'm all like, 'Hiiiiya, waaaaaa, cha!"
"So I've noticed," Suit chuckled, "and what is an adorable girl like you doing at a school designed to train warriors?"
"I want to be a Huntress."
"You want to slay monsters?
"Yeah! I only have two more years of training left at Signal. And then I'm going to apply to Beacon! You see, my sister's starting there this year, and she's trying to become a Huntress, and I'm trying to become a Huntress cause I wanna help people. MyparentsalwaystoldustohelpotherssoIthoughtmightaswellmakeacareeroutofit! ImeanthepolicearealrightbutHUntsmenandHuntressesarejustsomuchmoreromanticandexcitingandcoolandreally GOSH, you know?!"
Suit and Glasses simply stared at Ruby's hyper activeness, while Dante just chuckled. Suit turned to him and asked, "Moving on, Mr. Dante Grimmson. How is it that less than an hour after arriving in Vale, you found yourself in the middle of a robbery?"
Dante chuckled as he reached inside his jacket, pulling a white stick and a lighter. "Gramps always told me that I found trouble like an Ursa finds sweets. I guess I'm just lucky like that."
Glasses growled her disapproval as Dante put the stick into his mouth and lit it. "On the rooftop you took the full force of an explosion and a burst of flame head on, yet you show no signs of aura fatigue nor any form of damage. Care to explain yourself?"
Exhaling a cloud of smoke, Dante chuckled again, "Consider it a side benefit of my semblance. Fire in any form is completely useless against me; not only will it cause no harm to me, but my body absorbs it and adds it to my own strength."
Suit cleared his throat, "And what, may I ask, brings you to Vale? You strike me as the sort of person who would apply to Beacon, but the entrance exams occurred two weeks ago."
"Nail on the head, sir! And regarding the entrance exams, my Gramps told me that he'd cleared my admission through the Headmaster; said that he was an old friend."
"Who is your grandfather? And why do you want to become a Huntsman?"
"Well, he's not really my grandfather… Vega found me in the wilderness when I was a kid, and raised me as if I were his own flesh and blood. He even taught me how to fight. He said he used to be a Huntsman, so I guess that that's my answer to your second question as well: I want to be in that position where I can help other kids who haven't got anybody."
"You were raised by Diego "The Fox" Vega?!" asked Glasses in disbelief, "He disappeared shortly after his retirement."
"Ha, not so much disappeared as hid away from the rest of society." Dante laughed, "He can't stand other people; hell, anytime we needed to get anything from the village near his place he always sent me instead, even when I was eight years old! For the longest time, the villagers thought I was living alone among the Grimm. That's how I got the name Grimmson."
Suit adjusted his glasses and asked, "Do either of you know who I am?"
Dante stared blankly, while Ruby smirked, "You're Professor Ozpin. You're the Headmaster at Beacon."
"Nice to meet you," Ozpin chuckled as Dante fell out of his chair. "So Ms. Rose, you'd like to come to my school?"
Ruby's eyes lit up, "More than anything."
Ozpin glanced at a scowling Glasses, before saying, "Well, okay…"
As the pair of teenagers walked away from the police station, Ruby could barely contain her excitement. Following their conversation with Ozpin, they had reclaimed their belongings; Dante had his duffle slung over his shoulder again, though his pistols were now holstered at his belt, while Ruby had returned her scythe to the custom mount at the small of her back. "Well congrats Red! Quite the achievement to be admitted to Beacon early, even more so to catch a personal invitation from the Headmaster himself."
"Thanks, but what about you? You were granted admission at the request of one of the most famous Huntsmen in the world! The Fox is a legend! And you learned from him personally!"
"Me?! Even I've heard of Qrow! Gramps always spoke mostly highly of him; said that if it weren't for his smart mouth he could be the best in his generation!"
Ruby giggled, "Yeah, I can see that… So what are you going to do now? The airships to Beacon take off tomorrow at noon. What hotel are you staying at? If you want, we can meet up and walk to the airdock together."
Dante stopped and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, "Weeelll, the thing is… um…"
All of a sudden, Ruby's excited demeanour dropped, "If you don't wanna walk with me, that's fine.. I shouldn't have assumed, I mean, we only just met and I dunno if we're even friends and-"
"Oh don't be silly, of course we're friends! Gramps always said that the best friendships were forged on the battlefield. We're not just friends Red, we're comrades-in-arms. As such I'd be glad to accompany you to the airdocks."
Ruby looked relieved, "So, why so awkward?"
"Weeeeell… I kinda got too excited and hopped onto a ship that left earlier than the one Gramps told me about. I wasn't planning to spend the night here, I meant to hop on an airship to Beacon as soon as I got off the boat. But…"
"But the last airship to Beacon today left a few hours ago. So you don't have a hotel booked for tonight-"
"Aaaand I kind of spent all my lien to get onto that early ship…" Dante's head dropped to his chest. "Guess I'll just find a nice park bench, or maybe a tree to hole up in until tomorrow."
At this, Ruby punched him in the chest. "Not a chance! If things are that desperate, you can just come stay with me and my family!"
"I don't want to imp-"
"Nope! Besides, it'll make going to the airship even easier since we'll be going with my sister. And just what were you planning on eating?! If you have no lien, you weren't going to be buying dinner or breakfast!"
Dante reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a wrapped bundle of meat the size of Ruby's head and a small loaf of bread. "As long as I can find wood for a fire, I'll be perfectly fine."
Ruby stared at the sight of the food emerging from Dante's pocket. Just how deep are those pockets?!
"…What? I always cook my own food."
"That's not it! But anyways, I'm not taking no for an answer."
"But-"
"Nope! Look if you're that desperate to cook, you'll just have to do it at my place."
Dante looked like he was going to argue, but then he slumped. "You are the most pig-headed person I've ever met. And if you'd ever met my Gramps, you'd be astounded at how tough his act is to follow."
Straightening once more, he looked at the redhead, "Well then, lead the way Miss Rose!"
Thus begins my first attempt at fanfiction. Just a couple things I want to make clear:
- First, I want to keep this as close to canon as I possibly can, so if Volume 4 hasn't finished, or even begun, by the time I get there with this, I'll have to go on hiatus until its conclusion.
- Second, in keeping with that desire to remain close to canon, I will not be including non-established romances (if any at all). Therefore, if you're hoping for smut of any kind, I can guarantee you'll have to look elsewhere.
- Third, despite what it may look like, Dante is not based off of the Dante from Devil May Cry. While I admit he is somewhat similar (less than he was in my original description for him by the way), this Dante is meant to be a reflection of my own personality and mindset (ok, maybe it's just wishful thinking. Sue me.).
I really do hope that people enjoy this, I plan to follow the general plot of a single chapter from the relevant volume in each chapter that I write; although I'll definitely be combining a few of them (particularly over the course of volume 1).
Please, rate and review, and I look forward to writing the next chapter!