AN: This is my attempt at a RWBY fanfic. I don't exactly have a schedule for updating this, so apologies if the updates are sporadic. Warning: It will become AU after a point. That's unavoidable in most fanfics, but this'll stay close to canon for a while with some (hopefully) nice detours. Enjoy! Reviews are welcome and all that.
He looked out of the window of the airship as it arrived at Beacon Academy, his black hood up over his head. No need to stand out, and his green hair would probably be a beacon
Ruby Rose felt the world spinning after the accidental explosion that she caused. It was the first day, and she already was having trouble making friends at Beacon. The first two people she met were a girl who was the apparent heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, and some girl she never caught the name of. Her sister had run off with her Signal friends, and she was feeling… very alone. She was so lost in thought that she nearly missed the hand in front of her face, or the voice speaking to her. "Need a hand there?" Ruby looked up and saw two tall men, each wearing a chest plate and hoodie. He was very muscular, his hair short and spiked in a sweep to the right, but something was off about his overall size. He looked strong, but his muscles were more lean, yet she had a feeling he was far stronger than he appeared physically. She recognized the one standing a bit back as the guy who was vomiting on the airship to Beacon, but the one with his hand out, she couldn't place a name to. He was a couple inches taller than vomit boy, and his hair and eyes were green, as well as his armor. The armor was stylized with what seemed to be flames, with a black hoodie on beneath it with additional green accents. The sleeves of his hoodie seemed to be a bit too wide for him compared to the rest of his arms, but what was strange about them was that they appeared to be removable for whatever reason.
Ruby tentatively took his hand and pulled herself to her feet. "Uh, thanks. I'm Ruby Rose."
Immediately, the blonde guy who had been vomiting on the airship stepped forward between Ruby and the green haired man. "My name's Jaune" Ruby could see the green man snort and roll his eyes and leave them. She felt disappointment cross over her at the potential loss of a new friend, but turned her attention back to Jaune and snickers before she speaks. "Aren't you the one who threw up on the ship?"
He walked away, shaking his head. The Schnee already hit a bad mark in his book. That Ruby Rose girl was obviously younger, but if she was here, she had to be skilled. It was to his misfortune, however, that he quite literally ran into the heiress as he entered the auditorium, knocking her back a bit, and almost missing the impact when she hit his armor. Without thinking, he extended his arm to catch her before she fell to the ground and pulled her to a standing position. Her eyes looked at him before her features formed into a scowl. "Watch where you're going!"
He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Don't stand in front of the door, Princess." It was just going to be one of those days. Dealing with idiots, pricks, and prissy heiresses, apparently. He stepped forward but was stopped by a thin, but surprisingly strong hand. He turned to see the Schnee heiress still scowling at him, gripping onto his upper arm. Mild annoyance creeped into his voice, "What."
She took her hand off him and crossed her arms. "Aren't you going to apologize for nearly knocking me over?" The man shrugged, not wanting to deal with her. She was too pompous. To be crass? She was a bitch, through and through. "Fine. I'm sorry for you standing in the door when I walked through." He continued on his way, eyes sweeping over the room, taking note of anyone who seemed remotely interesting. There was some girl with red hair everyone seemed to be fawning over; an orange haired girl bursting with energy around a tall, lanky guy who seemed to have very little energy as a whole; that girl who called out the heiress with the bow, her nose in a book; some blonde girl with long hair drawing the eyes of many men and some women in the room; some short monkey Faunus who was... staring... right at him. No. None of that. He took in a sharp breath and looked to the girl with the book, the only person he might have a chance to talk to, when the monkey Faunus came up, holding what looked like a coin in his hand. He started to look for an escape. This was not something he wanted to happen.
Unfortunately, it was too late, and the Faunus was upon him, with an extreme amount of energy. The Faunus was shorter than him by a good few inches, with black spiked hair that was swept back. His face and eyes were sharp, and his body was muscular. The Faunus was a melee fighter, for sure. "Sup! Holy crap, you're tall. But what's with all the green?" The student started poking him at varying parts of his body, moving around the non-Faunus like some spectacle or attraction at a carnival as he poked and prodded, from his biceps to his sides, and knocking on his armor and lifting random locks of his hair up before poking his cheeks. After several moments of pure irritation, he finally stopped and held out his hand, the Faunus' tail wrapping around his waist like some sort of furry belt. "Doesn't matter! Name's Cyan Black." He shoved his hand out like he wanted him to shake it.
With a sigh, he took it and gave it a shake. "Beryl Birnan. Now will you stop-" Beryl sneezed mid sentence as Cyan moved his tail to tickle his nose with his tail. Beryl growled at the monkey Faunus, snatching the tail beneath his nose with his left hand. "Stop poking me. It's annoying."
Cyan backed up, grinning up at Beryl, hands laced behind his neck. "Sorry, just excited. There's so many people here! And everything's different from back home in Mistral! New people, new faces! New challenges and new fights!" Beryl shook his head and started to walk away when he heard a shriek from someplace behind him. He turned and his eye twitched. Ruby Rose was in the arms of the long haired blonde in the biker's outfit, being yelled at by the Schnee heiress. Did he want to deal with the energetic and annoying Cyan Black, or the three girls, who sadly included the Schnee Heiress? Well, to be honest, the blonde was attractive, and Cyan was... Poking his sides again. That pretty much settled it for Beryl, and he quickly ditched Cyan to a myriad of questions of where he was going as he walked up to the trio of girls.
He could see Ruby getting out of the blonde girl's arms and have a pamphlet shoved in her face by the Schnee. By the time he got up there, he could hear the sarcasm dripping from the heiress' voice after the red introduced herself as Ruby to... Weiss, apparently her name is Weiss. "Yeah, and we can paint our nails, and try on clothes, and talk about cute boys like tall, blonde and... scraggly over there."
He smirked, walking up behind Weiss. "I don't think I'm blonde, or scraggly. Definitely tall though." She turned around, and saw just a field of green flames etched into metal for a moment before she looked up and saw Beryl. She scowled and opened her mouth to speak when the speakers blared to life for Professor Ozpin to speak. All eyes turned to the stage.
Professor Ozpin cleared his throat before speaking. "I'll... keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you and all I see is wasted energy in need of purpose, direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will only prove knowledge can carry you so far. It is up to you, to take the first step." He stepped away from the microphone, and Glynda Goodwitch directed the students to the ballroom to sleep for the night. Without a word, Beryl walked away from the girls into the stream of first years, hearing something about how Ozpin seemed off. It didn't matter to him, the timing of that speech killed his ice breaker, just like that blonde guy with old armor and sword on his hip and vomited on the airship did earlier. Guess today just wasn't his day for making connections.